52 Dr. Meade's Localities of Minerals. 



made and the surface polished many varieties of crystahza- 

 tion maybe exposed to view. 



Within about eight miles of Stirling on the Boston road 

 in the town of Bolton a very remarkable limestone quarry 

 has been worked for some years, chiefly for the purpose of 

 making lime for which it is well qualified; it is little noti- 

 ced as it lies off the road and is Very limited in its extent 

 shewing itself only on the surface of a ledge occupying a 

 iew acres of land; it is a large grained white marble similar 

 to that of Kingsbridge and New Milford, imbedded in 

 gneiss and appears to be connected with that extensive 

 deposit of granular limestone which accompanies the prim- 

 itive formation from the Hudson through the Western 

 parts of the New-England States to Canada. Wherever 

 this deposit of primitive limestone has been examined it 

 assumes nearly the same character and is accompanied by 

 the same class of minerals more or less interesting from 

 their variety. 



At Bolton the first mineral which attracted my attention 

 was augite, pyroxene of Haiiy, it occurs sometimes in sin- 

 gle crystals half an inch long imbedded in the granular 

 limestone which so. loosely invests them that the crystals 

 fall out when the stone is broken: frequently however these 

 crystals are observed in considerable groups firmly set 

 on one end in particular, the other end of which is always 

 terminated and can be easily examined. These crystals 

 which are from a very minute size to that of half an inch 

 long, are in the form of four sided prisms truncated on 

 their lateral edges, and terminated by four sided summits 

 whose faces correspond with the alternate lateral edges. 

 Colour dark green on the surface though sometimes near- 

 ly white in the centre; when the crystals are small they are 

 of a lighter green and translucid: it is fused with difficulty 

 by the blowpipe into a brown scoria. Some of the crys- 

 tals have a very interesting appearance, they are dark 

 brown of an oily lustre, and have a bronze surface some- 

 what c/«a/'o?/a«i so as to resemble extremely the description 

 given of the elaolite or fettstein, which as far as I know has 

 not as yet been observed crystalized : however as Haiiy 

 considers both scapolite and elaolite as only varieties of 

 pyroxene, I see no reason why this mineral should not be- 

 so distinguished, though I will not take it upon me to as- 

 sert it without farther observation. — Associated with these 



