NOTES AND QUERIES. 



163 



England, was so much impressed with its value that he went to New Zealand 

 to verify the reports made to him in this country, and was fortunate to find 

 them all correct. He smelted the ore first in a crucible, and subsequently in a 

 furnace. The results were so satisfactory that he immediately obtained the 

 necessary grant of laud from the government and returned to England with 

 several tons, for more conclusive experiments. It has been carefully analysed 

 in this country by several well-known metallurgists, and has been pronounced 

 to be the purest ore at present known. It contains SS^IS of peroxide of iron; 

 11-13 of oxide of titanium, with silica, and only twelve of waste in one hundred 

 parts. Taking the sand as it lies on the beach and smelting it the produce is 

 sixty-one per cent of iron of the very finest quality ; and again if this sand be 

 subjected to what is called the cementration process, the result is a tough, first- 

 class steel, which in its properties seem to surpass any other description of 

 that metal at present known. The investigations of metallurgical science have 

 found that if titanium is mixed with iron the character of the steel is materially 

 improved ; but titanium being a scarce ore, such a mixture is too expensive for 

 ordinary purposes. Here, however, nature has stepped in and made free gifts 

 of both metals on the largest scale. To give some idea of the fineness of this 

 beautiful sand it will be enough to say that it passes readily through a gauze 

 sieve of four thousand nine hundred holes or interstices to the square inch. 

 As soon as it was turned into steel by Mr. Musket, Messrs. Mosely, the 

 eminent cutlers and toolmakers of New Street, Covent Garden, were requested 

 to see what could be done with the Taranaki steel. They have tested it in 

 every possible way, and have tried its temper to the utmost, and they say the 

 manner in which the metal has passed through their trials goes far beyond 

 anything that they ever saw worked in steel before. It has been formed into 

 razors, scizzors, saws, penknives, table-cutlery, surgical instruments, &c. ; and 

 the closeness of the grain, the fineness of polish, and keenness of edge place it 

 in the very foremost rank — almost in the position of a new metal. As far as 

 is at present known of this extraordinary metaL it bids fair to claim all the 

 finer classes of cutlery and edge-tool instruments to itself so well has everything 

 made from it turned out. Messrs. Moseley, in whose hands the sole manufac- 

 ture of cutlery and edge-tools is vested for this country, have placed a case, 

 filled with the metal in all its stages, in the Polytechnic Institution." 



Description of the Rocks in which Diamonds are Found, and the 



MANNER OF WORKING THEM IN THE PROVINCE OF MlNAS GaRAES, IN BRAZIL. 



The granite-gneiss of which the shores of Brazil are composed extends without 

 interruption as far as the Sierra of Montigucra, which is sixty leagues inland, 

 at the point nearest the sea where it forms the boundary between the forest 

 and the plains. In this last region one begins to see this gneiss alternate witli 

 granular quartz, and ciwstalline schists. Inland from the Serra of Ourobianco 

 these last rocks dominate exclusively. To the north they also compose the 

 numerous mountain ranges, and among them the " chapades," called by 

 D'Eschwege the Serra D'Espinhaeo, 



Of the rocks which compose the Diamond region the granular quartz, which 

 is the most important, has been called by D'Eschwege " itacolumite." It is a 

 friable quartz or sandstone more or less coarse-grained, and often contains talc 

 chlorite, and mica, and showing a schistose structure. It is sometimes traversed 

 by veins of quartz containing pyrophylite-lime as found in the Ouralian 

 mountains. Sometimes, though but rarely, is it flexible. We have noticed 

 this quality at two places, Ouro-Preto and Montevade. This itacolumite is 

 beyond doubt a metamorphosed rock, deposited in the first instance by water. 

 No fossils have been found in it, but traces of w r ave-marks have been discovered. 

 According to Mr. G. Hose, there is at Bissersk, in the Oural, where diamonds 

 are found, no trace of this rock which however closely resembles the schistose 



