1839.] 



and Ids nomenclature of Indian Minerals. 



441 



to his mineral nomenclature, which, however, we have no reason to 

 think was not displayed in his published papers — and this leads us 

 to the- subject which has elicited the above notice. 



First, with regard to the pillars of the mausoleum at Seringapatam : 

 It is certainly singular that one so intimately acquainted with the physi- 

 cal characters of minerals should have pronounced the material to be a 

 hornblende rock, for both Lieut. Campbell's analysis, and specimens 

 now before us presented to the Society by Lieut. Newbold, taken from 

 the mausoleum and from the quarry at Turivacary, would satisfy the 

 merest tyro that it is a species of steatite. It is certain that Dr. Benza 

 never could have examined the pillars minutely, but that he must have 

 taken Buchanan's account of them as correct, to which he might further 

 have been led by the external aspect of the pillars, which in colour re- 

 semble hornblende. Dr. Benza never visited the quarry at Turivacary. 

 The only rock to which, in our opinion, Dr. Benza stands pledged for 

 mineralogical accuracy is the hornblende rock, or greenstone, of Serin- 

 gapatam (No. 46 of his illustrative specimens), a fragment of which, 

 with his own label, is now before us, and is clearly what he has desig- 

 nated it. In the ingredients assigned to the other rock by Lieutenant 

 Campbell, and in its infusibility, it exactly answers to the chemical 

 characteristics of steatite or potstone. In a descriptive account of mi- 

 nerals presented to the Society by Lieut. Newbold, written more than a 

 year ago, that officer has pointed out the error into which Buchanan 

 had fallen, whom Benza followed, and he therein assigns its true de- 

 nomination to this rock. 



Secondly, respecting the eurite of Palicondah, Dr. Benza appears, 

 from Lieut. Campbell's own showing, to be in no error — Eurite (an old 

 term of Werner's, we believe) is nothing but compact felspar; which is 

 fusible, containing silica, al amino, an alkali, and iron — precisely the 

 components of the rock of Palicondah, according to Lieut. Campbell. 

 We can further state that Dr. Benza's own specimens of eurite in our 

 possession, exhibit all the external characters of that rock. 



Thirdly, as to the silicious schist — that rock being a slate composed 

 principally of silex ; and hornstone being of similar chemical compo- 

 sition, but wanting the slaty fracture ; if the schistose character is ob- 

 servable in the mass (it clearly is in Dr. Benza's specimens), the term 

 he applies is likely to be the correct one. — Editor. 



