ZIRKELITE — A QUESTION OF PRIORITY. 



In the Mineralogical Magazine, Vol. XI, pp. 86—88 (read June 

 1 8, 1895) 1S described a new mineral containing zirconium, 

 titanium, lime, iron, etc., under the name of Zirkelite. This 

 paper was prepared by my friend, Dr. E. Hussak, and by Mr. 

 C. T. Prior. Later Mr. Prior [loc. cit. pp. 1 80— 183, read Nov. 

 17, 1896) published an analysis of the same mineral. 



I wish to protest against the use of the name Zirkelite for 

 this mineral on the ground of the prior use of it to designate a 

 commonly occurring rock belonging to the basaltic family. 



When two subjects are so intimately connected as mineralogy 

 and petrography it does not seem to be for the interest of science 

 that names should be duplicated in them. So true is this that I 

 abandoned the name Rosenbuschite, which I had given to a class 

 of rocks in honor of Professor Rosenbusch, because only a few 

 weeks previously it had been employed to designate a new 

 mineral. 



The term Zirkelite was used by me in 1887, or seven years 

 before it was taken by Messrs. Hussak and Prior. (See Pre- 

 liminary Description of the Peridotites, Gabbros, Diabases, and 

 • Andesites of Minnesota, Bulletin No. 2, Geological Survey of 

 Minnesota, 1887, pp. 30-32.) It was used to designate the 

 commonly occurring altered conditions of basaltic glassy lavas 

 which are often called diabase glass, etc. Zirkelite occurs form- 

 ing the entire mass of thin dikes, and the exterior parts of 

 many dikes of diabase and melaphyre, as well as the surface of 

 old lava flows like the melaphyres and diabases of Lake Supe- 

 rior, Newfoundland, and elsewhere. Zirkelite holds the same 

 relation to tachylite that diabase and melaphyre do to basalt, 

 i. e., an older and altered type."" The macroscopic and micro- 

 scopic characters of this rock were given in the locality cited 



above. 



199 



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