186 Transactions of the Society. 



V. — On the Mineral Cyjprusite. 

 By JuLiEN Deby, C.E., F.E.M.S. 



(JRead lUh November, 1883.) 



In November 1881, Dr. Paul Eeinsch, through Professor Stokes, 

 communicated to the Koyal Society a note on a mineral to which 

 he gave the name of Gyprusite, of which he had brought back to 

 Erlangen a small specimen on his return from Cyprus. 



Having myself had the opportunity of visiting the same region 

 of country during the present summer, I took advantage of it to 

 collect numerous specimens of this substance, from many different 

 localities. 



Believing that further observations relating to this cyprusite 

 may prove of interest to petrological microscopists and others, I 

 have drawn up a short note summing up the further history of 

 this curious natural product, the result of my own investigations. 



The cyprusite is found in the shape of rocks, forming several 

 bold superficial parallel outcrops of rather irregular longitudinal 

 outline, running in a direction north-west to south-east in the 

 district of Chrysophou, in the north-west portion of the island of 

 Cyprus, and mostly distributed over the mountainous territory 

 comprised between the villages of Poli, Lisso, and Kynussa. These 

 outcrops extend in some cases several hundred yards in length, 

 with a width oscillating irregularly between 30 to 100 yards. 

 Their colour varies from a pale dirty yellow to a bright cinnabar 

 red, with all intermediate tints. 



The texture of the rock varies from a quite soft friable con- 

 sistency, falling to dust between the fingers, to a quite hard and 

 compact rock. The former or softer variety is the most abundant. 



A careful geological examination shows that the cyprusite 

 is imbedded in plutonic rocks, melaphyres, and wakes, containing 

 occasionally zeolites, it occupying wide crevices in these eruptive 

 rocks, which latter have forced their way in vast masses through 

 the stratified tertiary fossiliferous limestones of the country. 



The present height above the sea of the cyprusite deposits 

 varies from 350 to 1200 feet, the distance of the same to the north 

 coast of the island in a straight line varying from three to six miles. 

 The principal deposits are situated on the right bank of the 

 Ballahusa river, and below the village of Kynussa. 



Having noticed that wherever cyprusite outcrops were to be 

 seen traces of ancient mining and heaps of old slags were also to 

 be discovered in the vicinity, and that the old workings pene- 

 trated in many places into the hill-sides below the yellow masses, 

 I came to the conclusion that the cyprusite knobs and bluffs formed 



