i:-l General Notes. 
ed was not found in place. It was picked up on the Eastern slope 
of the Hayden divide, between Florissant and Manitou, Colorado. 
The rock consists of about 25 per cent, of nepheline, of granular 
sanidine, prismatic particles of a deep green hornblende, and little 
colorless grains of a mineral supposed to be augite. — After an exami- 
nation of the specimen of altered diabase from Quinnesec, Mich., 
Cathrein ^ concludes that the rutile, which Williams ^ thought to be 
secondary after ilmenite contains no titanium, and can, therefore, 
not have given rise to the rutile by alteration. — A porphyritic horn- 
blende — andesite from Deweboyun in Turkey in Asia, is described by 
Loewinson-Lessing^ as composed by large crystals of hornblende 
and labradorite in a groundmass consisting of plagioclase microlites 
in a glassy base. — Karl Schneider * has observed the alteration of 
sphene into calcite and perofskite in a phonolite from Bohemia. 
MiNERALOGiCAL News.— iV"^7£/ Minerals, 6/)^rr>'//V^ Ms the first 
compound of platinum that has been found as a mineral. It occurs 
in the Vermillion mine, in Algoma, Ontario, in a layer of loose 
material on the contact between a vein of gold-bearing quartz and the 
enclosing rock, and in pockets in the decomposed ore. In both 
cases it is associated with copper and iron pyrites. The sperrylite 
is found in small lustrous grains, which are fragments of crystals on 
which Mr. Penfield has discovered cubic, dodecahedral, octahedral, 
and nyritoid faces. The color of the fragments is tin-white and 
their powder black. Their hardnesss is between 6 and 7. Although 
their specific gravity is 10.602 the grains have a tendency to float 
upon the surface of water. Analysis yielded : 
As Sb Pt Rh Pd Fe SnOa 
40.98 0.50 52.57 .72 tr. .07 4-62 
corresponding to Pt Asg, after allowing for the cassiterite present as 
an impurity. The artificial compound made by passing vapor of 
arsenic over red hot platinum possesses many of the properties of 
the natural substance, the most characteristic of which is instant 
fusion upon contact with red hot platinum, with the evolution of 
almost odorless fumes of arsenic, and the production of porous ex- 
crescences of the color of platinum. The composition of the mineral 
and its crystallization relegate it to the pyrite group. — Attention has 
already been called to the new mineral* Beryllonite. A full de- 
scription of its occurrence and properties has recently been given 
by Messrs E. S. Dana and Wells.^ The mineral is found at the 
^ Neues Jahib, f. Min., etc. 1888. II. p. i5i. 
2 Amer. Naturalist. Feb. 1888. p. 168. 
3 Bull. Soc. Belg. d. Geol. I887. I. p. no. 
* Neues Jahrb. f. Min., 1889, I. p. gg. 
5 Amer. Jour. Sci., Jan. 1889, p. 71. 
« Amer. Naturalist, Nov. 1888, p, 1023. 
^ Amer. Jour. Sci., Jan., 1889. p. 23. 
