430 Scientific Intelligence. 



L. Rorison, miner of mica, and Mr. D. A. Bowman, on the Rori- 

 son property near Bakersville, Mitchell County, N. C. Here, at 

 an elevation of five thousand feet a. t., on Big Crab-Tree Moun- 

 tain, occurs a vein of pegmatite some five feet wide, with well- 

 defined walls, in mica schist. This vein carries a variety of 

 minerals besides its component quartz and feldspar, among these 

 being garnets ; translucent, reddish, and black tourmalines, the 

 latter abundant in slender crystals ; white, yellow, and pale-green 

 beryls ; and the emeralds. These latter are chiefly small," 1 to 

 10 mm wide by 5 to 25 mm long, but some have been found two or 

 three times larger than the larger size named. They are perfect 

 hexagonal prisms, generally well terminated, and are clear and of 

 good color, with some promise for gems. They very strikingly 

 resemble the Norwegian emeralds from Arendal. 



One vein outcrops for perhaps a hundred yards, with a north to 

 south strike. The results thus far obtained are only from about 

 five feet depth of working, so that much more may be looked for 

 as the vein is developed. 



The locality is fourteen miles south of Bakersville, and about 

 the same distance from Mitchell's Peak, a little north of the crest 

 of the Blue Ridge. It is some fifty miles west of the emerald 

 locality at Stony Point, Alexander County, N. C, described by 

 William Hidden in 1881 in a pamphlet privately printed at New 

 York, and in the Transactions of the New York Academy of 

 Sciences, 1882, pp. 101-105, as also by the writer in " Gems and 

 Precious Stones of North America," New York, 1888, p. 91. 



I am indebted to Messrs. Rorison and Bowman for the infor- 

 mation contained in this paper and for the privilege of examining 

 the specimens found by them. george f. kunz. 



3. The Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain, 

 by the late Sir Andrew C. Ramsay, 6th edition edited by Horace 

 B. Woodward, pp. 1-421 (Edward Stanford), London, 1894. — 

 This simple account of English geology prepared in 1863, origi- 

 nally as a course of lectures to workingmen, after having passed 

 through five editions and now revised to express the more modern 

 views of geology still retains the charm which came from the 

 personal enthusiasm of its author, a prominent figure in English 

 geology a generation ago. 



4. The Story of our Planet, by T. G. Bonnet, pp. 1-535 (The 

 Cassell Publishing Co.) — The author of this treatise has attempted, 

 as he says in his preface, to tell the story of our planet in fairly 

 plain words and has framed the book on -a plan similar to that 

 adopted by Sir C. Lyell in his great work " The Principles of 

 Geology," the last edition of which was published twenty-one 

 years ago. Some of the more difficult problems of the science 

 have been left out of discussion, and particular attention has been 

 given to some subjects, in which his personal interests have been 

 concerned. Among these latter are the physical geography of 

 Britain in the earlier part of the Triassic, — the affects and former 

 extent of glaciers and the history and age of certain crystalline 



