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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. IX. 



ages. But graphite,* (so called from its earliest use in the 

 formation of pencils for writing and sketching,) and which 

 there can be little doubt is closely allied to coal, although 

 generally older in origin, and the subject of more intense 

 and long-continued metamorphic influence than the carbo- 

 naceous substance so valuable as fuel, is too highly miner- 

 alized (with the exception, perhaps, of the formations in 

 Canada) to display a trace of the vegetable tissues from 

 which it claims its descent. 



To the seeker for fossil remains of ancient organic life, 

 therefore, graphite like our other primitive rocks, gneiss 

 and crystalline limestone, is less interesting than are the 

 coal measures, with their wonderfully preserved specimens 

 of plants and animals and shells, on which human eye 

 probably never looked until the operations of the toiling 

 miner revealed their, in some cases, almost perfect linea- 

 ments. Graphite seems, in truth, to be the most highly 

 crystallized form of carbon next to the peerless diamond, 

 which poetically, if not with perfect scientific accuracy, has 

 been described as a drop of pure liquid carbon crystallized. 

 If such were the case, the most brilliant rays which light 

 can yield seem to have played on the drop and to have been 

 captured by the agency, perhaps electricity in one of its 

 multitudinous forms, which gave the gem its unrivalled 

 hardness, in addition to unapproachable brilliance and 

 beauty. Graphite (to which, when burnt, the diamond 

 reverts) has a beauty of its own, and as small diamonds 

 have actually been formed by artificial means, the time 

 may possibly arrive when the form of carbon which miner- 

 alogists rank only next below the diamond, may, by 

 means of the appliances of progressive science, be advanced 

 from the second to the first place. Let us only attempt to 

 imagine a mass of pure graphite equal to a quarter of a 

 ton, such as that sent to Melbourne in 1880, and the still 

 larger mass which will probably figure in the Court of the 



* Blacklead, Plumbago, Graphite, W ad ; (Dutch, potloot ; French, 

 mine de plomb noir, plomb de mine, potelot ; German, pottloth, reiss- 

 bley ; Italian, miniera di piombo, piombaginne, corezolo ; Latin, 

 plumbago; Spanish, piedra mineral de plombo.) — MacCulloch*s Dic- 

 tionary of Commerce. 



