56 
. »'nertc i 
January, 1896 
A l c 
New Contributions to the Knowledge of the Swedish Hcille \Uintas. By 
Otto Nordenskjold. (Geol. Foren. i. Stockholm Forhandl., Bd. 17, 
No. 6, 1895.) In a previous paper (Ueber archaeische Ergussgesteine aus 
Smaland; Bull, of the Geol. Dept, of the Univ. of Upsala, vol. 1, pp. 
133-255, 1894) the author has shown that a number of Swedish rocks of 
Archean age, hitherto denominated halleflintas, especially from the 
province of Smaland, are in fact volcanic, in the same manner as has 
been shown for some English rocks much resembling the rocks de¬ 
scribed by Prof. G. H. Williams and Miss F. Bascom from South Moun¬ 
tain (Pennsylvania and Maryland). At the same time it was pointed 
out that a great part of the Swedish halleflintas probably are, as they 
have ever been considered, crystalline schists. In the hope of proving 
this with certainty the author has undertaken the examination of rocks 
from different parts of Sweden, and has succeeded in showing that the 
halleflintas from Utoen are all crystalline schists, probably altered sed¬ 
iments, holding calcite, andalusite, wernerite, graphite, etc. The rocks 
from the mining district of Dannemora and from part of Hvetland 
(Smaland) are in part schists, mostly granulitic or phorphyroidic, often 
mica schists, the real halleflintas, as for instance the well known halle¬ 
flintas from Dannemora, being rather rare. In part the rocks of those 
districts are really volcanic and then nearly always porphyritic, the dif¬ 
ferent kinds of rocks being mostly well separated, with only exceptional 
cases of transitions. It is very probable that they were both formed at 
the same time and at the earth’s surface, but in a quite different man¬ 
ner, and that their present resemblance is due to later alteration. 
The author strongly insists that the differences in these rocks make 
it necessary to distinguish them by different names, considering it best 
to keep the name halleflinta for dense crystalline schists poor in mica, 
and to give, as is now ordinarily done in America and England, another 
name to the corresponding and often very similar igneous rocks ; the 
difference is in fact quite as well marked as between gneiss and granite. 
Whether this name be the same as for the younger volcanic rocks, or a 
name specially applied, is of comparatively small account. 
RECENT PUBL ICATIONS. 
I. Government and State Reports. 
California State Mining Bureau, Bull. 7. Table showing by counties 
the mineral production of California for the year 1894, C. G. Yale. 
II. Proceedings of Scientific Societies. 
Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 26, pt. 4, 1895. The origin of 
the Arkansas novaculites, L. S. Griswold: Origin of the lower Missis¬ 
sippi, L. S. Griswold; The geographic development of Crowley's ridge, 
C. F. Marbut; Remarks on the cuspate capes of the Carolina coast, 
Cleveland Abbe, Jr.; Remarks on the life and work of Prof. J. D. Dana, 
W. H. Niles; On the southwestern part of the Boston basin, J. L. Til¬ 
ton; Cerro Viejo and it volcanic cones, J. Crawford. 
Jour. Cincinnati Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 18, nos. 1, 2. Mineral synthe¬ 
sis, G. P. Grimsley; Manual of the paleontology of the Cincinnati group 
(Pt. VI), J. F. James. 
