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Fictitious occurrences of iron silicide (ferrosilicon)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

L. J. Spencer
L. J. Spencer*
Affiliation:
British Museum
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Extract

Ferrosilicon is occasionally found under circumstances that suggest that it is a natural mineral. Twice during the past quarter of a century it has been described as a new mineral, and the error was detected only after preliminary accounts had been published. It has also at times been thought to be meteoric. A supposed meteoric iron from North Carolina was described by C. U. Shepard in 1859 as composed of a material to which he gave the name 'ferrosilicine'.

The following notes collected during several years contain nothing new. They are merely brought together to serve as a warning against an error that may recur.

On several occasions between 1924 and 1929 Mr. H. N. G. Cobbe, a consulting mining engineer, sent to me for identification rounded pieces of a metallic substance that had been picked out from the concentrates of the gold dredgers on rivers and creeks in British Guiana.

Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical magazine and journal of the Mineralogical Society , Volume 24 , Issue 150 , September 1935 , pp. 160 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1935

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References

Page 161 Note 1 Lewes, V. B., Journ. Soc. Chem. Industry, London, 1898, vol. 17, p. 532;Google Scholar ' Acetylene ', London, 1900, p. 331.

Page 161 Note 2 Vogel, J. H., Handbuch für Acetylene, Braunschweig, 1904, p. 13.Google Scholar

Page 161 Note 3 Moss, R. J. and Seymour, H. J., Nature, London, 1909, vol. 81, p. 518;CrossRefGoogle Scholar 1910, vol. 82, p. 280.

Page 161 Note 4 Sutton, J. R., A new mineral ?, Nature, London, 1911, vol. 87, p. 314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 162 Note 1 van der Riet, B. de St. J., A supposed new mineral from Du Toitspan, Kimberley. Trans. Roy. Soc. South Africa, 1912, vol. 2 Google Scholar, Proc. pp. xxix-xxx; Nature, London, 1911, vol. 88, pp. 166-167.

Page 162 Note 2 Conder, H., Geological pitfalls. Industrial Australian and Mining Standard, 1926, vol. 76, p. 6;Google Scholar reprinted in Mining Magazine, London, 1926, vol. 35, p. 190.

Page 162 Note 3 Greiner, E. S., Marsh, J. S., and Stoughton, B., The alloys of iron and silicon. New York and London, 1933, p. 66.Google Scholar

Page 163 Note 1 Shepard, C. U., Examination of a supposed meteoric iron, found near Rutherfordton, North Carolina. Amer. Journ. Sci., 1859, ser. 2, vol. 28, pp. 259-270.Google Scholar

Page 163 Note 2 Rammelsberg, C. F., Journ. Prakt. Chem., 1862, vol. 85, p. 88.Google Scholar

Page 163 Note 3 Spencer, L. J., Pseudo-meteorites. Nat. Hist. Mag. (British Museum), 1931 vol. 3, pp. 44-56Google Scholar [Min. Abstr., vol. 5, p. 9].

Page 164 Note 1 , Bears' are masses of metal (sometimes weighing hundreds of tons) found in the foundations of dismantled furnaces, and represent the accumulation of molten metal that has corroded through the furnace lining. These also have often been thought to be ' meteorites '.

Page 164 Note 2 Spencer, L. J., Crystalline forms of carbides and silicides of iron and manganese ('ferro-manganese', &c.). Min. Mag., 1903, vol. 13, pp. 296-302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 164 Note 3 FeSi was first determined to be tetrahedral-cubic by de Schulten, A., Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris, 1911, vol. 152, p. 1107 Google Scholar, and this has since been confirmed by X-ray examination by G. Phragmén (1923, 1926; M.A. 3-337) and H. Möller (1930; M.A. 4-361, 4-460).