84 
[north 
NATURAL HISTORY. (Fossils.) 
tryoidal, in laminae, and crystallized in minute cubes and octahedrons, 
from Veta Negra in Chili, the Saxon Erzgebirge, &c.— Chloride of 
mercury , or horn-quicksilver,W\\)a. native mercury from Moschel-Lands- 
berg, Almaden, &c. 
Cases 60 and 60 A contain a small collection of organico-chemical, 
or such mineralized substances as are composed after the manner of 
organic bodies, from which they derive their origin. They are divided 
into salts, resins, bitumen, and coal. To the salts belong—the mellate 
of alumina, also called mellite or honey-stone, found in beds of brow T n 
coal at Artern in Thuringia; and the oxalate of iron, formerly known by 
the name of resinous iron, but to which that of humboldtite or oxalite is 
now generally given.—With these is also placed the struvite, a recently 
formed phosphate of magnesia and ammonia, discovered in innumera¬ 
ble crystals on laying the foundation of St. Nicholas’s church, at Ham¬ 
burg, in 1845.—To the resins are referred—the amber, of the varieties of 
which a considerable suite is deposited, many of them inclosing insects, 
&c.; to which, for the sake of comparison, are added, specimens of re¬ 
cent copal, likewise containing insects fossil copal or Highgate resin; 
—retinite or retinasphalt, found at Bovey; together with some other re¬ 
lated resinous substancesthe idrialite, to which the bituminous cin¬ 
nabar or brand-ertz is partly referable. To the bitumina belong the 
varieties of mineral pitch of all degrees of consistence, from the fluid 
naphtha and mineral oil ox petroleum, to the solid and hard asphalt and 
jet or pitch coal; —the elaterite or elastic bitumen of Derbyshire (a suite 
of specimens exhibiting all degrees of solidity, from that of honey to 
that of a compact ligneous substance). With these is also placed the 
dapeche, an inflammable fossil substance found by Humboldt in South 
America, having several properties of the common caoutchouc or Indian 
rubber;—the hatchettine, a bituminous substance from Merthyr Tydvil in 
South Wales; the scheererite; the hartite, and the ixolyte of Haidinger, 
&c. — Coal: black coal, and brown coal —of these a few specimens only 
are deposited, their different varieties being rather objects for a geolo¬ 
gical collection. 
FOSSILS. 
Room I. 
The collections of Organic Remains begin, in Room I. with that of 
the Fossil Vegetables, at present deposited chiefly in the Wall Cases of 
the S. and W. sides of the room. A systematic botanical arrangement 
has been adopted, so far as the limited space and the as yet doubtful 
nature of many of those fossil remains admitted of it. 
Case 1 is set apart for the small number of fossils apparently of 
the class of submerged. Alg^e, such as Fucoides, Confervites, &c. In 
the same Case are provisionally placed those impressions on coal slate, 
of plants with verticillated leaves, known by the generic names of Astero^ 
phyllites, Annularia, &c., and supposed by some to be referable to the 
Naiades ; as also a few that appear to bear affinity to the Marsil ace^e, 
such as Pilularites, Solenites, &c. ; together with some other vegetable 
remains, the nature of which is not yet determined. 
