Miscellanies. 39T 



It Is understood that it will make a volume of from six tO seven 

 hundred pages, 8vo. illustrated by quarto maps and drawings, and 

 numerous wood cuts. From the ability displayed in the first part, 

 as well as from the well known character of Professor Hitchcock, it 

 cannot be doubted that this volume will be one of great interest and 

 importance, and will do credit, not only to the author, but to the en- 

 lightened government of Massachusetts. 



Prof. Hitchcock has recently discovered chromate of iron, in con- 

 siderable quantity, in serpentine, in Blanford ; also finely crystallized 

 sphene, in augitic gneiss, in Lee; and rotten stone, in connection with 

 fetid limestone, in West Springfield. Native alum also occurs in the 

 gneiss of Barre, as well as in that of Leominster. 



10. Manual of Mineralogy and Geology; by Ebenezer Emmons, 

 M. D,, Lecturer on Chemistry and Natural History in Williams Col- 

 lege. Second edition. Albany, Webster and Skinners: 1832. 12mo. 

 pp. 299. — (Communicated.) — A manual, short, comprehensive, sim- 

 ple and accurate, and neither cumbrous nor expensive, has long been 

 a desideratum. The work of Professor Cleaveland, although invalu- 

 able for reference or study in the cabinet, is much too large for a 

 pocket companion in mineralogical rambles, and is moreover too cost- 

 ly for many who wish to engage in the study of mineralogy. Under 

 these circumstances the work in question has been published ', and it 

 appears happily adapted to the object proposed. Dr. E. has a^lopted 

 the classification of Mohs, but owing to the abstruseness of Mohs's sys- 

 tem of crystallography, he has substituted, in its stead, that of Brooke. 

 The introduction is clear, full and comprehensive, while the notes, in 

 the form of an appendix, containing articles on the use of the blow- 

 pipe, &,c. will in practice be found highly useful. The characters 

 are copious and judiciously selected, and what is most interesting in^ 

 the localities of minerals and their uses in the arts, is condensed inta 

 a small compass. Mohs's system of nomenclature is likewise adopted, 

 hut the trivial (or common) names are subjoined in a smaller type, 

 thus obviating the necessity of committing a new system to memory, 

 in the case of those already acquainted with the one generally in use. 

 On the whole, we think this work creditable both to the author and 

 the publishers, although the typographical execution is hardly what, 

 might have been desired ; and we doubt not that he who examines 



k will coincide with us in the opinion, that it will prove a valuable' 



acquisition to the mineralogical student. 

 Vol. XXIV.— No. 2, 51 



