The name xanthoconite was given by Breithaupt (1) to a mineral which he found in 1840 associated with proustite upon an old ore-specimen in the collection of the Berg-Akademie at Freiberg. He describes it as occurring in reniform masses with a surface consisting of microscopic crystals, but with a crystalline granular interior.

In the early part of this year Mr. W Goodlet, laboratory assistant to Prof. Black, of the Dunedin University, submitted to me for examination a mineral specimen which he had brought from a journey of inspection of the gold fields of the West Coast, Middle Island. It had, so he told me, been broken from a boulder, about 40 lbs. in weight, which was found in the gold drift of a claim at Back Creek near Rimu, Westland, and placed aside by the claim owners as something uncommon, because of its weight and colour.

This rare mineral, the Dufrenoysite of yon Waltershausen and others, crystallising in the cubical system, has been made the subject of careful investigation by several observers, with the result that, up to the present moment, it is doubtful whether the character of its forms is holohedral or hemihedral with inclined faces. Hessenberg found that the mineral crystallised holohedrally, but Groth, confirming Kenngott's view, states that the best crystal in the Strassburg University collection shows a distinctly hemihedral development.

In my paper "On the Micro-chemical Analysis of Rock Making Minerals, '' I noticed the abnormal behaviour of globules of lithium phosphate Li3PO4 + H2O in polarised light; the dark cross which ought to remain fixed when the globule is revolved between crossed nicols, opening up, in some cases, into two hyperbolic branches like those of a biaxial crystal in converging polarised light. I find that similar ano. malous results may be obtained from the globules yielded by other salts; as for example those of the double sulphates of beryllium and potassium (BeSO4K2SO4 + 2H2O), and of lithium and sodium (LiNaSO4).

In the appendix to the paper on the new mineral, baddeleyite, in the last number of the Magazine, Mr. Fletcher proves the identity of that mineral with the brazilite of Husssk, and explains the deviation in specific gravity and the original incorrect determination of the chemical composition of the Brazilian mineral by the supposition that the crystallographic measurements were made on the true mineral, while the specific gravity determination and chemical analysis were made on another, a tantalo-niobate of yttrium associated with it.

Now that the measurement of extinction-angles in cleavage-flakes is frequently used to assist in the identification of minerals, the question of the relation of angles so measured to the orientation of the optic axes is one that must frequently arise. I confine myself here to the case of monoclinic minerals, such as hornblende and augxte, in which the optic axes are parallel to the clinopinacoid and the cleavage is prismatic.

In the present paper an attempt will be made to summarise known facts respecting the mode of occurrence of gold in its matrix, and to draw certain inferences from these facts as to the manner in which the gold has been deposited. The general opinion of miners that it has been introduced by igneous action, in a state of either fusion or volatilization, does not agree with modern theories of the origin of metalliferous veins, which ascribe their existence to hydrothermal action, or at any rate suppose the metals to have been introduced in aqueous solution.

I believe that the green ' Skin' of Agates will prove to be celadonite and not delessite, as has been generally supposed." This is an extract from a paper by one of us, which was published in 1879 in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Quarrying for agates upon a large scale having been carried out for several weeks during a succession of years on the shore of Forfarshire, an unusual supply of tile soft coating which frequently invests them was obtained.