Geology and Mineralogy. 397 



Academy of Sciences of Paris, held November 14th, 1904, read a 

 paper on an examination made by him of a block of meteoric 

 iron from Canyon Diablo, Arizona, which weighed 183 kilograms 

 (403*6 lbs.).* Professor Moissan determined this mass to be some- 

 what heterogeneous in its structure, and to contain iron, nickel, 

 sulphur, phosphorus, silicon and carbon. He found the latter 

 element in its several forms, — amorphous carbon, graphite, and 

 diamond, — and was able to separate both the black and the 

 transparent variety of the diamond. He also discovered as abso- 

 lutely new, in connection with these, green hexagonal crystals of 

 silicon carbide. This is the substance which has been so exten- 

 sively manufactured and sold commercially under the name of 

 carborundum, and which, having a hardness of 9*5, above that of 

 all minerals except the diamond, forms an admirable abrasive 

 material for sawing gems, engraving glass, etc. 



As this is the first instance in which this compound has been 

 proved to occur in nature, and therefore, as a mineral, is entitled 

 to a distinct mineralogical name, it would seem that the name of 

 Professor Moissan himself should be associated with it. I would, 

 therefore, propose for it the name of Moissa?iite, as a slight recog- 

 nition of his many services to chemistry, and especially of his 

 researches on the artificial carbides and his study of the con- 

 stituents of meteorites, and the reproduction of similar substances 

 by means of the electric furnace. 



Photographs made by Professor Moissan show that the speci- 

 mens isolated were entire crystals and must have been formed in 

 the meteoric mass itself ; they were not fragments such as were 

 found by an American investigator a few years ago associated 

 with fragments of corundum, which upon a careful search of the 

 material he learned had been ground into the meteoric mass from 

 the abrasive used in sawing the meteorite. No saws were used 

 by Professor Moissan with the mass examined by him. 



5. Occurrence of Palladium and Platinum in Brazil. — A 

 very full and interesting paper upon this subject is given by E. 

 Hussak in vol. cxiii of the Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy 

 (Abth. I). An exhaustive summary of the historical data is fol- 

 lowed by an account of the author's own extended observations. 



The metal palladium, in the native state, was discovered by 

 Wollaston in Brazil a hundred years ago, being identified with 

 native platinum in sands from gold washings, probably at Con- 

 ceicao. The author failed to find the metal in the platinum sands 

 of this locality, but he proved that it did occur in irregular 

 grains (not rolled) of dark gray to steel-gray color with platinum 

 and palladium-gold in the highly auriferous ' ; Jacutinga "f of the 

 itabirites of Itabira do Matto Dentro, Minas Geraes. 



* Comptes Rendus, cxxxix, No. 20, cxl, No. 5, p. 277 ; also Chem. News, 

 Dec. 14, 1904, Feb. 24, 1905 : this Journal, xix, 191, 323, 1905. 



f The name " Jacutinga " is given to the narrow layers and bands, hardly 

 5Qcm j n thickness, that occur interbedded conformably within the itabirite 

 (a quartz-hematite rock of schistose structure). The Jacutinga are often 

 enormously rich in gold, which may be nearly absent from the surrounding 

 itabirite. 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Yol. XIX, No. 113.— May, 1905. 

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