1186 The American Naturalist. [December, 
from that mineral in its physical characteristics that I have taken the _ 
liberty to give it the name of * Floridite.' It occurs as a rock that 
had long been mistaken as a limestone, but unlike a bedded limestone 
it is mostly in segregated masses, some of which will weigh a ton or 
more, On the Eagle Phosphate Company's property, of which I made 
a special examination, a shaft was commenced on an outcrop and sunk 
to the depth of 4114 feet before it reached the bottom of the solid 
‘Floridite.’ In a paper which I read at the Indianapolis meeting of 
the A. A. A. S. I gave it as my opinion that the Florida phosphate is a 
mineralization of an ancient guano. It differs entirely from the cop- 
rolite and gravel phosphates of the Carolinas, and the Peace River 
phosphate gravel or conglomerate phosphates that are found in the bed 
and shores of Peace River, in the southern part of Florida. The 
‘Floridite,’ or rock phosphate, follows the trend of the Gulf of 
Mexico, and I have traced it from the southern part of Citrus county 
as far north as Madison in Madison county, and over a width of coun- 
try fully twenty miles wide. Ido not mean to say that it forms a con- 
tinuous bed over this area, for there are many breaks where small patches 
only exist. The rock is found in many places cropping out, but is 
usually covered with from one to ten feet of sand. It is quarried by 
stripping off the covering of sand and breaking down the phosphate 
after the manner of quarrying stone. 
** * Floridite ’ will average 80 per cent. of bone phosphate of lime. 
It is worth in the European market from $25 to $30 per ton, or, 33 to 
38 cents per unit. | 
** [ consider the discovery of this phosphate rock, which has hereto- 
fore been taken to be a limestone, as one of great importance to 
Florida and the entire Union, both on account of its commercial value 
and its stimulus to profitable agriculture.” 
MINERALOGY AND PETROGRAPHY.! 
Petrographical News.— The placing of the diabases among the 
intrusive rocks has for some time seemed a questionable proceeding to 
many petrographers. They so often occur as flows between sedimen- 
tary strata, and frequently apparently as surface flows, that it would 
appear more logical to place them among the effusives. Brauns? has 
lately described a diabase from Quotshausen in the valley of the Perf, 
! Edited by Dr. W. S. Bayley, Colby University, Waterville, Me. | 
2 Zeits. d. Deutsch. Geol. Ges. XLI., 1890, p. 491. 
