Domestic Intelligence. 369 
potash of the feldspar not being entirely separated. It oc- 
curs in sufficient quantities to be used inthe manufacture of 
porcelain. 
Oct.—Dr. Torrey read an analysis of a mineral dis- 
covered at Patterson, N. J. by Mr. Pierce. This sub- 
stance had been taken for prehnite, until the analysis of 
Dr. T. ascertained it to be the datholite, or silicious borate 
of lime. This rare mineral had heretofore been found only 
in Arendal in Norway, and its discovery in this country adds. 
an‘ interesting species to American mineralogy. Mr. 
Pierce has only observed it at a single locality, viz. near 
the Little Falls of the Passaic, where it was found in dig- 
ging a well. ‘The datholite occurs in pale green crystals, 
sometimes almost white, or in amygdaloid, the base of which 
is wacke, and is associated with stilbite, red and white anal- 
cime, prehnite and crystallized carbonate of lime. The crys- 
tals are aggregated, and vary in size from a small pea to an 
inch in length; of a complicated form and only partly 
emerged from the matrix, so that it is difficult to describe 
their precise shape. When heated before the blowpipe it 
melts with scarcely any intumesence into a colourless glass. 
Its powder strongly gelatinizes in acids. If some nitric or 
muriatic acid be boiled to dryness in powdered datholite, 
and a little alcohol added to the mass, it burns with a beau- 
tiful green flame. From Dr. T’s analysis, the Patterson | 
mineral contains much less boracic acid than the datholite of 
Norway, analyzed by Klaproth, and it may prove to be a 
new variety. iba 
Nov. 15, Dr. 'Torrey read amemoir on the Tuckahoe, or 
Indian bread, a subterraneous fungus of the southern states. 
This substance was first described in Clayton’s Flora Vir- 
ginica, as the lycoperdon tuber, though it is a very different | 
fungus ; and it has hardly been noticed by any succeeding 
author. In May 1817, the late Dr. Macbride, of Charles- 
ton, communicated to the New-York Philosophical Society 
an account of this very singular production,* in which he 
maintained that it was a real fungus which was attached te 
the roots of living trees, and not as it had been contended, 
* An abstract of this paper is published in the ist Vol. of the Amer. Mon 
Mag. 
