116 Canadian Record of Science. 



(3.) Hydration is greatest in the sap wood ; least in the 

 heart wood. 



(4.) Greatest hydration is directly correlated to most 

 active growth of the plant, — lignification, and storage of 

 starch and other products, being correlated to diminishing 

 hydration. 



These conclusions are to be understood as applying only 

 to latitudes lying between New York and Boston. For other 

 latitudes, certain modifications might be necessary. 



A Natural System in Mineralogy. 



By T. Stekry Hunt. 



In farther illustration of the system set forth by the writer 

 in his memoir on "A Natural System of Mineralogy," 

 which appears in the third volume of the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of Canada, and of which a partial analysis 

 has already appeared in the Record (Vol. I. pp. 129, 244), 

 we make the following extracts : — 



The same mineral types, which serve to divide each of the 

 suborders of natural silicates into well-defined tribes, reap- 

 pear in the non-silicated oxyds, and serve for their classifi- 

 cation. Reserving for another occasion the details of clas- 

 sification of this great order of Oxydates, we may note that 

 while the Oxyadamentoid tribe embraces such species as 

 periclasite, chrysoberyl, the spinels, magnetite, corundum, 

 diaspore, hematite, quartz, rutile, cassiterite, etc., the Oxy- 

 spathoids include cuprite, zincite, crednerite, pyrolusite, tri- 

 dymite and senarmontite, and the Hydroxyspathoids, gibb- 

 site, gothite, and manganite. Among the Oxyphylloids are 

 brucite, pyrochroite, massicot, minium, melaconite, hydro- 

 talcite and pyraurite, while the Oxycolloids or Opaloids 

 embrace bauxite, limonite, opal, urangummite and eliasite. 



The metals proper, together with the bodies of the sul- 

 phur and the arsenic series, and the various binary and ter- 

 nary compound of all these, make up the great natural order 

 of MetallateS, which includes two suborders. Of these 

 the first or Metallometallates, distinguished by opacity and 



