Od Notice of Minerals from Palestine. 
It isa calcareous animal relic of that convoluted form 
commonly called the screw-stone. 
4. ** Dead-Sea.”’ 
Apparently a variety of calcareous tufa. 
5. ‘* Water of the Dead Sea.” 
For a notice of this water, see Professor Hall’s paper in 
ihe last number of this Journal. 
6. ‘* Plucked from one of the largest of the cedars of Leb- 
anon, by P. Fiske, Oct. 6, 1823.” Also, ‘‘ Ball from the 
cedars of Lebanon, a few of which trees remain thirty or 
forty miles N. E. of Beyroot. P. F. 1823.” 
These cones are two or three inches long by about two 
in diameter in the largest part; their colour is dark brown, 
and they have an agreeable aromatic smell ; they are rather 
barrel shaped than conical. 
7. “Chip from the cedars of Lebanon.” 
This has very little vivacity of colour, and is nearly inodo- 
rous ; it appears inferior in the beauty of its grain to our 
cedars. 
8. “ People say that watermelons are found petrified on 
Carmel ; this was a specimen.” 
Mr. Bird professes nothing more than to give the popular 
impression ; he was himself too well acquainted with mine~ 
rals to mistake these specimens. They are nodular horn- 
stone of a light gray colour, lined in their cavities with innu- 
merable crystals of quartz, thickly grouped together in bril- 
liant drusy cavities, forming irregular geodes. Doubtless if 
the Mussulmen regard this mass as a petrified melon, they 
would say that the quartz crystals are the seeds turned to stone. 
9. “ Bituminous stone, brought by a mussulman from what 
his people call the real tomb of Moses, near the dead sea— 
a common stone in this quarter.” 
This is a black bituminous limestone, giving its peculiar 
odour very powerfully by heat, and effervescing with acids ; 
it is dull and not translucent even on the edges ; its fracture 
is conchoidal, and if it would bear a polish, it would evident- 
ly form a black marble. 
10. ‘‘ Found ina road near the town of Hebron—probably 
from the glass works.” 
This is a very rich green glass, almost grass green—it is 
easily scratched by steel. 
11. ‘ Broken by Mr. Fisk from a statue in the temple of 
Carnac in Thebes, Upper Egypt.” 
