Reviews — Handbook of Mineralogy, etc. 181 



Handbook op Mineralogy, Blowpipe Analysis, and 

 Geometrical Crystallography. By G. Montague Butler, 

 E.M., Director Arizona Bureau of Mines, pp. vi -f- 311, iv + 80, 

 viii + 155. New York : Wiley & Son. 1918. 

 rpHIS book is in reality three books bound in one volume, each 

 -^ part being separately paged and having its own title-page 

 and index. It professes to be a notebook for use in the field, and 

 for this purpose the first two parts, on the physical characteristics 

 of minerals and blowpipe analysis, are very well adapted ; the book 

 is small, and will go into a not very large pocket ; the printing is 

 clear, and the descriptions are short and to the point. The only 

 exceptions that may be taken are to the photographic illustrations, 

 which are on too small a scale to show to any advantage, and to 

 the determinative tables, whose use, in their present form, seems 

 rather cumbrous. In the last section, on crystallography, however, 

 too much reliance has been placed on descriptions unaccompanied 

 by figures, with consequent loss of clarity ; and in addition the 

 use of Naumann symbols, to the entire exclusion of the Miller 

 system, would appear to be a mistake, in view of the very wide use 

 of the latter system. 



^^__ W. H. W. 



The Phosphate Deposits of South Australia. By E. Lock- 

 hart Jack. pp. 136. Bull. No. 7, Parts i and ii. Geol. 

 Survey of South Australia^ 1919. 

 O OME idea of the importance of the South Australian phosphate 

 ^ deposits may be gathered from the fact that in 1916 only 2,042 

 tons of crude mineral phosphate were produced, of which 1,652 tons 

 were valued, after grinding, at £3 12s. Id. a ton. The total amount 

 of phosphate rock produced by the Colony up to the end of 1918 is 

 given as 89,456 tons, valued at £89,456. In addition to calcium 

 phosphate rock, " large bodies of phosphate of alumina exist at 

 St. John's," near Adelaide, but the material is not acceptable to 

 the manufacturers of superphosphate, and the State regards it 

 as worthless. Part i gives accounts of the natural occurrence and 

 methods of dressing the material and preparing it for the market, as 

 well as its use on South Australian land. Part ii consists of 90 pages 

 devoted to '' Eeports on Individual Deposits ", and contains many 

 plans of workings and prospects and a few plates from photographs. 



The following notes on the geological occurrence are taken from 

 the Bulletin. 



Guano.— '^ith. the exception of three places on the mainland, 

 where cave-guano occurs, deposits of guano are only found on the 

 islands or coasts, but these appear to have been worked out. The 

 bulk of the material contained from 25 to 42 per cent of calcium 

 phosphate. According to a report by the late F. R. George in 1902 

 a considerable quantity of guano was removed from an island in 

 Coffin's Bay, where it was mixed with sand, broken sea-shells, 



