so On Serp entine. 



nickel, clirome and alumina, are very often present. When heated 

 to redness, serpentine loses ail its water, and turns reddish from a 

 change in the oxydation of the iron ; it also becomes much harder. 

 When heated in powder with strong sulphuric acid, it is comi- 

 pletely decomposed ; the silica separates as a white powder, and 

 sulphates of magnesia and iron are formed. 



Besides employing it as an ornamental stone, the ancients 

 attributed great medicinal and magical powers to serpentine. It 

 was prescribed with wine for calculus, recommended as a certain 

 cure for the bites of serpents, and was regarded as a talisman 

 against small-pox, poisoning, lethargy and madness. It was also^ 

 as an old writer informs us, used for mortars, as " from its natural 

 benignity, it seemed peculiarly fitted for the pounding of medicines." 

 Boetius de Boot assures us that serpentine has such a repulsion 

 for poisons of all kinds, that so soon as a poisoned liquid is poured 

 into a vase of the mineral it begins to foam, and is expelled from it. 

 And another old author, Laet, tells us that he had received from 

 Crusius a specimen, upon which was written, " A fragment of the 

 cup of Edward IV.^ King of England, formed of the stone called 

 ophites, useful against poison; the gift of H. Morgan, 1581." 

 But all these virtues are now forgotten, and serpentine no longer 

 finds a place in tlie modern materia medica, nor is there any good 

 reason to believe in its medicinal powers. Some calcareous ser- 

 pentines effervesce powerfully with an acid liquid, and such may 

 have given origin to the statement of de Boot. 



Serpentine is found in many parts of the world ; it forms 

 mountains in the Alps, is abundant in the Apennines, in many 

 parts of Germany, in Cornwall, forming the Lizard Point, and in 

 Scotland, particularly at Portsoy in Banffshire. It is a very 

 abundant mineral in Canada. The limestones of the old Lauren- 

 tian rocks very often contam it in small soft, greenish or yellowish 

 grains, disseminated through the rock. The green and white 

 serpentine marble of Grenville is an example, and Dr. Wilson has 

 found serpentine in this formation in the township of Burgess, in 

 large masses,, which have often a reddish colour. Polished slabs 

 of this serpentine may be seen in the Museum of the Geological 

 Survey. 



The most important deposites of serpentine in Canada, how- 

 ever, occur in the hills of the Green Mountain range. Sir Wil- 

 liam Logan has traced a continuous formation of serpentine from 

 the line of Vermont to beyond the Chaudiere river on the north- 



