198 Intelligence and Miscellanies. 



the idea of their specific identity: perhaps it might really 

 be so in a chemical system ; but their strong affinity in nat- 

 ural properties, certainly proves them to belong to the same 

 mineralogical species, — the only difference between the com- 

 mon chrysohte and the present substance being, that the 

 former possesses a Uveher color, a higher lustre, and in gen- 

 eral, a more perfectly conchoidal fracture ; though even this 

 disagreement is not always observable, for fragments are oc- 

 casionally met with, in the Virginia aerolite, which it would be 

 impossible to distinguish from the most strongly marked spe- 

 cimens of chrysolite. 



The proportion formed by this mineral, in the Virginia stone, 

 does not fall short of two thirds of its entire bulk. I find it al- 

 so constitutes the principal ingredient in the Weston meteor- 

 ites, and is occasionally seen in those from Maryland. In 

 endeavoring to ascertain if the small black grains dissemina- 

 ted through the Stannern meteoric stones might not be this 

 substance, I was led to conjecture from their easy fusibil- 

 ity before the blowpipe, that they were pyroxene; a mineral, 

 from the researches of G. Rose, well ascertained to exist 

 in aerolites.* 



2. Feldspar. 



Under this name I allude to one of the most common in- 

 gredients of meteorites, although in the present specimen 

 it forms somewhat less than one quarter of the mass. It is 

 every where dispersed through the stone, filling up little in- 

 terstices and investing the chrysolite in thin coatings. 



Mineralogical description. 



External shape, exceedingly minute grains, possessed of 

 feeble degrees of coherence and appearing like powder to 

 the naked eye. 



Structure lamellar, and visible only with a microscope. 



Hardness such as not to allow of its impression with the 

 point of a knife. 



Lustre vitreous: color white, rarely with a faint tinge of 

 green: translucent. 



Chemical characters. 



It was with some difficulty that pure pieces of sufficient 

 gize could be obtained for blowpipe trials. A thin scale in 



* Ann. de Chimieet de Phyisque t. xxxi. p. 81. 



