1867.] Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 543 



employment in the manufacture of paraffin. Towards the end of 

 1865 Herr Stohr visited the locality, and has lately published the 

 results of his visit in a long memoir,* describing the physical and 

 chemical characters of the mineral, its geological position, and its 

 probable origin. He believes that it has been formed by the 

 alteration of brown coal, and not, as had been suggested, by the 

 Pinites succinifer, or amber-yielding pine; for, although true 

 amber occurs in the neighbouring rocks, yet the plant-remains 

 found in immediate association with the pyropissite have no affinity 

 whatever with those of the amber-tree. 



The French chemist, M. Mene, whose researches on iron 

 pyrites were noticed in the Chronicles of last quarter, has com- 

 municated to the Academy of Sciences his " Analyses of various 

 crystallized and amorphous Graphites."! This paper contains no 

 less than forty original analyses, chiefly of the native mineral, but 

 including also a few artificial graphites, and three analyses of 

 plumbago crucibles. Although we do not observe that these 

 investigations lead to any new deduction, yet original work of this 

 kind, when carefully conducted, must always possess a certain 

 value for comparison with the results obtained by other chemists. 



In a short but suggestive paper " On Banded and Brecciated 

 Concretions, 'J Mr. Kuskin touches upon some obscure points of 

 mineral structure, and treats them with his wonted originality of 

 thought. We presume, however, that few mineralogists will be 

 disposed to accept his conclusions without qualification. The 

 banded structure exhibited by many minerals, such as agate, is 

 commonly regarded as the necessary result of the manner in which 

 the substance was deposited from solution, layer by layer ; but Mr. 

 Buskin, not satisfied with this explanation, imagines that the con- 

 centric zones do not represent successive deposits, but that they 

 are concretionary bands which have gradually separated from the 

 surrounding mass, and have arranged themselves in definite form, 

 each baud presenting in many cases distinctive characters of its 

 own. Further, instead of believing that in every brecciated 

 structure some dislocating force has shattered the substance, and 

 that the fragments have been afterwards cemented together, he 

 conceives that in many cases — and notably in certain agates and 

 marbles — the apparent brecciation results from the segregation of 

 definite substances from an impure matrix, and the rending 

 asunder of these concretions by subsequent contraction. 



Prof. Kenngott, of Zurich, has forwarded to the ' Journal fur 



* Das Pyropissit-Vorkommen in den BraunkoMen bei Weissenfels unci Zeitz. 

 Neues Jahrbuch fiir Mineralo-gie, u.s.w. 1867, Heft IV., p. 403. 



t Analyses de divers graphites cristallise's et amorphes : ' Comptes Rendus,' 

 1867, n" 21, p. 1091. 



X •Geological Magazine.' August, 1867, p. 337. 



