A. II. Phillips— Neio Zinc Phosphates. 275 



Art. XXX. — New Zinc Phosphates from Salmo, British 

 Cohcmbia / by Alexander H. Phillips. 



During January, 1916, a small collection of ores and min- 

 erals, representing the occurrences and associations at the 

 Hudson Bay Mine at Salmo, British Columbia, was received 

 by the Geological Department of Princeton, from Mr. Dave 

 McBurney. Included in this collection was a small specimen 

 which, after analysis, was recognized as a new basic zinc phos- 

 phate. Mr. McBurney describes the occurrence of this min- 

 eral in a letter as follows : " We ran into this ore last October 

 and most all of it was taken out and shipped. This ore was in 

 a sort of a cave 16' by 24/ and 8' high. When we broke into 

 it, there were pillars of the ore reaching from the roof to the 

 floor of the cave, also masses hanging down from the roof. . . 

 . . . The main ledge of zinc carbonate ore passes directly over 

 this cave. It is cut by two dykes at the cave, one dyke form- 

 ing the wall and the other the roof of the cave On 



the floor there was a mass of very phosphatic clay, which 

 carried 20 per cent zinc, and buried in the clay were great 

 chunks of this ore." Mr. McBurney also adds, that the cave 

 is on the 200-foot level. About one hundred tons of ore were 

 taken from the cave, and the mine is absolutely dry, except 

 where the two dikes cut the formation. A description of this 

 new zinc phosphate has been sent to the Mineralogical Maga- 

 zine by Dr. T. L. Walker of Toronto,* and has been named 

 spencerite by him and its formula fixed as Zn 3 (P0 4 )„.Zn(0H) 2 . 

 3H 2 0. 



The specimen of spencerite in the collection from Mr. 

 McBurney was apparently formed on the floor of the cave, as 

 it was coated with clay. It was a mass of radiated and reticu- 

 late crystals, some of which are nearly an inch and a half in 

 length. The crystals are white, slightly greenish in the mass 

 with a strong pearly luster on the good cleavage. There are 

 no terminal faces, as the specimen has been much affected by 

 solution, and there are solution cavities separating the spencer- 

 ite from a thin botryoidal crust of calamine. Calamine is also 

 included in isolated solution cavities of the spencerite and has 

 been formed as a later product. 



The spencerite is practically a chemically pure compound and 

 as my analysis had been completed before hearing from Dr. 

 Walker, I am adding the results here simply to corroborate his 

 work. The specimen was air-dried and yielded: ZnO = 60'39, 

 PA = 26-13, H 2 = 1344:. The specific gravity as deter- 

 mined by methylene iodide is 3*123. Hardness about 2*75. 

 Decrepitates strongly in the closed tube, yielding much water 



* From personal letter from Dr. Walker. 



