﻿Vol. 64.] AND ANTIGORTTE-SERPENTINES. 167 



of the Inn Valley, and from three localities connected with the 

 upper valley of the Oberhalbstein Ehine, namely, at Salux, in the 

 Val da Taller, and from near the high-road south of Tiefenkastell/ 

 Of two specimens from the first place, both exhibit serpentinized 

 bastite and traces of olivine (in the characteristic meshwork) ; they 

 contain here and there a rather fibrous variety of serpentine, often 

 with a slightly tufted habit (? chrysotile or picrolite), which in one 

 specimen assumes a more flaky character, and thus approaches 

 antigorite. In the Yal da JFaller the serpentine occurs in four 

 masses, three dyke-like and the fourth more irregular in outline, 

 having probably one outlying patch. Of specimens from these, the 

 first, in one case, shows the meshwork indicative of former olivine, 

 altered bastite, and some augite, none of the serpentine having the 

 antigoritic habit ; another specimen affords little evidence of the 

 original minerals, and is becoming talcose, but the serpentine, when 

 not of the usual habit, is at most fibrous. The second mass shows 

 serpentinized olivine and enstatite, the latter retaining traces of the 

 usual cleavage, but almost inert to polarized light except at the 

 edges, where it has some little resemblance to antigorite. There 

 are also some irregular grains of augite. Fibrous serpentine is 

 rather commoner than usual, but typical antigorite is not present. 

 A specimen from the third mass retains traces of altered olivine, but 

 though evidently much crushed, even to showing some ' crumpling,' 

 it does not contain antigorite. A flaky specimen (9 feet from the 

 junction) of a probable outlier of the fourth mass, exhibits under 

 the microscope a felted, somewhat foliated aggregate of a serpen- 

 tinous mineral (rather minute), in which are small acicular prisms 

 of a mineral with much the same refractive index, but higher 

 polarization-tints and a rather large extinction-angle. If the former 

 represent antigorite, it is very abnormal. A flattish, rather fissile 

 flake, about as hard as the finger-nail, ' from IN", of Salux,' ^ consists 

 mainly of a rather minute and fibrous mineral, with grey polariza- 

 tion-tints, and a felted-foliated structure, which is probably nearer 

 to steatite than true serpentine ; but an uncut specimen resembles 

 a normal oliviue-serpentine, and may retain traces of bastite. Of 

 three specimens from the mass near the village of Rofna (south of 

 Tiefenkastell ^) on the Julier road, one, though crushed and veined, 

 retains some indications of altered olivine, has recognizable bastite, 

 and is unusually rich in an iron- oxide (probably chromite) ; another 

 contains some altered bastite, locally darkened with granules of 

 magnetite, and suggests the former presence of olivine, but is 

 traversed by some rudely parallel veins, occupied by a fibrous 

 serpentine (? picrolite) arranged at right angles to their general 

 direction, which occasionally exhibit a slight approach to the mica- 



^ For further particulars, see Greol. Mag. ut supra. I restrict, for the sake of 

 brevity, the present notice of microscopic structures to those germane to the 

 purpose of this paper. 



'^ On the western slope of the Oberhalbstein valley, between Molins and 

 Tiefenkastell. 



^ Geol. Mag. dec. ii, vol. vii (1880) p. 539. 



