160 Scientific Intelligence. 



nection with this the author calls attention to the form of Ti0 2 

 from North Carolina described as a dimorphous form of rutile by 

 Descloizeaux,* and shows that it is apparently beyond doubt to 

 be explained in this way — Jahrb. Min., i, 231, 1889. 



9. Native Gold in (Jalcite • by J. S. Diller (Communicated). 

 — While at Minersville, Trinity County, Cal., last summer, Mr. 

 Bates of that place showed me several excellent specimens of 

 native gold associated with calcite. They were obtained from a 

 mine on Digger Creek, about a mile above Minersville. I visited 

 the locality in a narrow gulch and found that the mine, although 

 not worked at present, was once vigorously and profitably opera- 

 ted. Two drifts were run into the hillside for nearly 100 feet and 

 considerable gold removed. The calcite occurs in small lenticular 

 masses in a dark carbonaceous shaly rock which is sometimes 

 black and slickensided with a graphitic aspect. The shaly layer 

 is highly inclined and crumpled and varies from one inch to 

 fifteen leet in thickness. The calcite is very irregularly dis- 

 tributed in the dark layer and is not always auriferous, but is 

 occasionally very rich in gold. One of Mr. Bates's specimens 

 is nearly as large as a fist and three-fourths of its volume was 

 estimated to be native gold. Quartz also has been found in 

 the mine but it is less abundant than the calcite and rarely 

 auriferous. 



The strata belong to the auriferous slate series and are con- 

 siderably metamorphosed. In the dark mass containing the 

 calcite jjs well as beneath it in an impure limestone, there is con- 

 siderable pyrite which by its decomposition coats portions of the 

 mine with copperas and oxide of iron. It may be that the gold 

 came from the pyrite. Mrs. J. H. Tourtellette of Minersville has 

 presented several specimens to the National Museum of Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



Washington, D. C, Dec. 11, 1889. 



10. Brief Notices of some recently described Minerals. — Witrt- 

 zilite. A kind of bitumen described by W. P. Blake from the 

 Uintah Mts., Wasatch Co., Utah, and named after Dr. Henry 

 Wurtz of New York. It is a firm solid, having a brilliant luster 

 and breaking with a conchoidal fracture; it has a deep black 

 color in reflected light, but translucent and reddish in thin splin- 

 ters. It is sectile and is more or less elastic in thin shavings, the 

 elasticity increasing when it is slightly warmed. The hardness is 

 between 2 and 3, and the specific gravity 1*030. It be- 

 comes soft and plastic in boiling water and in the flame of the 

 candle takes fire and burns with a bright bituminous flame. It 

 resists the usual solvents of bitumen. Wurtzilite is relate^, to 

 elaterite and also resembles in some points the uintahite or gilson- 

 ite obtained from the same region. — Eng. Mining Journal, Dec. 

 21, 1889. 



Ferrostibian, Pleurasite, Stibiatil, Epigenite. Minerals 

 described by Igelstrom as occurring at the Sjo mines, Grythytte 



* Bull. Soc. Min.. ix, 184, 1886 ; this has later been made a 'new species by 

 Hidden under the name Edisonite, this Journal, xxxvi, 272, 1888. 



