Natural Science News. 



VOL. II. No. 10. 



ALBION, N. Y., APKIL 4, 1896. 



Weekly, $1.00 a Tear 





Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and items of interest to the 

 student of any of the various branches of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. 



Price, One Dollar a Year. 



To Foreign Countries in the Universal Postal 

 Union, $1.50, equal to 6 s., or 6 marks, or 8 francs, 

 Single copies, 5 cents each. 



Subscriptions can begin with any number. 



Remittances should be made by Draft, Express 

 or Post Office Money Order, or Registered Letter. 

 Unused U. S. Postage stamps of any denomina- 

 tion will be accepted for fractional parts of a dol- 

 lar. Make Money Orders and Drafts payable, 

 and address all subscriptions and communica- 

 tions to FRANK Ii. L \TTIN, 

 Albion, Orleans Co., N. Y 



Entered at Albion P. O. as 2nd olass mall matter 



The Cryolite of Greenland. 



The earliest mention of the ex- 

 istence of cryolite that I have been 

 able to obtain is in a mineralogi- 

 cal dictionary published in France 

 in 1809, which says that all the 

 cryolite then known was obtained 

 in small lnmps on the coast of 

 Greenland. It appears, however, 

 to have been afterward forgotten. 

 In 1850, during an exhibition of 

 Eskimo tools and products held in 

 Copenhagen under the auspices of 

 the Danish government, Dr. Gus- 

 tave A. Hartman noticed a white 

 mineral of which the sinkers for 

 their fish nets were made. He an- 

 alyzed it, and reported it to be 

 cryolite. The Danish government, 

 in the following year, made inves- 

 tigations and discovered a large 

 bed of the mineral on the west 

 coast of Greenland; in latitude 61 

 degrees 18 minutes. The bed is 

 equally distant from the small col- 

 onies of Julianshaff and Freder- 

 ickshaff, at Ivigtuk ( often erron- 

 eously called Ivigtut), on the Ark- 

 suk Fiord. This bay is accessible 

 to vessels only dnring the early 

 and later parts of the summer, at 

 other times it is full of either pack 

 ice or bergs. 



The shores of the fiord are very 

 mountainous, and vessels in har- 

 bor there make fast to the rocky 

 walls by their bow, while at their 

 stern they can get no soundings. 

 Such was the place where, in 1865, 

 Dr. Julius Thomsen opened a mine 

 of cryolite. Nowhere else in the 

 world can it be obtained so cheap- 

 ly, and in large quantities, for it is 

 only found in two other places, 



Miask, in the Ural Mountains, and 

 on Pike's Peak. El Paso County, 

 Colorado. 



The place where the mineral is 

 now worked is about 12 miles up 

 the fiord from the Danish settle- 

 ment of Arksuk. It is an open 

 cut, 600 feet long by 200 wide, and 

 may be worked from April to Oc- 

 tober. The way in which they 

 protect the mine in winter is inter- 

 esting. 



If the mine were left unprotect- 

 ed, the water which runs into it 

 would freeze, as it appeared, and 

 solidify in layers, so that by spring 

 there would be thousands of tons 

 of ice, filling the mine, which 

 would take a whole summer to dis- 

 lodge. To prevent this, on stop- 

 ping operations in the fall, they 

 flood the pit with water, which 

 freezes on top to about four feet in 

 depth. Then, in the spring, a 

 hole is punched in the ice, the 

 water pumped out, and the re- 

 maining ice is easily disposed of. 

 The mineral is found in solid veins 

 in the granite mountains penetrat- 

 ing upward at an angle of forty - 

 five degrees on one side and down 

 beneath the sea on the other. It 

 occurs in two veins, a central por- 

 tion, about 500x1,000 ft. in section, 

 and a peripheral bed, surrounding 

 the other, and merging into the 

 granite. The line between the 

 two veins is very sharply defined, 

 though there is in some places an 

 intermediate portion, consisting of 

 the minerals of the outer zone, in- 

 closed in cryolite. The outer vein 

 contains nearly all the minerals, 

 including quartz, feldspar, ivigtite, 

 fluorite. cassiterite, molybdenite, 

 arsenopyrite, columbite, siderite, 

 galenite and chalcopyrite. The 

 central portion consists of cryolite, 

 containing pachnolite, ralstonite, 

 quartz, sphalerite, pyrite, wolfram- 

 ite, arksutite (a variety of chiolite) 

 thomsenolite, gearksutite and hag- 

 emannite. Crystallized cryolite 

 occurs in cavities in the mass. In 

 this inner vein, the cryolite is very 

 pure, and increases in purity as the 

 miners descend. At a depth of 

 100 feet from the surface, whole 

 cargoes have been obtained samp- 

 ling 99 1 2 per cent pure cryolite. 

 The impurities in the cryolite, 

 which reduce its commercial value, 

 are the siderite, chalcopyrite and 

 galenite. The fluorides, such as 

 pachnolite, are entirel y unacted 

 upon by the processes to which 

 the cryolite is subjected. 



The entire output of the Ivigtuk 

 mines is sold to the Pennsylvania 

 Salt Manufacturing Co., by the 

 Danish government, while the lead 

 and iron ores are sold to an Eng- 

 lish firm. The siderite perfectly 

 adapted to use in the recarburiz- 

 ing part of the Bessemer process 

 of making steel. 



The name of cryolite oomes from 

 two Greek words, kryos, ice. and 

 litlios, a stone, because when the 

 Eskimos discovered it the}' said 

 they found a new kind of ice that 

 did not melt in the summer. 



In their works at Natrona, Pa., 

 near Pittsburg, the Pennsylvania 

 Salt Co. make the cryolite into 

 carbonate of soda and alum, both 

 of a purity not easily obtained by 

 other processes. The manufact- 

 ure of metallic aluminum from cry- 

 olite has been tried and proved ef- 

 ficient, but is not carried on to any 

 extent at the present time. 



About the time that the contract 

 for the supply of cryolite was con- 

 cluded by the Pennsylvania Salt 

 Co., a party who was in possession 

 of some small fragments made a 

 series of experiments, to test its 

 usefulness in the manufacture of 

 transparent glass. The experi- 

 ments were unsuccessful, but re- 

 sulted in the production of a beau- 

 tiful specimen of opaque glass re- 

 sembling French porcelain, and at 

 a cost far below that of any exist- 

 ing process. The recipe consists 

 of the mixing together of powder- 

 ed cryolite and sand, in the pro- 

 portion of 1 part cryolite to 2 of 

 sand, with half an equivalent of 

 zinc oxide. The zinc oxide need 

 not be at all pure, and makes the 

 glsss readily fusible, as lead oxide 

 does in the flint glass. 



The resulting ware is very hard 

 and tough, so that a vessel of the 

 size of a plate, stamped out of this 

 material with the rapidity with 

 which such articles are made, may 

 be thrown down violently without 

 fear of breaking. The advantages 

 of this material over porcelain are 

 easily seen. Porcelain must go 

 through the tedious and expensive 

 process of mixing and tempering 

 selected clay, moulding on the 

 wheel, drying, baking and anneal- 

 ing, and when finished breaks at 

 sight. 



On the other hand, a tea cup, as 

 dainty and beautiful in appearance 

 as china, yet strong as metal, may 

 be made from cryolite as cheaply 

 and rapidly as an ordinary glass 



