236 lSc?*aps in Natural History. 



usually requiring a microscope in their examination, and they 

 have their acute lateral edges replaced by very narrow planes/, 

 corresponding in their measurement with Heulandite. But, ac- 

 cording to Prof. Hitchcock, they differ from Heulandite in the 

 proximate measurement of planes M on T about 10° (or 120° in- 

 stead of 130°) as determined by the measurement of three differ- 

 ent crystals with the common goniometer. It must be confessed, 

 that the comparison of one set of characters alone, without some 

 other corroborative evidence, — especially when, as in the present 

 instance, the crystals are too small to admit of the accurate use 

 of the common goniometer, does not authorize the making of a 

 new species. Having received a few crystals of this mineral 

 from Prof. Hitchcock, I also requested Mr. Teschemacher to 

 measure them. The results showed the same agreement with 

 the recorded measurements of W. Phillips, and has therefore 

 established the true nature of this mineral beyond any doubt. 



I would remark that crystals, precisely like those described by 

 Prof. Hitchcock, have lately been found in gneiss on New York 

 island ; and apparently in the same rock associated with phos- 

 phate of lime at Suckasunny, New Jersey.* There can be no 

 doubt, I think, that the radiated or fasciculated mineral accompa- 

 nying these crystals is stilbite, and not a variety of Lincolnite or 

 Heulandite, as Prof. Hitchcock supposes. 



Art. III. — Scraps in Natural History, ( Quadrupeds ;) by Dr. 

 John T. Plummer. 



At the same time that Dr. Johnson attacked the "collector of 

 shells and stones," and other objects of natural history, with his 

 raillery and wit, he was compelled to acknowledge that there was 

 "nothing more worthy of admiration to the philosophical eye, 

 than the structure of animals, by which they are qualified to sup- 

 port life in the elements or climates to which they are appropria- 

 ted." And, indeed, the most gifted minds have contemplated 



* Among some specimens which I have lately received from Copenhagen, 

 through a distinguished friend of science, Compte de Vargas Bedemar, I observed 

 precisely the same modified crystals with those of Lincolnite, but no near ap- 

 proach to the form of Beaumontite. These specimens are from Faroe, a region 

 which the Count has personally examined. 



