The specimens described in this note were collected by Mr. Sydney Ryan, Managing Director of the Ryan Tin Mines, and were presented by him to the British Museum through Mr. John Ballot, who brought them to England.

They were found in the stanniferous gravels of the Embabaan district in Swaziland, S. Africa. Their probable source is the granite-gneiss which forms the base of the rock-series in that district.

The stones to which this paper refers were sent to Prof. Miers for determination by Mr. Francis Powell, and were stated to come " from the diamond washings." They are of a fine green colour, and quite transparent, and possess a highly perfect cleavage parallel to the faces of a prism having an angle of about 88°. This serves to distinguish the material from olivine, which it otherwise much resembles, and --coupled with the uniformly straight extinction through cleavage flakes, the specific gravity (3.199) and hardness (6-7)--suffices to identify the mineral as one of the rhombic pyroxenes.

In the month of September, 1869, Captain Musters, who was st that time making an expedition through Patagonia, had his attention called to a heavy mass of material which he took to be marble. In the account of his journey he afterwards wrote (from memory) as follows:—

"There is in this place, which is called by the Indians Amakaken, a large spherical boulder of marble, which it is the custom of the Indians to try their strength by lifting. Casimiro informed me that this stone had oeen there for many years, and the custom was very old. It was so large and heavy that I was just able to grasp it with both arms and raise it to the level of my knees, but some of the Indians managed to lift it to their shoulders."

Sphærostilbite was one of a number of sub-species which Beudant in his Mineralogy, published in 1832, separated from ordinary stilblte owing to slight differences in chemical composition. In a typical specimen from the Faroe Islands he describes the sphmrosfilbite as innplanted upon ordinary stilhite, in the form of small globules, presenting a fibrous radiated structure and brilliant pearly lustre on the fractured surface. Unlike stilhite, it gelatinlsed with acids, and it also had a specific gravity (2.31) slightly higher than that of stilhite. According to the analyses given by Beudant, however, it differed in chemical composition so little from ordinary stilbite that in later text-books (Glocker, 1839; Breithaupt, 1847, &c.) it has always been referred to that species.

In mineralogical literature there appears to be a tendency to overestimate the degree of exactness attainable in the chemical analysis of minerals. When it is considered how impossible in the majority of eases it is to obtain absolutely pure material for analysis, and how imperfect even in these days are some of the methods of chemical separation employed, for the determination of a formula any great reliance in the figures to the right of the decimal point in the percentages obtained is scarcely justified in the case of analyses made on small amounts (less than half a gram) of material.

In this paper are embodied the results of an examination of the specimens of lead slags from Laurium in the British Museum. On some of the specimens a new mineral, paralaurionite, was found, which possesses the same chemical composition as laurionite, but entirely different morphological and optical characters.

In addition to crystals of the four minerals given in the title, a few crystals oi matloekite and anglesite were noticed, and on one specimen there is a radiating group of prismatic crystals of penfieldite.

In the course of an investigation on calcareous secretions in the animal kingdom, and more particularly on molluscan shells, I found that the latter did not consist of aragonite, as G. Rose and Sorby had supposed, but of a negative, uniaxial mineral, which is distinguished by most of its properties from calcite, and for which I propose the name conchite (KóγXη, shell). I further found that conehite occurred naturally in many localities--always as a crystal aggregate. Its properties were investigated on such, as well as on the eonchite in shells.

In a previous paper, published in 1887, the author described some remarkable crystals of graphitic carbon (Cliftonite) obtained from the meteoric iron of Youndegin, Western Australia; the isolated material weighed only 3 milligrams, and had been left as an insoluble residue after the treatment of 8.32 grams of the iron with aqua regia.

In 1869 the late Dr. Sadebeek gave a brief description of a collection of rocks, accompanied by a map and profiles, made by Dr. W. Sehimper in the neighbourhood of Adowa and Axum, Abyssinia.

In the British Museum is a very similar collection, which was purchased from Dr. Schimper about the same time. As some of these rocks showed points of resemblance to the riebeckite-trachytes of Senafé, recently described by the author, a somewhat more detaBed petrographical examination of the specimens than Dr. Sadebeck was able to afford them appeared to promise something of interest.

This new ilmenite-like mineral, containing lead and manganese, was found in rounded fragments and rough crystals in the diamond bearing sands of Diamantina, Minas Geraes, Brazil (at Dattas, Rio Cipó, &c.).

The Owera Mine is opened on a line of lode or reef consisting of small auriferous quartz veins traversing decomposed hyperstheneaugite andesite. The quartz of the veins is highly ferruginous, and full of little patches of brown hæmatite indicating decomposed pre-existing pyrite, remnants of which are occasionally observed. It is in connection with the veins in the soft country rock and near the surface that the pseudomorphs under notice are found, and it seems probable that they owe their origin to infiltration of silica into cavities left by removal of calcite, though none has the actual form of a crystal of that mineral, which, in fact, is quite absent at the place Yet the specimen (No. 2) found with some of the pseudo-crystals tends to support this supposed origin, the hollows and, more clearly, wax impressions of them showing that the removed crystals were scalenohedra.

A Specimen in the University Museum consists of black tetrahedral blende, exhibiting perfect metallic lustre; indeed, the brilliant steely cleavage surfaces of the mineral and its metallic tarnish raised a doubt whether it could really be blende; but in very thin fragments viewed by transmitted light it is seen to be brown in colour.

It has for many years been proposed to form a reservoir with an area of some 36 square kilometres for irrigation purposes near Hiriyur in Northern Mysore, by erecting a dam at Marikanave, where the River Vedavati or Hagari crosses a rocky ridge running north-north-west and south-south-east.

Doubts were raised as to whether the rock would form a sufficiently firm foundation, but Mr. Robert Bruce Foote, late Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India, and my predecessor as State Geologist in Mysore, reported that it was in every way suitable for the purpose.

The object of goniometrical measurement is to determine in the simplest and quickest manner possible the geometrical constants of crystals and the indices of their faces. The ideal instrument should enable the observations to he conveniently and quickly made, and present them in such a form that the indices of the faces may be easily calculated. It is claimed for the tbrm of goniometer described in this paper that it does approximate to such an instrument. Before entering into the description it will not be out of place to discuss briefly the two types at present in existence, and point out their advantages and disadvantages.

While engaged last summer in arranging the Carne collection of minerals acquired for the Cambridge Mineralogical Museum in the early part of 1899, my attention was attracted by a single, colourless, transparent crystal, about 10 mm. long, implanted in a shallow cavity on a specimen of crystallised axinite from the St. Just district of Cornwall. In general appearance the crystal resembled somewhat closely one of selenite of the ordinary habit, and indeed was entered as gypsum in the catalogue of the Carne collection.

The metallic grey minerals which are found in the white saceharoida! dolomite of the Binnenthal have been known ever since the old priest Walpen of Binn and R. yon Ritz began collecting them nearly seventy years ago.

The name "binnite" was first given indiscriminately to the grey metallic minerals; afterwards these were subdivided into "Kugel Binnit" and " Stangen Binnit."

Since the publication, three years ago, of the ficst of these lists at the end of Volume XI of the Minertdogical Magazine, so many new mineral names have been given that a second list may be useful as a completion to Volume XII. In addition to names which have recently been published are a few earlier names which are not to be found in some of the larger works of reference. The numerous compounded chemical and mineral names for artificial substances prepared by Doelter, Lemberg, Thugutt and others, have, with one or two exceptions, been omitted.