350 Notice of a Scientific Expedition. 



mineral in the form of an octahedron with a rhombic base. We 

 were unable to visit the place, but from what we saw in Dr. Ges- 

 ner's cabinet, we feel confident that future travelers will do well to 

 go there. 



Spencer's Island. — Situated at the entrance of the Bay of Fundy 

 into the Basin of Mines is, to appearance a barren island and des- 

 titute of interest to the mineralogist. But a few hours spent here, 

 will not be lost time. It is composed of columnar trap. It has not 

 been raised sufficiently high to bring up the amygdaloid. The island 

 furnishes agates of different varieties, and abundance of fine siliceous 

 sinter, white, gray and purple. The sinter occurs frequently in 

 solid balls, presenting on fracture, layers like the coats of an onion. 

 When the balls are hollow, very small crystals of chabasie are found 

 lining them. Frequently, the cavities are studded with quartz crys- 

 tals under the primary form. Sometimes they have suffered a mod- 

 ification by a replacement of the lateral angles by a single plane par- 

 allel to the axes. The surfaces of these crystals are always dull, 

 like ground glass, but the fracture is highly vitreous. The dullness 

 was probably produced by the subsequent action of the solvent from 

 which the crystals were deposited. 



Cape D' Or furnishes the usual zeolotes, particularly a beautiful 

 pearly variety of apophyllite. This place is visited chiefly for its 

 masses of native copper, but we regret to say that it is exceeding 

 scarce, and obtained with difficulty. 



Digby. — The neighborhood of Digby will be found as interesting 

 perhaps, as any other section of country along the Bay of Fundy, 

 but as we have spoken with sufficient minuteness already, of the 

 family of minerals peculiar to this formation, we shall finish what we 

 have to say, by a mere reference to a few more localities. 



At Nichols Mountain, four miles from Digby, there is a fine lo- 

 cality of protoxide of iron under the form of a regular octahedron. 

 It is associated with amethyst of a good color, which lines the inter- 

 stices of the ore in geodes. At Gulliver's Hole, two miles farther, 

 agate of a very superior kind, is quite abundant. Sandy Cove, 

 twenty miles from Digby, on St. Mary's Bay, furnishes good lau- 

 monite, but other minerals of the zeolite family appear to be ex- 

 hausted. The greenstone at this place is worth a critical examina- 

 tion. It is columnar, and the columns are four, five and six feet in 

 diameter, or such is the distance between the lines marking the ex- 

 terior of the columns. The structure is sometimes concretionary ; 



