214 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
in the preceding spring, contained crystals of that mineral which had become 
altered, white and partially destroyed, the hypersthene remaining unchanged. 
In one locality he found a geode filled with crystallized, or rather crystalline* 
doubly refractive quartz, much fissured and very friable, resembling that from 
Radicofani, associated with which were a number of crystals of tridymite. — 
Jahrbueh fur Miner alogie, 1878, 45. 
Pcmdermite. — Vom Rath has given this name to a lime borate, which 
occurs in the form of rounded nodules, associated with gypsum, in a bed of 
clay-slate at Panderma, on the Black Sea. The new mineral resembles a 
snow-white, finely grained marble, and appears to have a composition 
expressed by the formula 2 CaO, 3 B 2 0 3 , 3 PI 2 0, and to be nearly related 
to the borocalcite of Toscana and Iquique. — Jahrbueh fur Mineralogie t 
1878, 75. 
Sandberger communicated to the last “Naturforscherversammlung” a paper 
on the occurrence of traces of heavy metals in the minerals of the rocks en- 
closing metallic veins. Several specimens of olivine, hornblende, augite and 
mica were observed to contain, in the form of silicates, traces of the metals 
which entered largely into the composition of the metallic minerals traversing 
or associated with them. In the picryte from the Carpathians and serpen- 
tine derived from it, a small amount of nickel and a still smaller quantity 
of cobalt were met with. Copper occurs in the olivine of Naurod and of 
the Ultenthal, as well as in the palseopicryte of the Fichtelgebirge and of 
Dillenburg. The latter mineral contains, moreover, a trace of bismuth. In 
hornblende and augite, copper and cobalt were found. Specimens from 
Andreasberg were examined, and the presence in them of traces of lead, 
antimony, arsenic, and nickel, was recognized. Some micas contain as con- 
stituents lead, copper, cobalt, and bismuth ; while in that variety of the 
mineral which forms an ingredient of the gneiss of Horstein, the presence of 
arsenic was detected. — Rev. deut. chem. Gesell. Berlin , January 14, 1878, 
2233. 
PHYSICS. 
Note on some Phenomena of Electrolysis. — I have much pleasure in furnish- 
ing the following note of some experiments, a preliminary notice of which 
was given to the Physical Society of London, on the 16th of March of this 
year. 
Amongst the well-known effects of passing a current of chemical electri- 
city through a non-metallic conductor are : — (1) Electrolysis, whereby the 
electrolyte is divided into primary and secondary products which, speaking 
generally, bear to one another and to the electrodes a relation homologous 
with that which the metals in the active cells bear to one another and to 
their liquids. (2) There is a bodily carrying-forward of the whole electro- 
lyte in the direction of the current, and this is more marked according as 
the electrolyte is a worse conductor. (3) There is an action compounded 
of the above two. If sulphuric acid be electrolysed, the acidity is increased 
around the + electrode. If caustic soda be electrolysed the causticity is 
augmented around the — electrode. If sulphate of copper be electrolysed 
