Scientific Intelligence. 

 MnO MgO CaO Na 4 



dated Chicago, March 23, 1877.) — I have ! 

 ination of some tantaliferous minerals of the United States, a brief 

 account of which I offer now. Prof. Sin pan! sent me last sum- 

 mer a sample of his hermannolite, in which I was able to find 

 only a largt ,i,l, about 16 per cent of tanta- 



lic acid, and very doubtfully a little titanic acid. In one of his 

 . notes on this subject Prof. Shepard insist- upon rlie difference in 

 it \ In twcon hermannolite ami the niobite (. ohunbih i 

 from Brain ard's. Two facts account for that: 1'rainard's niobite 

 contains over :\1 per cent of tanialie acid, as I ascertained from 

 specimens kindly given to me by Mr. C. U. Shepard himself; 

 furthermore, the crystals of hermannolite contain some foreign sub- 

 stance in the form of yellowish crystals, which I could not sepa- 

 rate from the mass they were imbedded in. 



In the Portland and Aliddletown (Conn.) columbites I found 

 n-p. «tt\ii\ iru and jn per .-. nt of tanulic acid. A careful 

 examination of the samarskite from Mitchell County (N. C.) has 

 shown me that the brownish variety, with a less conchoidal 

 fractal looking - im \ hat lib uxenite, contains ibout -J -3 pel 

 cent «,; tn,,t ///.-. ,/,•/,/, a -mall permit aje ol tl,..,',,/ and <>i ,r.l :r 

 in,,,,.,, in addition to the element- found by Hunt in 1852. The 

 yttna includes also a little of the rosy earth with absorption 

 spectrum, called erbia by Bunsen, Cleve and others, and more of 

 the yellow earth described by Mo^ander under the name of erbia, 

 but which, in order to avoid' confusion. I call Ay/,/., . 

 the name rnosatulria which I proposed three vears ago). The 

 exisn ce of that base is still denied by Bunsen and Cleve, but 

 their conclusions 1 am further than ever from accepting. A mon- 

 ograph of its principal compounds will soon be published. All 

 my endeavors to find Mr. nermann's ih.n ,,>-,:, in samarskite have 

 proved unsuccessful as well as those of Marignac and Blomstrand, 

 Other material. 



[The account by Prof. Shepard states that the hermannolire was 

 1 " 1 ' [ -' i« I'-ealitA nrai the hous, of Mr. Cook (a dealer in min- 



. Cook informs us that there is no such locality 

 ml that it must have come from the columbite locality, a 



■ 

 a mile 



