”" 
120 Hydrate of Copper and Spodumene. 
A. Water, 17.000 containing oxygen 15.119 
B. Siliea, _ 37.250 ef ¢ 18.736 
C. Peroxide of copper, 45 £75 x rf 9.011 
: 99.425 
100.000 
-975 loss. 
It is therefore a bisilicate of copper with water, and its 
mineralogical formula will be CS ?+ Aq. 
2. Of the Spodumene.* 
In the month of November of the last year, Mr. Nuttall 
brought to Philadelphia several minerals from Massachu- 
setts, among which was one which from its external char- 
acters he suspected to be spodumene. On examining it 
chemically, I determined it to be that mineral, having ob- 
tained from it a portion of the new alkali, lithia. ‘The spe- 
cimen submitted to examination was of a white colour; it 
was of a lamellar structure, of a pearly lustre, was brittle, 
scratched glass, and was fusible before the blow-pipe. It 
yielded readily to mechanical division, and afforded a rhom- 
boidal prism whose angles were 100° 80’. In order to ob- 
tain the lithia from this mineral, a portion of it which had 
been previously pulverised was fused with an equal weight 
of caustic potash, and the fused mass dissolved in diluted 
muriatic acid. The muriatic solution was then evaporated 
to dryness, and the product digested for some time in warm 
alcohol. The alcohol on evaporation afforded a white de- 
liquescent salt of an acrid taste. That it contained neither 
lime nor potash was proved by its solution affording no. 
precipitate either with oxalate of ammonia or with muriate 
of platina, and that it was really the muriate of lithia was 
evident from its tinging the flame of alcohol of a deep 
crimson colour, and from its affording when added to a 
concentrated solution of carbonate of soda, an abundant 
* The notice of the’ Spodumene was forwarded in February last, but 
game too late for publication in the last number of the Journal. An ac- 
count of it has since been published in the Journal of the Academy of Nat- 
ural Sciences of Philadelphia. 
