8 14 The American Naturalist. [September. 
found in Crook Co., Oregon, and a diamond in Russell Co., Ky. The 
diamond weighs 7-16 carats. It was found on the top of a gravel 
hill, and is an elongated hexoctahedron, with rounded faces.— Almost 
all epidote crystals, as is well known, are elongated in the direc- 
tion of their ortho-axes. Dr. Bodewig,i' in America, and Artini, in 
Italy, have recently described crystals with a normal development, i.e., 
with a prismatic habit, with the hmg direction parallel to the vertical 
axis. The American mineral was bought at the foot of Pike's Peak. 
The European specimen came from p:iba. Crystals of the hyacinth 
variety of qiiarfz,^^ occurring in the saliferous clays in the Basses- 
Pyrenees district of France, contain numerous inclusions of anhydrite xl- 
ranged zonally. Both Rammelsberg ^^ and Meyer '^ have concluded, 
as the result of independent chemical examination, that the substance 
described 2&jadeite by Fellenberg *^ is nothing more than vesuvianite. 
As the result of a recalculation of the analyses found scattered 
through the literature of the natural sodium carbonates, and the light 
thrown upon these by some new analyses of salts produced by the solar 
evaporation of the waters of Owens Lake, Cal., Dr. Chatard^o con- 
cludes that the substance known as trona (Na,C03+ 2 NaHC03+ 3 H^O) 
does not exist, either as a mineral or as an artificial compound, whereas 
all the published analyses of the natural carl>onate, as well as those of 
the compound produced by artificial evaporation of mixed solutions of 
the carbonates, yield figures that correspond very closely with the com- 
position oiiirao, a mineral described by Faxar,2» and by Boussingault,'^ 
from Venezuela. Bucking 23 has made a very thorough examination 
of the glaserite, blddite {astrakanite), kainite, and boracite crystals from 
the salt beds at Douglasshall, near Westeregeln, in the Stassfurt salt 
regions. The glaserite is in small, nearly colorless crystals, with a 
hardness of 2.75-3, and a specific gravity 2.632-2.656. They crystal- 
lize in the hexagonal system, with a : ^=1 : 1.2879, and usually have 
a rhombohedral symmetry, although individuals with an orthorhombic 
symmetry are not rare. Their refraction is positive with «>= 1.4907 
and £=1.4993. Its composition corresponds approximately to the 
formula 3K2S0,+ NXS0,. The kainite is also in small crystals, with 
;«Beaugey : Bull.'de la Soc^ran/'de Min., XII.. p. .06. 
