NOTES ON SOME ROCKS AND MINERALS FROM NEW GUINEA, &c. 229 
masses of corals cemented with calcareous matter ; in other cases 
made up of silt and volcanic ashes, also cemented together by 
calcium carbonate. 
Also white and grey wry cael ei apeateet oe containing 
fossil corals. One piece of limestone eathe oO a pecu uliar 
spathulate form, and might fs pees ce, been he te for a 
native spoon. 
There are several specimens of a yellow figs ia sig lime- 
stone containing fragments of various fossils, orals, wit 
weathered, somewhat like dysodile ; exhibits a woody structure, 
gives a brown streak or powder, ‘breaks with a well marked 
- conchoidal fracture yielding a black lustroussurface. Burns with 
difficulty without flame, emits but little smell, and leaves a dark 
grey ash, very bulky and resembling a wood ash. 
It is not ag but flies off in powder before the knife. 
Fossil —Many specimens were found in the natives’ fire- 
places, some “of es presenting very curious and fantastic shapes ; 
the woody structure is well preserved, on the outside they are 
brown but black and porous within. The black portion when 
crushed and ignited on platinum foil glows feebly, a leaves a 
white ash, but can har rdly said to burn. is mineralised 
wood, for it consists mainly of silica, is probably disad by the 
natives merely to line their fireplaces just as peg use the rocks 
and pebbles, dy not for any value it possesses as a 
Pune (from the Katau River).—In the form oe a rolled mass 
of a light grey colour, very similar in appearance to the common 
white pumice of New Zealand and other Pacific sources. 
Most of the stone implements, adzes and club heads, many of 
the latter being in the form of rings, stars, crescents, &c., are made 
of hard igneous crystalline rocks; some are apparently from 
modern lavas, but others of older basalts, diorites, and porphyries ; . 
but it was sem to determine the rock with c certainty in many 
cases, count of the glaze-like eke polish which they 
ecieieik ee which Signor D’Albertis did not wish removed ; 
and to obtain fresh fractures was, of course, out of the question 
without sie destroying their value as ethnological specimens. 
The egg-shaped stones are fashioned out of a variegated Jime 
stone, and the sharpening stones or hone is a grey felsitic rock, 
The following specimens were collected by the late Captain 
Onslow, R.N., in August, 1875 :— 
Yue Isianp. 
The specimens from Yule Island consist simply of quartz 
pebbles. Some pieces of white, more or less crystalline limestone, 
