284 Scientific Intelligence, 



These lines are written with reference to an extract of a letter from 

 M. Pierre de Tchihatcheff, published in the Comptes Rendus de V Acad- 

 emic des Sciences, the 20th of March, 1848. It is only lately that my 

 attention was attracted by this letter, more especially by the last phrase, 

 ("I have communicated all the necessary indications to Mr. Lawrence 

 Smith, American Mineralogist, in the service of the Porte, and he pro- 

 poses to develope my discovery") — because in reading this it would ap- 

 pear that I was entirely ignorant of the existence of the emery alluded 

 to, in Asia Minor, and that the first information given me was by M. 

 Tchihatcheff, on returning from his voyage in December, 1847. I wish 

 in no way to affect his right to the observations upon the Emery which 

 he found between Eskihissar and Melas in December, 1847 — situated 

 more southerly than any of the localities to which my own observations 

 had extended ; but I am equally desirous to have my own discoveries 

 attributed to me. 



It was in the month of November, 1846, that a merchant in Smyrna 

 showed me specimens of emery said to come from Kula, (about eighty 

 miles east of Smyrna.) The importance of this mineral led me early 

 in 1847, to visit Smyrna, for the purpose of investigating this matter. 

 On my second visit to this city, I was shown other specimens coming 

 from the neighborhood of Epheseus, and which being nearer than Kula, 

 I at once visited. About twelve miles to the east of Ephesus, near to 

 , the village of Gumuchkeny and on the summit of Gumuchdagh, I dis- 

 covered emery in situ; however, before arriving there I saw this same 

 mineral more or less scattered over the country. The Turkish govern- 

 ment, to whom J communicated the importance of this discovery, sent 

 a commission with me to examine the region in the month of May, 

 1847, a fact which was announced publicly in the Journal of Constan- 

 tinople the \6th of May, 1847, in the following words : — 



" It is some time since Monsieur le docteur Smith, American Mine- 

 ralogist, of whom we have had frequent occasion to speak, discovered 

 at Magnesia, near to Gumuchkeny, an emery mine, and of which he 

 brought specimens to Constantinople. The government has sent to the 

 place a commission composed of Dr. Smith and some of the officers of 

 the Imperial powder works, to examine thoroughly into the importance 

 of this mine, and according to the report that will be made, the govern- 

 ment will decide on the steps to be taken with reference to it." &c. 



On our return and after we had made our report on the develope- 

 mentof the emery formation in three distinct places, distant from each 

 other, to wit, in Gumuchdagh ; near to Kula ; and to the north of 

 Smyrna ; the monopoly of this mineral was offered for sale, and pur- 

 chased first by Mr. Langdon of Smyrna, and subsequently by the house 

 of Abbott & Co., for the sum of twelve hundred thousand piastres per 

 annum (fifty-five thousand dollars), and about the month of August some 

 eight hundred tons from the summit of Gumuchdagh were in England. 

 Thus when M. Tchihatcheff thought to have discovered this emery for 

 the first time in situ, in December, 1847, and when he wrote to you the 

 following words: "The brilliant prospect that Asia Minor presents in ref- 

 erence to this mineral, and which I am happy to have first pointed out,' 

 &c.,and at the end — " I have communicated the necessary indications to 

 Mr. Lawrence Smith, American xMineralogist, in the service of the Porte f 



