364 Washingtonite, a new Mineral. 



Art. IX. — On Washingtonite [a new Mineral)^ the discovery of 

 Euclase in Connecticut, and additional notices of the supposed 

 Phenakite of Goshen, and Calstron-haryte of Schoharie, N. Y. ; 

 by Charles Up ham Shepard, M. D., Professor of Chemistry in 

 the Medical College of the State of South Carolina. 



The first allusion to the substance in question is found on p. 

 156, Yol. I, of my Treatise on Mineralogy (1835), where it is 

 described as occurring in broad, laminated, imperfectly hexagonal 

 masses at Washington, Conn., imbedded in a vein of quartz in 

 mica-slate. It was again referred to (1837) in my mineralogieal 

 report of Connecticut, p. 146, as existing in rolled masses of quartz 

 among the diluvium of South Britain. In 1838, two other local- 

 ities were discovered by Messrs. T. S. Gold and W. W. Rod- 

 man, then pupils of mine in mineralogy. That found by Mr. 

 Gold was in Litchfield, while that by Mr. Rodman was in Wes- 

 terly, R. I. Notices of these localities are contained in Vol. xxxv, 

 p. 179, of this Journal, by these gentlemen respectively. 



A recent examination of this mineral leads me to think that it 

 is better to bestow a new name upon the American mineral, than 

 to continue to associate it with Crichtonite, from which it so 

 plainly differs in several important particulars, or even to bring 

 it under the Axotomous iron-ore of Mohs, to which it is as 

 little similar. I have therefore designated it from its first dis- 

 covered repository, the town of Washington ; and if from the 

 frequent repetition of this name in the American union, the ap- 

 pellation be thought deficient in signification, it commends itself 

 at least, on the ground of patriotism. 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 



Description. — The crystals, which are large and remarkably 

 well formed, are represented in figures 1 and 2 ,• to which also 

 may be added, the regular six-sided table. 



Primary form, rhomboid : P on P=86°, as determined by the 

 reflective goniometer, on varnished planes. Plane o the most 



