186 Intelligence and Miscellanies. 



in diameter, to large plates, eight or ten inches in length, 

 and six or seven inches wide ; sometimes, though rarely, it is 

 found in thin hexahedral tables. 



The laminae vary from one tenth part of a line to two lines 

 in thickness ; they are usually parallel to each other, but are 

 sometimes divergent, and at no very uniform angle ; they are 

 generally straight, but sometimes curved, and are occasion- 

 ally separated from each other by thin plates of calcareous 

 spar. They are traversed by seams dividing the whole 

 surface into very minute rhombic tables, which are also cross- 

 ed by other lines, that pass through them obliquely or di- 

 verge from a centre. 



The plates will usually break, in a direction perpendic- 

 ular to their surface, without separating any of the laminae 

 which adhere together with such tenacity as to require a 

 considerable degree of force to divide them. Cross frac- 

 ture of the plates uneven and splintery. 



The surface of the laminae, exhibits a constant and bril- 

 liant metallic lustre, so strong as to reflect very distinctly the 

 images presented to it. Color, deep brownish red, varying 

 occasionally in some specimens to a copper color; the pow- 

 der, after it has been acted upon by acids to free it from the 

 carbonate of lime, is of a beautiful orange red. 



It is infusible when exposed to the action of the blowpipe, 

 but loses its color. 



The thin laminae, are usually translucent, sometimes trans- 

 parent; the folias are opaque or but slightly translucent on 

 their edges. 



It marks glass with difficulty. 



Specific gravity, 2.86; but as the specimen which was ex- 

 perimented upon contained some calcareous spar, it is prob- 

 able that pure specimens would be 3.0 or even 3.10, which 

 latter may perhaps be regarded as a near approximation. 

 The bronzite occurs disseminated in a vein about four inch- 

 es wide in calcareous rocks in a field about two hundred 

 yards from the church at Amity. 



It is associated with brown and red brucite or condrodite, 

 xanthite, talc and graphite, crystalized magnesian carbonate 

 of lime and spinelle. 



