124 Chronicles of Science. [Jan., 



us have the facts discussed honestly, and few can do that better 

 than he can ; hut let the theories be kept to be aired before scientific 

 societies and published in their journals. Meteorology has suf- 

 fered more than most sciences from building castles in the air. 

 Let us lay a firm foundation before we begin the structure. 



9. MINEKALOGY. 



" Here there is no room for might, could, would, or should, — but 

 it is so ; native lead in melaphyre ! " With these confident words 

 Dr. Zerrenner introduces to us the discovery of native lead imbedded 

 in a rock at Stuzerbach, in Thuringia.* And, in truth, his ex- 

 pressions of assurance are by no means ill-timed ; for there is 

 confessedly a little scepticism lurking in the minds of many of us 

 as to the genuineness of such a find — scepticism which is perhaps 

 pardonable enough when we remember how often the mineralogist 

 has been bitten by describing old shot and rifle bullets as natural 

 productions ! In the case before us, however, there seems no 

 reason to think that Dr. Zerrenner has misplaced his confidence — 

 judging at least from the illustration which shows the globules of 

 lead imbedded in the cavities of the amygdaloidal melaphyre, and 

 more especially from his description which refers to it as running 

 through the rock in strings. 



Native lead is also said to have been found, within the last few 

 years, associated with gold in the auriferous drifts of some of the 

 deep mining " leads " in Victoria, f Quite recently, too, we have 

 seen some reputed native lead in the form of rounded shot, coated 

 with a whitish incrustation, and accompanied by magnetic iron-ore 

 and native gold, from the old auriferous district in Co. Wicklow. 



On a question so obscure and enigmatical as that of the origin 

 of the diamond, every tittle of evidence is worth recording. Dr. 

 Goppert, in his famous essay which gained a prize at the Haarlem 

 Academy in 1864, argued strongly in favour of the formation of 

 this mineral by the wet way. He now publishes an account of 

 certain diamonds containing organic structures tending to confirm 

 his views.J Two diamonds in the Koyal Mineralogical Museum 

 in Berlin were found to enclose numerous green cells closely 

 resembling those of many algae. One of the diamonds, weighing 

 263 milligrammes, contains a very large number of perfectly round 



* ' Berg und Huttenrn'annische Zeitung,' No. 12, 1869, p. 105 ; also, ' Mineralo- 

 gische Nachrichten,' 1869, p. 33. 



f ' The Gold-fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria.' By B. Brough Smyth. 

 Melbourne, 1869. Pp. 420. 



X ' Ueber algenartige Einschliisse in Diamanten, und iiber Bildung derselben.' 

 Abhandl. d. Schlesisch. Gesellsch. (§ Naturwiss. u. Medicin), 1869, p. 62. 



