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 tho 
necessary grant of land 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 contams 88'45 of peroxide of kon; 
ll'lS of oxide of titanium, with sdica, and only twelve of waste in one hundred 
parts. Taking the sand as it Kes 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 coidd 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 weU has everything 
made from it turned out. Messrs. Moscley, 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 Eound, and the 
MANNER of WORKING THEM IN THE PROVINCE OF MiNAS GaRAES, IN BRAZIL. 
The granite-gneiss of which the shores of Brazil are composed extends without 
interruption as far as the Sierra of Montiguera, 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 tliis gneiss alternate with 
granular quartz, and crystalline 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'Espinhaco. 
Of the rocks which compose the Diamond region the granular (juartz, 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 pyrophy lite-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 Montcvade. This itacolumite is 
beyond doubt a metamorphosed rock, deposited in the first instance by water. 
No fossils have been fomid in it, but traces of wave-marks have been discovered. 
According to Mr. G. Hose, there is at Bissersk, in the Oural, where diamonds 
arc found, no trace of this rock which however closely resembles the schistose 
