288 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
8. Ona large Diamond from the district of Bogagem, Brazil; by 
M. Durrénoy, (L’ —s No. 1096.)—M. Halphen has receiv ved res 
cently from Brazil a ond of remarkable dimensions, purity, and 
crystalline inn It a te called 2’ Etoile du Sud. It weighs 52°375 
grammes, or 2544 carats. It will be reduced in cutting to about 127 
Duke of Tuscany 139, the Great Mogul 279 carats, the Orlow, 195. 
is perfectly limpid, and has the peculiar lustre which gives the diamond 
its highest value. The commercial value of the Star of the South has 
The form is a rhombic dodecahedron, having the edges bevelled and 
thus passing to a solid of 24 faces. The surface is unpolished and 
slightly chagrined, and shows some striz corresponding to the octa- 
ao cones Its specific gravity is 3:529 at a temperature of 15 C, 
of the faces there is a cavity, evidently due to an octahe- 
dral Sem implanted in it, as shown by its form and the octahedral 
sttiw which it has copied. On another face there are two other cavities 
which were similarly formed by Aimee we Moreover there 
eodes in certain rocks as yet unknown, but which according to the ob- 
servations of M. Lomonosoff belongs among the metamorphic rocks of 
The Star of the South was found near the close of July 1853, by a 
. hegress employed at the mines of Bogagem one of the districts — 
9. Observations of the Variable Star Algol wanted, (from a letter 
addressed to the a sir . A. Goutp, — Cambridge, 1855, 
of the minima visible in America during the current year, and so a 
it their ion to give themselves to such observations as cannot be made 
by those destitute of these facilities ; and I venture therefore to i 
the belief that many lovers of science may through your Journal be in- 
to devote themselves to the labor of attaining additional facts for 
the study of this no rai interesting phenomenon. You will there- 
fore pardon me for asking your aid in calling the attention 
of your 
