46 ANNIYERSAET ADDRESS, 



read, forgetting that grand truth that ' everything is in the books 

 for him who knows how to look for it.' 



" As to the ' chromate of iron,' that faithful companion of the 

 numerous rocks of the colony, our esteemed colleague, W. B. 

 Clarke, did not miss noticing it in 1861. 



" On my part, in all my Reports or geological writings, I estab- 

 lish the presence of the mineral in so many places in the Island 

 that it would take too long to enumerate them here. But it was 

 on 20th February, 1866, that I met with the first habitat of work- 

 able chromate of iron, as I have just read in my journal : " 28th 

 February, to re-ascend Mont d'Or, setting out from the marshy 

 plain of Khouen, where I passed the night to seek if there were 

 any new sites of chromate of iron. I have found some heaps of 

 it, purer than that which I met with at the first time — 18th 

 November last — in the Cascade Eiver." I attributed then a 

 certain importance to this discovery, for on 19th March, 1866, I 

 addressed to the Governor a detailed report on the question. It 

 was published about that date in the Moniteur, and to it I refer 

 my readers. 



" At that period the mineral in question was worth nearly 200 

 francs a ton ; now it is another thing. Turkey and Greece have 

 developed the opening of sites of this mineral, and it can be 

 procured at from 60 to 70 francs per ton. As elsewhere, the 

 employment of this matter is limited to some thousand tons per 

 annum ; we see, consequently, the decrease which this new con- 

 dition brings to the deposits of this Colony. 



" One of the letters which encouraged me to write this, 

 pointedly notices as astonishing the error which was com- 

 mitted at Mont d'Or, where people have taken and exported 

 ' oxidulated iron' for ' chromate of iron.' Nothing, on the con- 

 trary, is less surprising ; for every mineralogist knows that the 

 two substances are so like that the most experienced person has 

 almost always need to distinguish them by an examination in the 

 closet. So far as I am concerned I have never omitted to point 

 out this fact beforehand to persons who asked me the indication 



