On the Discovery of Fluoric Acid in the Condrodite. 357 



correct these statements, and the more especially, as it 

 will be done with the aid of facts that are important in the 

 history of the mineral in question. 



Mr. Nuttall says, " If I am called upon, as you are aware, 

 bv Mr. H. Seybert to say when and where, I had heard of 

 the existence of Fluoric acid in the Brucite or Condrodite, 

 I might refer him back to a period when he was too young 

 to have been acquainted with even the name of Chemis- 

 try.''* I put no such questions to that gentleman : on a 

 former occasion he told us, that " the condrodite, or Bru- 

 cite, almost peculiar to Sparta, discovered likewise by the 

 celebrated Berzelius, in Finland, accompanied by gray 

 Spinelle is (accordins; to an unpublished analysis which I 

 made in 1820,) a Silicate of Magnesia with an accidental 

 portion of Fluoric acid and Iron."! Mr. Nuttall did not 

 then refer to any analysis made prior to that which he pre- 

 tended to have made ; my protest was therefore directly 

 against his being the discoverer of the fluoric acid in this 

 mineral. From the fact contained in my letter, above re- 

 ferred to, Mr. Nuttall, as far as concerns himself, has been 

 obliged to renounce every pretension, heretofore made by 

 him, on that subject. Mr. Nuttall seems still disposed to 

 believe, that the fluoric acid in this mineral is an accidental 

 ingredient, and he attributes its presence to "the contiguity 

 of slender veinsoffluate of lime to the masses of condrodite 

 or Brucite near to Franklin furnace, at Sparta. ''J The fact, 

 however, is that Sparta is six miles distant from Franklin 

 furnace, and I do not know, that any one has hitherto an- 

 nounced that^MOie of lime, lies contiguous to the carbonate 

 of lime in which the Maclureite at Sparta is imbedded. I 

 found non. of it when I examined that locality. What in- 

 fluence the fluate of lime, at Franklin furnace, may have 

 had in the composition of the Sparta mineral, I must leave 

 to be determined by those who are more disposed than I 

 am, to speculate on this subject. Again, if fluate of lime 

 had been found contiguous to the Maclureite of Sparta, what 

 chemist would pretend, that the magnesia in the latter 



*See Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. VI. p. l7l. 

 tibid, Vol. V. p. 245. 

 tibid, Vol. VI. p. 172. 



