1876.] 
M ineralogy. 
565 
The Secretary read notes on a mineral from New South Wales, presumed 
to be lamontite, by Prof. Liversidge, F.G.S., “ Some Notes from an Old 
Catalogue of Minerals,” by Prof. A. H. Church, and “Notes on Occurrence 
of Achroite at the Rock Hill, in the parish of Austell, Cornwall, and on the 
Black Tourmaline of the same locality,” by J. H. Collins. 
The following is an illustration of an upright blowpipe with spectroscope 
adapted to its little lamp, contrived by Capt. Marshall Hall, for the purpose of 
discriminating in travelling between potass and soda and man3 r other minerals. 
Capt. Hall remarks that “ with hammer, chisel, lens, bottle of acid, magnetic 
penknife, and a little patience one can be far more independent of a laboratory 
than might be imagined. It is far more interesting to be able to determine a 
mineral on the spot, more especially as regards petrology, than to have to 
colled extensively and defer examination except with the blowpipe, which, as 
every one has to his aggravation experienced, leaves one sadly in the lurch 
when one gets amongst impure alkalies and alkaline earths. As an instance 
he has detected both baryta and strontia in arragonite, which blowpipe solus 
failed to show.” 
We have received “ A Catalogue of the Published Works of Isaac Lee, 
LL.D., from 1S17 to 1S70.” which contains an enumeration of 223 papers on 
mineralogy, geology, palaeontology, and malacology. 
GEOLOGY. 
The second part of the eleventh volume of the “ Memoirs of the Geological 
Survey of India,” published under the direction of Dr. Thomas Oldham, 
F.R.S., is devoted to an account of the Trans-Indus salt region in the Kohat 
district’. In this locality occur some of the largest exposures of rock salt 
known to exist upon the globe. The area occupied by these deposits is 
included within about a thousand square miles ot country . The general 
aspect of the country is wild, rocky, and barren, almost bare of trees, and 
supporting nothing worthy oi the name of jungle.. The colouring of the 
ground is often vivid, whole ranges taking a green tint, not trom grass Dut 
from the colour of the rocks, which are strongly contrasted with others of a 
bright purple. Zones of blood-red clays are varied by the white of adjacent 
gypsum, and interspersed with pale orange debris. The salt-beds occur in a 
nummulitic limestone, probably of the eocene period, and immediately below 
white, grey, and black gypsum with bands of dark grey cla\ , or black alum 
shale,’ sometimes impregnated with petroleum or bitumen. The upper part of 
the salt rock is bituminous, and its thickness varies from 300 to 1200 feet. In 
