Miscellaneous Intelligence. 79 



Allen on Birds of Ecuador and Bolivia, and four by R. P. 

 Whitfield, illustrated by seven plates, on new Calciferous 

 fossils of the Lake Champlain region, on Asaphus canalis 

 Conrad, and on a Balanus from the Marcellus shale, with a com- 

 parison of the Cretaceous fauna of New Jersey and the Gulf 

 States. The Balanus, Protobalanus Hamilton ensis of Whitfield, 

 is already figured and described in vol. vii of Hall's Paleontology 

 plate 36, p. 209. Mr. Whitfield here gives a new and cor- 

 rected figure with the description. The paper on Calciferous 

 fossils makes a large addition to the number of known species. 



4. Plattnerite* from Idaho ; by H. A. Wheeler. (Commu- 

 nicated.) — A new occurrence of Plattnerite, or plumbic di-oxide, 

 was recently called to my attention by the receipt of a very pure 

 specimen from one of the lead mines of the Coeur d'Alene district, 

 Idaho, through the kindness of Mr. John M. Desloge, of St. Louis. 

 As this rai'e mineral is called a doubtful species in Dana's System 

 of Mineralogy, the following description is offered. 



The specimen was irregular, massive, about the size of an egg 

 and was superficially coated with limonite ; the fracture, which is 

 uneven to sub-conchoidal, shows a compact, dense structure, 

 opaque, metallic luster, with no cleavage visible. The color is 

 iron-black and the streak chestnut-brown; hardness, 5 to 5*5, and 

 the specific gravity of a pure black piece was 9*41 1. Fusibility 

 2 ; readily reducing to metallic lead. Easily soluble in hydro- 

 chloric acid and aqua-regia; on warming, passing into the chloride 

 of lead. An analysis gave : — 



Pb 83-69 p.c. ; Pb0 o 96'63, Si0 2 1-62, Fe 2 3 l-12=99-37> 



Washington University, St. Louis, May 21, 1889. . 



III. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. luminous night-clouds. — Appeal is made by Mr. O. Jesse 

 of the Berlin Observatory for observations of the luminous night- 

 clouds which have been annually observed in June and July since 

 1885. The following description of the phenomenon is translated 

 from the Astronomische Nachrichten by the Astronomical Journal. 



The luminous night-clouds are seen only within that portion of 

 the evening or morning heavens which is illuminated by the twi- 

 light and separated from the night-sky by a more or less washy 

 semicircle, the twilight-arch. When they are seen in the evening, 

 it is when the sun is about 10° below the horizon, and they usually 

 remain visible as long as the twilight lasts. In the morning this 

 order is reversed. In their form and structure the luminous night- 

 clouds much resemble ordinary cirrus-clouds, but they differ from 

 these in some essential respects, by which they can generally be 



* In a letter dated Washington, May 25, Mr. W. S. Teates announced that he 

 had identified plattnerite from the " You Like " Lode, Mullen, Idaho; the specific 

 gravity is stated to be 8 - 56. He also mentions some curious pseudomorphs of 

 copper after azurite, occurring in the ''Copper glance" and "Potosi" copper 

 mines, in Grant Co., New Mexico. A full description is promised. — Eds. 



