326 DESCRIPTIONS OF MINERALS. 



California), of species not resinons in lustre ; Tasmanite and Dysodile, 

 of kinds containing several per cent, of sulphur. Wollongongite, from 

 Australia, is black, and looks like cannel coal. 



III. ASPHALTUM AND MINERAL COALS. 

 Asphaltum. 



Amorphous and pitch-like. Burning with a bright name 



and melting at 90° to 100° F. Soluble mostly or wholly in 

 camphene. It is a mixture of hydrocarbons, part of which 

 are oxygenated. 



Ot>s. Asphaltum is met with abundantly on the shores of 

 the Dead Sea. and in the neighborhood of the Caspian. A 

 remarkable locality occurs on the island of Trinidad, where 

 there is a lake of it about a mile and half in circumference. 

 The bitumen is solid and cold near the shores; but gradu- 

 ally increases in temperature and softness toward the cen- 

 tre, where it is boiling. The appearance of the solidified 

 bitumen is as if the whole surface had boiled up in large 

 bubbles and then suddenly cooled. The ascent to the lake 

 from the sea, a distance of three quarters of a mile, is cov- 

 ered with the hardened pitch, on which trees and vegetation 

 flourish, and here and there, about Point La Brave, the 

 masses of pitch look like black rocks among the foliage. It 

 occurs also in South America about similar lakes in Peru, 

 where it is used for pitching boats ; and in California on 

 the coast of Santa Barbara. Large deposits occur in sand- 

 stone in Albania. It is also found in Derbyshire, and with 

 quartz and rluor in granite in Cornwall, and at many other 

 places. 



Albertite, 



Coal-like in hardness, but little soluble in camphene, and 

 only imperfectly fusing when heated ; but having the lustre 

 of asphaltum. and softens a little in boiling water. H. — 1-2, 

 G. =1*097. 



Fills fissures in the Subcarboniferous rocks near Hills- 

 borough, Xova Scotia, and supposed to have been derived 

 from the hydrocarbon of the adjoining rock, and to have 

 been oxidized at the time it was formed and filled the 

 fissure. 



Grahamite is a related material from West Virginia, 20 miles south 

 of Parkersburg. H.=2. Or. =1-143. Soluble mostly in camphene, 

 but melts only imperfectly. An analysis afforded carbon 70 15, hy- 

 drogen 7'82, oxygen (with "traces of nitrogen) 13 43, ash 2-26=100. 



