192 Miscellaneous — T. Davies — ' Jadeite ' and ' Jade.* 



Note on 'Jadeite' and 'Jade.'^ By Thomas Davies, F.G.S. 



Jadeite (Damour). 



Specific gravity 3-28 to 3-4; hardness 6-5 to 7. Colours milky- 

 white, with bright green veins and splotches, greenish-grey, bluish- 

 grey, clear grey and translucent as chalcedony, orange-yellow, 

 smoky -gi'een passing to black, apple-green, sometimes emerald-green, 

 all the green tints as a rule much brighter than in the Oriental jade, 

 also, but rarely, of violet shades. Texture from compact, to crypto- 

 crystalline, and distinctly crystalline, sometimes coarsely so ; fibro- 

 lamellar, opaque to translucent and sometimes transparent. 



Thin splinters will fuse in the flame of a spirit lamp. Damour, 

 from analyses made by him, suggests its affinities to the epidotes. 



Localities. — Central Asia, and particularly China ; also as articles 

 worked by the Aztecs, Mexico. 



Oriental Jade (Damour).* 



Specific gravity 2-96 to 3-06 ; hardness 5'5 to 6*5. Colours white 

 and white variously tinted, greenish-grey, many shades of green. 

 Texture mostly compact, rarely cryptocrystalline. 



Found chiefly in Central Asia, particularly in China and on its 

 borders. Also in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands generally. 



Specific gravity of upwards of 100 specimens from New Zealand 

 determined by myself have been within the limits of 3*00 to 3-02, 

 by far the larger number giving 3-01. 



Oceanic Jade (Damour). 



Specific gravity 3-18 ; hardness 5-5 to Q-5. Of this variety I 

 possess no personal experience, the large number of objects of 

 jade which have come under my observation not having yielded 

 me one example. Damour, however, who examined four specimens, 

 states that in its aspect and general characters — with the exception 

 of its density — it much resembles the Oriental jade. It, however, 

 possesses a somewhat silky lustre, due to exceedingly delicate fibres 

 which traverse the mass. I have met with this structure frequently 

 however in the jade from New Zealand, which possessed the density 

 of 3-01. From an analysis Damour refers it to the pyroxene group, 

 whereas the Oriental is referable to hornblende. Vars. Tremolite or 

 Actinolite. 



Found in New Caledonia and Marquise Island, Pacific. 



None of these minerals to my knowledge have been met with in 

 situ in Europe, though the British Museum possesses a fragment of 

 un worked Oriental jade purporting to have been found in Turkey, 



1 The above Note was communicated by my friend Mr. Davies to the translator 

 of "Keller's Lake-Dwellings," and appears in the Appendix to the second edition 

 of that work, just issued by Messrs. Longmans. Its object is to correct some inac- 

 curacies regarding the use of the terms ' Nephrite,' ' Jade,' ' Jadeite,' etc. It 

 appeared to be so interesting that, with the writer's permission, it is reprinted 

 here. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 



^ Damour makes the old name ' Nephrite ' a synonym both of Oriental and Oceanic 

 Jade; the term Nephrite being generally abandoned by Mineralogists. — T.D. 



