162 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES! &C, 
has a finer grain, and perhaps a finer polish, but some specimens 
of the new coal in Colonel Butter worth’s possession are almost, 
if not quite, equal to it in those respects. The aspect is so en¬ 
tirely that of jet, that, although it is of little consequence whether 
it be denominated cannel coal or lignite, we consider the most ap¬ 
propriate mineralogical name would be highly bituminous jet. The 
larger portion of the contents of Captain Congalton’s bag, however, 
is not this lignite, but a compact, hard, blackish (sometimes brown¬ 
ish black) stony substance, saccharoid in texture, consisting of fine¬ 
ly granular quartz and carbonaceous matter intimately blended, 
some of which may be termed an exceedingly siliceous or impure 
anthracite or pseudo anthracite, although in most of the specimens 
* 
we can hardly determine by the eye whether it is the original lignite 
or wood plulonically converted into proper anthracite with a great 
excess of silex, or sedimentary sand and carbon intermixed which has 
filled the hollows and interstices of the wood prior to the meta- 
morphism of the whole. 
In one very fine specimen, for which we have to thank Colo¬ 
nel Buttcrwortb, the texture of the wood is completely preserv¬ 
ed, and its external aspect is exactly that of a piece of half de¬ 
cayed wood. The cross fracture exhibits the fine layers of the 
wood in the most distinct manner. Some are siliceous, varying 
in color from greyish, reddish, and yellowish, to greyish black, 
and others, in less abundance, alternating with these are a fine 
black jet. At one place grey layers of the former regularly al¬ 
ternate with jet which at first is pure but gradually loses its com¬ 
pact texture and resinous lustre, becoming of a dull black and then 
more and more siliceous, granular and greyish, till it can scarcely 
be distinguished from the investing grey layers. At one spot all 
trace js lost, the whole merging into an uniform lapidified base re¬ 
sembling that of the other specimens. In these the siliceous rock 
is found often columnar, resembling in shape and surface a por¬ 
tion of^a trunk or branch of a tree,—very often with a thin en¬ 
wrapping layer of lignite adhering to it, and frequently also with 
seams and irregular veins of lignite intersecting or penetrating it. 
The larger pieces of lignite are sometimes intersected or penetra¬ 
ted in the same manner by the anthracite. 
But the most interesting specimens are those in which the gradual 
