170 The American Naturalist. [February, 



Both are magnetic, the latter evincing stronger polarity than the 

 former. In etching the kamacite is attacked more rapidly than the 

 richer alloy of nickel. Plessite was found to consist of fine lamellae 

 of the two alloys above mentioned. Brown' 6 has carefully exam- 

 ined the bernardinite first described by J. M. Silliman, 17 from San 

 Bernardino Co., Cal., as a new mineral resin, and has discovered it to 



be in all probability the fungus Polyporus officinalis. Weed finds 18 



that the ore deposit of the Mount Morgan gold mine in Queensland, 

 Australia, is a siliceous sinter like that of the Yellowstone National 

 Park, impregnated with auriferous hematite. Both the sinter and the 

 hematite are clearly hot spring deposits. A brief abstract of a paper 

 read by Dr. Foote 19 at the Washington meeting of the A. A. A. $ 

 gives an account of the discovery of black and colorless diamonds in 

 a fragment of meteoric iron weighing forty pounds found at Crater 

 Mt., about two hundred miles North of Tucson, Ariz. The diamonds 

 usually occur associated with amorphous carbon in the cavities in the 



mass, which contains about %% of Ni. Census Bulletin No. 49, by 



Mr. Kunz 20 contains a brief account of the value of gems and precious 

 stones discovered and worked up in the United States during the vear 

 1889. The total value of the materials found within the country 

 amounted to $188,807. Agatized wood, turquoise, zircon, and quartz 

 in the order mentioned are the most important domestic productions 

 falling under the head of precious stones used as ornaments or gems. 

 n Amer.Jour. Sci., July, 1891, p. 4*5. 



