On Tasmanite, a new Mineral of Organic Origin. 465 



It would be too much to expect that even one of my sugges- 

 tions will be adopted ; but I hope that somebody will make 

 better ones. Of one thing I am pretty sure, that no one will 

 say that the present state of things is not disgraceful. I know 

 it is easy to overrate the importance of such matters, but I think 

 it is also easy to underrate it. 



Hadley, Middlesex. 



LVII. On Tasmanite, a new Mineral of Organic Origin. By 

 Arthur H. Church, M.A. Oxon., Professor of Chemistry, 

 Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester*. 



IN the Tasmanian Court of the International Exhibition of 

 1862, a very remarkable kind of fuel was shown by the 

 " Dysodile Company "; it was catalogued as " resiniferous shale." 

 In the Jermyn Street Museum of the School of Mines a speci- 

 men of the same mineral is termed " Combustible Shale, River 

 Mersey, north side of Tasmania." In the British Museum the 

 specimen is unlabelled. 



1 have now completed the investigation, begun in 1862, of 

 this mineral, and in the present communication give the chief 

 results of my experiments. 



The true dysodile from Glimbach near Giessen, analysed by 

 Delesse, does not seem to be identical either in chemical or phy- 

 sical constitution with the Tasmanian mineral. I shall, how- 

 ever, investigate this point fully if I am successful in obtaining 

 a sufficient supply of the true dysodile, which is said to occur at 

 Mellili near Syracuse, and at Salzhaufen in Hessia. 



The so-called resiniferous shale is distinctly laminated, the 

 organic matter, which occurs in scales, being disposed in planes 

 parallel to the lamination, and probably causing it. These 

 scales are of a reddish-brown colour, and form from 30 to 40 

 per cent, of the rock. Their shape may be best judged of by 

 the accompanying figures, — 1, 2, and 3 representing the aspect 

 of the scales as viewed from above, 4, 5, and 6 their appearance 

 as seen edgewise. 



The average diameter of the disks is about *03 of an inch, 

 while their thickness at the centre is sometimes as much as '007. 



Separation of the Organic Substance. — As none of the ordinary 

 solvents of resinoids and similar bodies seemed capable of dissol- 

 ving out the carbonaceous constituent of the mineral, the fol- 

 lowing plan of effecting the separation was adopted. A large 

 quantity of the mineral was crushed to a coarse powder, placed 



* Communicated by the Author. 



