THE PHENOMENA OF METALLIFEROUS DEPOSITS. 211 
thirty years before, had been attacked by the hostile fleet, which carried off 
people of both sexes into captivity. With much plausibihty, these invaders are 
conjectured to have come from the British Islands. By the latter half of the 
fifteenth century all communication with the mother country had ceased, and 
when John Davis rediscovered Greenland in 1585 no other but Esquimaux people 
were found anywhere on the coast. Traditions, however, still exist among the 
Greenlanders as to the first white visitors, and from these and the Sagas it is 
evident that latterly frequent collisions took place with the natives, and the pro- 
bability is that the remnant of the colonists was absorbed by the Esquimaux. 
Bishops of Greenland still continued to be appointed down to the sixteenth cen- 
tury, but these never made any efforts to reach their diocese. As we have said, 
Nordenskjold maintains, contrary to the received opinion, that the remains of 
Osterbygd, much the larger settlement, are to be found to the east of Cape Fare- 
well ; whether he is right or wrong, any addition to our knowledge of the condi- 
tion and fate of these premature colonizers of America will be welcome. — London 
Times. 
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 
THE PHENOMENA OF METALLIFEROUS DEPOSITS. 
PROF. JOSEPH LE CONTE. 
The following is an abstract of a paper read before the American Academy 
of Sciences at its late meeting in Washington, which in the author's absence was 
read by Prof. T. Sterry Hunt : 
The paper said that the phenomena of metalliferous deposit by solfatusic action 
at Sulphur Bank and Steamboat Springs have tended strongly to confirm what he 
had previously believed to be the most probable theory of vein formation, and at 
the same time time to give it more clearness and definiteness. The structure, 
the mode of occurrence and the contents of metalliferous veins leave no longer 
any room for doubt that they have been formed by deposit from solutions. If 
any doubt had lingered on this subject it was thoroughly dissipated by the phe- 
nomena of deposit still in progress at Sulphur Bank and at Steamboat Springs. 
Among the metallic ores cinnabar has long been considered a possible exception 
to this mode of deposit. The extreme volatility of this sulphide, the extreme 
irregularity of its veins, and its frequent occurrence in the vicinity of compara- 
tively recent volcanic action have suggested that it may have been deposited in 
irregular fissures, cracks, cavities, etc., by condensation of its vapors sublimed 
by volcanic heat beneath. But the phenomena of Sulphur Bank and Steamboat 
Springs ought to settle the question forever. Cinnabar as well as other metallic 
