Miscellanies, 217 



also the difference of cleavage in the two directions. (See Alger, this 

 Journal, vol xlvi, p. 233, and Dana's Mineralogy, p. 324.) The formula 

 is an improbable one, as Delesse admits; the excess of silica may be me- 

 chanical : in other respects the composition is that of Heulandite. 



9. Sismondine — a new mineral. — This species, instituted by Delesse, 

 occurs in chlorite slate, associated with garnets, titanic iron and pyrites, 

 and presents the following characters: 



Massive with a very easy cleavage. Scratches glass, but is scratched 

 by steel. Specific gravity 3'565. Lustre brilliant. Color deep green. 

 Streak-powder clear grayish green. No action on the magnetic needle, 

 either before or after calcination. Fracture uneven. Changes to pinch- 

 beck brown before the blowpipe, but does not fuse. In a tube yields wa- 

 ter. With salt of phosphorus it dissolves with difficulty, and with borax 

 affords the reaction of iron. 



Composition, according to M. Delesse, 

 Silica, 24-1 Oxyd of Titanium, 7-6 



Alumina, 43'2 Water, trace 



Protoxyd of iron, 238 



from which he deduces the formula Si^Fe^-f"^^l^> the last member of 

 which is the formula for diaspore. M. Delesse suggests that sismondine is 

 allied to chloritoid, a mineral occurring in the Ural associated with dias- 

 pore. 



• 



The analysis above may afford nearly the formula Fe"Si-l-ill"Si-(-3l2j 



which is perhaps more probable than that given by Delesse, and differs 

 but little from the formula of chloritoid, as obtained from Bonsdorff's 

 analysis. (See Dana's Min. p. 557.) 



10. Description hy Captains Cook and Flinders of Birds'' Nests of 

 enormous size on the coast of New Holland ; in a letter from Prof. Ed- 

 ward Hitchcock to the Editors, dated Amherst, Mass., Dec. 22, 1843. 



In lecturing on the huge footmarks of sandstone in the Connecticut 

 valley, I have been in the habit for many years of reading to my 

 classes, as the poetry of the subject, some statements from the twelfth 

 volume of the Athenasum, or Spirit of the English Magazines, (p. 48,) 

 respecting enormously large birds and birds' nests. As some of 

 these statements are manifestly fabulous, it never occurred to me till 

 to-day, to inquire whether any of them were true. I was led to make 

 the inquiry probably by the astonishing discoveries of Prof. Owen re- 

 specting the danger bird of New Zealand-, and the result is, that I 

 have almost persuaded myself, that with the help of Captains Cook and 

 Flinders I have found the nest of the Dinor?iis on the coast of Neio 

 Holland. These navigators have given the following statements in 



Vol. xLvii, No. 1.— Apirl-June, 1844. 28 



