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The “Satin Spar” of Alston in Cumberland; and the Determination of Massive and Fibrosus Calcites and Aragonites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

L. J. Spencer*
Affiliation:
Mineral Department of the British Museum

Extract

Owing to the fact that aragonite frequently occurs in fibrous aggregations, as in "flos ferri,' it seems to have been sometimes assumed that all fibrous specimens of calcium carbonate are aragonite.

On these grounds the " satin spar" from Mston Moor in Cumberland is often referied to aragonite, although it has more than once been shown to be really calcite. Miller refers to it under aragonite, as being from "Dufton in Cumberland, '' saying that it contains 4.25 per cent. of manganese carbonate: these figures are those given by J. Holme in a very crude analysis of the satin spar of Alston.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1897

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References

page 184 note 1 Min. p. 569.

page 184 note 2 Dufton is in Westmoreland,

page 184 note 3 Trans. Linnœan Soc. XI. 164, 1815.

page 184 note 4 Tilloeh's Phil. Mag. XII, 364, 1802. The British Mineralogical Society, referred to above, was started in 1799; references to it are to be found in the Phil. Mag. VI. 369, 1800; IX. 282, 1801; XII. 284, 1802; XIV. 289, 1802; XIX. 85, 1804. The objects of the society were especially connected with the mineralogy of the British Isles. The society seems to have fallen through shortly before the foundation of the Geological Society in 1807, and in the first list of the latter society are to be seen the names of many of the 25 members, mineralogical papers by whom were published in the Transactions of the Geological Society.

page 184 note 5 Loc. cit.

page 184 note 6 Abhandl. Akad, Berlin, pp. 7, 11, I856.

page 185 note 1 Manuel de Min. II, p. 118.

page 186 note 1 Abhandl. Akad. Berlin, p. 10, 1856.

page 186 note 2 This was done by H. O. Sorby (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., XXXV. prec. 56, 1879), and was the test he mainly relied upon in distinguishing calcite and aragonite iu shells, corals, &c.

page 187 note 1 Smithsonian Report (U. S. Natlonal_Museum) for 1893-4, 539, 1895. vol. p. 165.

page 187 note 2 Loc. cit. p. 57.

A correction has been issued for this article: