338 EARTHS PROPER. 



exhibits a tendency to split into rhomboidal frag- 

 ments : the fracture is flat, conchoidal, and 

 slightly splintery. Before the blow pipe it melts 

 easily into a green coloured bead : it dissolves 

 with great facility in nitric or muriatic acids, 

 and gelatinizes like mesotype or apophyllite. 

 This solution and gelatinization takes place even 

 when the eudialite has been previously heated 

 to redness. The constituents of this mineral, 

 from a mean of several careful analyses of it by 

 Strom eyer, are as follows :* 



Silica . . . 53-325 



Zirconia . . . 11-102 



Lime . . 9'785 



Soda . . . 13-822 



Protoxide of iron . 6-?54 



Protoxide of manganese 2-062 



Muriatic acid . . 1-034 



Water 1-801 



99-685 



The great number of constituents in this mineral 

 renders it very ill adapted for determining the 

 atomic weight of zirconia. Let us suppose that 

 the muriatic acid is in combination with soda in 

 the mineral : it will constitute 1 '676 parts of 

 common salt, and the remaining soda will amount 

 to 13*13. Let us now calculate the composition 

 of eudialyte, on the supposition that all the bases 



* Untersuchungen, I. p. 438. 



