A PRELIMINARY CHECK LIST OF PHILIPPINE MINERALS ^ 



By Warren D. Smith, F. T. Eddingfield, and Paul R. Fanning 

 {From the Division of Mines, Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I.) 



The following 113 mineral species and varieties comprise all 

 those known with certainty to us to occur in the Philippines. 

 There are others whose presence we suspect, but which have not 

 been definitely identified. For instance, tin, native brass, and 

 diamonds are said to exist here, but this laboratory has no author- 

 itative knowledge of them. 



All the minerals herein mentioned are in the collections of the 

 Bureau of Science, and have been collected for the most part 

 during the American regime. The collections of the old Spanish 

 Mining Bureau were almost worthless when they passed into the 

 hands of the Americans. Whether the best specimens had been 

 transferred elsewhere at the outbreak of hostilities we do not 

 know, but we have reason to suspect such to have been the case. 



Three other mineral collections in the city of Manila have 

 been consulted; namely, that of the Ateneo de Manila of the 

 Jesuit Order, that of the Santo Tomas University of the Domi- 

 nican Order, and lastly that of the Ateneo de Rizal, but we have 

 found only a very few specimens which were not in our own 

 collection. As there is some doubt also about the localities of 

 some of the minerals in those collections, we have purposely 

 omitted several species. 



Our acknowledgement of assistance from the curators of these 

 institutes is hereby gratefully made. 



It will be noted that many of the minerals in the following 

 list have no economic value, but the fact that a substance has 

 no present commercial value is no reason for excluding it from 

 a catalogue. The future will undoubtedly see a number of min- 

 erals now thought to be of little or of no use to man become of 

 great commercial value. For instance, when the large deposits 

 of concentrated iron oxides, like hematite and limonite, become 

 exhausted we shall be forced in all probability to turn to the 

 iron-bearing silicates of too low a grade to be worked economic- 

 ally at the present time. The mineral leucite with its 21 per 

 cent of potash is a valuable prospective source of this important 



* Reprinted from Min. Resources P. I. for the year 1913, Bur. Sci. 

 (1914). 



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