1 34 The American Geologist. Febniury, vm, 
names should be duplicated in them. So true is this, that I abandoned 
the name rosenbuschyte, which I had given to a class of rocks in honor 
of professor Rosenbusch, because only a few weeks previously it had 
l>een employed to designate a new mineral. 
The term zirkelyte was used by me in 1887, or seven years before 
it was taken by Messrs. Hussak and Prior. (See "Preliminary Descrip- 
tion of the Peridotytes, Gabbros, Diabases and Andesytes of Minne- 
sota." Bulletin No. 2. Geological Survey of Minnesota, 1887, pp. 
30-32). It was used to designate the commonly occurring altered con- 
ditions of basaltic glassy lavas which are often called diabase-glass, etc. 
Zirkelyte occurs forming the entire mass of thin dikes, and the exterior 
parts of many dikes of diabase and melaphyr, as well as the surface of 
old lava flows like the melaphyrs and diabases of lake Superior, New- 
foundland and elsewhere. Zirkelyte holds the same relation to tachylyte 
that diabase and melaphyr do to basalt, i. e., an older and altered type. 
The macroscopic and microscopic characters of this rock were given in 
the locality cited above. 
The term zirkelyte was again used in the same way in my "Report 
of the Geological Survey of Michigan" for 1891-1892; (1893, pp. 90, 97, 
138. etc). 
It was also published in my classification of rocks given in the cata- 
logue of the Michigan College of Mines (Michigan Mining School), 
1891-1892, p. 104; 1892-1894, Table XI; 1894-1896, Table XI. 
Further, the term zirkelyte is defined in accordance with my usage 
in Loewinson-Lessing's "Petrographisches Lexikon," 1893, p. 252; and 
accounts of it are given in the Neues Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie, 1893. 
II, p. 292, and in Kemp's "Handbook of Rocks," 1896, p. 170. 
Michigan College of Mines, Dec. 8, iSgy. M. E. Wadsworth. 
Hoitghton, Michigan. 
PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
Mr. S. a. Miller, of Cincinnati, Ohio, died on Dec. 19. 
aged 61 }ears. He is known for his work in paleontology, 
and more especially for his book entitled "North American 
(ieology and Palaeontology," which appeared in i88q. Two 
appendices to this book have been pnblished. During the 
last few years Mr. Miller contributed many paleontological 
articles to the Bulletin of the Illinois State Museum of Nat- 
ural History. 
Mr. Noah Fields Drake, a graduate student of geolog)- at 
Stanford University, has accepted a position as professor of 
mining engineering and geology at Tien Tsin University, 
China. 
Prof. N. H. Winchell, editor of this journal, sailed from 
New York for Havre on Jan. 15. He expects to spend several 
