a26 DESCRIPTIONS OF MINERALS. 
California), of species not resinous in lustre ; Tasmanite and Dysodile, 
of kinds containing several per cent. of sulphur. Wollongongiée, from 
Australia, is black, and looks like cannel coal. 
Ii], ASPHALTUM AND MINERAL COALS. 
Asphaltum. 
Amorphous and pitch-like. Burning with a bright flame 
and melting at 90° to 100° F. Soluble mostly or wholly in 
camphene. It is a mixture of hydrocarbons, part of which 
are oxygenated. 
Obs. 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 coy- 
ered with the hardened pitch, on which trees and vegetation 
flourish, and here and there, about Point La Braye, the 
masses of pitch look lke 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 fluor in granite in Cornwall, and at many other 
places. 
Albertite. 
as like im 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. 
Cot 097: 
Fills fissures in the Subcarboniferous rocks near Hills- 
borough, Nova 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 pe from West Virginia, 20 emilee south 
of Parkersburg. H.=2. G.=1'145. Soluble mosily in camphene, 
but melts only imperfectly. An analysis afrorded carbon 16°45, hy- 
drogen 7°82, oxygen (with traces of nitrogen) 13°45, ash 2:26=100. 
