Notices of Memoirs — ' China Clay' a Mineral. 567 



and having veiy frequently a definite crystalline form. These views 

 they have been led to discard, so they told us in the box, by more 

 careful microscopic and local examinations of china clay, and the 

 sources from which it is derived, and the conclusions to which these 

 examinations have led them are directly opposed to those in which 

 they shared with the scientific world generally down to the summer of 

 last year. They now degrade china clay to an artificial product, 

 a heterogeneous compound or mixture of everything that is in the 

 china clay rock, and unredeemed by any one of the qualities which 

 Dr. Hatch says are the essential characteristics of a mineral — that is 

 to say, definite mineral composition, definite physical qualities, and 

 definite crystal form. On the other hand, Professor Gregory, with 

 whose evidence I was much impressed, would be no party to what 

 I have called the degradation of kaolin or china clay. In his opinion 

 it is a mineral, the main bulk of which is kaolinite — a crystalline 

 substance which all parties agree is in all senses of the word a mineral. 

 It is right that I should add that none of the plaintiff's' witnesses 

 would admit the presence of kaolinite in the Carpalla kaolin, and on 

 the evidence as it stands I should not be prepared to hold that this 

 has been conclusively established. But again I am not really called 

 upon to decide between the conflicting views of scientific men as to 

 the exact categoiy in which this china clay should be included to 

 secure that accuracy of expression at which science is always aiming. 

 What I have to determine is whether the substance is a mineral 

 within the meaning of the Act of Parliament. Having heard all the 

 evidence and listened to the forcible arguments which have been 

 addi'essed to me, I cannot entertain any doubt as to its being such 

 a mineral. It is found in intimate combination with elements which 

 go to make up the subsoil of the district, and it owes its origin to the 

 decomposition in past ages of constituent parts of that subsoil ; but in 

 its present condition, occurring sparsely and sporadically, and always 

 under an overburden of a character distinctive from the rock in which 

 it is found, it cannot, I think, with any justice be regarded as con- 

 stituting the land soil. It is a sedentary deposit occupying the space 

 formerly occupied by the felspars. It can only be abstracted by the 

 disintegration of that wherein it is deposited, and when so abstracted 

 it is a thing which (to use Mr. Justice Buckley's words, 1901, 2 Ch., 

 at p. 638) " has a value of its own apart from the soil in which it is 

 found." It is not, in my opinion, the soil itself. Whatever be the 

 true scientific definition of a mineral, and whatever be the correct 

 classification of kaolin thereunder, I cannot bring myself to hold that 

 a substance universally regarded as a mineral before, and for more 

 than sixty years after the passing of the Act which I am construing, 

 ought now to be treated as not falling within the class of substances 

 therein referred to as minerals. Under all the circumstances, there- 

 fore, I do not consider the facts of this case bring it within either of 

 the authorities which have been so fiilly discussed, and holding as 

 I do that the china clay is a mineral within the meaning of the Act of 

 1845, I have no alternative but to dismiss the action with costs. — 

 Abstracted from the Times, 1908. 



