Easay on the Transition Rocks of the Cataraqui. 75 



The color of this coating is that of beautiful and fine dark brown 

 hair, a little oiled, when the specimen is first exposed to the air, but 

 it does not retain this pleasing lustre very long, unless great care is 

 taken to cover it with cotton or wool and place it in a close drawer, 

 as it oxidizes rapidly and at length the acicular prisms themselves 

 appear to vanish, leaving the limestone with the same columnar look, 

 but coated only by a disagreeable rusty colored substance. 



In the siliceous or cherty limestone of the falls of Niagara, there 

 is an indication of the same appearance, but it is very indistinct, and 

 has been taken, by casual observers, for petrified wood. See plate, 



fig. 1. 



Kingston is, however, (as far as we have hitherto seen,) its chief 

 locality, and as neither Jameson, Cleaveland, Phillips, nor any 

 other mineralogical writer notices it,* I suppose it must be very un- 

 common, and perhaps a new substance. I have, unfortunately, nei- 

 ther the apparatus nor the leisure to have it properly analysed, and 

 conjecture, with Mr. Baddeley, to whom I shewed it soon after his 

 arrival at Kingston, that it may be only a sport of Nature, in modify- 

 ing the shale which so abundantly accompanies the thin seams of the 

 limestone of the Cataraqui. I fear the trivial examination appended 

 in the subjoined note, will scarcely prove of much utility in affording 

 a description of it, but it is ever better, I conceive, to afford all the 

 facts concerning a mineral newly discovered, than to withhold any, 

 merely because they are not suflicient.f 



* A specimen has been sent to Professor Thomson, at Edinburgh, (Glasgow ?) who, 

 I hear, says he has never before met with such a mineral, but supposes it to assume 

 the appearance from organic remains, which I respectfully beg to differ with him 

 about, as it seems to me altogether improbable. 



f As this substance appears to me a very interesting one, I shall therefore give a 

 slight notice of its mineralogical characteristics. 



A small knob or cylindric column of lime, entirely embraced by it, being immers- 

 ed in dilute nitric acid, was thus acted upon : a violent effervescence of the lime took 

 place and lasted about five or six hours, moderating as it proceeded, until all action 

 ceased. At first, flocculi of a tea leaf brown appearance, separated and swam on the 

 surface; then small needle-shaped brown masses floated, and a great deposit of alu- 

 minous matter, of a dirty white brown color, subsided. 



The shell or skeleton of the substance which had invested the lime was now left 

 nearly perfect ; its round cup-shaped bottom being very thick in proportion to its 

 walls or sides. The outer face was scarcely altered, and even retained its shining 

 hair brown lustre ; the inner surface was of a diugy ashy hue. 



On washing carefully with water, a more perfect separation of the fine thin wall 

 took place, but by addition of acid no further effervescence or alteration occurred. 

 It was then again washed and left all night in water, but no change was effected. 



