306 Geological Situation of Platinum. 



BITBERG METEORIC IRON*. 



According to Stromeyer, it contains, iron 81*8 ; nickel 1 1*9 ; 

 cobalt 1*0 ; manganese - 2; sulphur 5*1: = 100*0. Stromeyer 

 had not examined it for chrome, but intended to do so.— Edin. 

 New Phil. Journ. 



MINES OF PLATINUM. 



At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, held on 

 the 18th July last, Baron Humboldt communicated verbally 

 to the Academy the following interesting information. 



M. Boussingault, a celebrated French chemist, has just dis- 

 covered a mine of platinum at Antioquia in the department of 

 Cundinamarca. Hitherto this precious metal, so valuable in 

 the arts, had only been found in the Urals in Russia, in Bra- 

 zil, and in the provinces of Choco and Barbacoas, on the 

 coasts of the South Sea, but always in alluvial lands. As this 

 circumstance renders the discovery of M. Boussingault much 

 more interesting, M. Humboldt has been anxious to establish 



O 7 



it. He observes, that in all lands where platinum has been 

 discovered, there are found at a very great depth the trunks 

 of trees well preserved. It cannot, therefore, be supposed, 

 that, in this case, transplanted earth has been mistaken for 

 real rocks decomposed in situ. With regard to the platinum 

 found in the province of Antioquia by M. Boussingault, there 

 can be no doubt that this metal exists there in real veins in 

 the valley de Osos, and it is sufficient to pound the materials 

 which these veins contain, in order to obtain from them, by 

 washing, the gold and the platinum which they contain. 



M. Humboldt had not himself visited the country where 

 M. Boussingault has discovered the platinum and gold ; but 

 experience has proved to him that almost all the auriferous 

 soils of America belong to the formation of diorite and sye- 

 nite, and it is in this, formation that M. Boussingault has dis- 

 covered the platinum mixed with gold. The valley de Osos, 

 where the platinum occurs in veins, being very near the pro- 

 vince of Choco, from which it is separated only by a branch 

 of the Cordillera of the Andes: this circumstance accounts for 

 the presence of the same metal in the alluvial soils of the val- 

 ley de Osos. 



M. Humboldt announced at the same time, that mines of 

 platinum had recently been found in the Uralian Mountains, 

 in the government of Perma. These mines are so rich that 

 the price of platinum fell nearly one-third at St. Petersburg. 

 Hence we may reasonably expect that this valuable metal 

 will cease to bear that high price at which it has hitherto been 

 sold. In 1824, the auriferous and platiniferous soil of the 



* See Phil. Magazine, vol. Ixv. p". 401. 



Ural 



