A Tertiary dolerite plug at Carneal, Co. Antrim has been contaminated by Chalk with the production of calc-silicates and related minerals. In a larnite-spinel-rock the spinel is of the unusual ferrian variety. It has the composition The spinel, which is brown, has: n, 1·862; D, 3·97; a, 8·1905 Å. A chemical analysis and powder data are given, the implications of experimental data are briefly discussed, and the nomenclature is reviewed.

Dalyite, K2ZrSi6O15, occurs in the ejected syenite blocks of Serra de Agua de Pau (Lagoa do Fogo), São Miguel, Azores, in an assemblage sanidine-arfvedsonite-quartz-aegirine-fayalite-astrophyllite-dalyite-pyrrhite. Other blocks from the same locality contain biotite-zircon in place of astrophyllite-dalyite. A comparison made between the chemistry of one specimen of each type indicates that they may be related by paraeutectoid fractional crystallization.

Gersdorffite belongs to space group P213 in the cubic system with cell dimension a 5·6885 ± 0·0003 Å and four formula units per cell. The hk0 data were measured from precession photographs obtained with Mo-Kα radiation. The structure was solved by Patterson methods and refined by least-squares techniques. This structure has complete ordering of arsenic and sulphur similar to ullmannite.

A study of inclusions within garnet porphyroblasts demonstrates that planar inclusion bands and trails lie sub-parallel to one of the {110} planes of the host. The inclusions provide a relic of a rock fabric that existed before the growth of garnet. It is suggested that this fabric has determined the crystallographic orientation of garnet and may have arisen by the nucleation and epitaxial growth of garnet within or upon the mica lattice.

Specimens of trachyte obtained on a recent visit to the Kaiserstuhl are compared with similar potassium-rich rocks from carbonatite complexes in Africa. Two new chemical analyses are given, in which the values for alkalis (Na2O 1·21, K2O 12·63; Na2O 0·92, K2O 12·18 %) are of interest.

The chemical compositions of eighty granitic rocks from the Lewisian of the North-West Highlands of Scotland, particularly from the Gairloch district, are set out in relation to geological occurrence and their normative proportions of albite, orthoclase, quartz, and anorthite compared with experimental data relating to the systems NaAlSi3O8-KAlSi3O8-SiO2-H2O and KAlSi3O8-NaAlSi2O8-CaAl2Si2O8-SiO2. The field of composition for these Lewisian rocks moves from Ab-Q-rich for autochthonous granites to Ab = Or = Q (approximately) for parautochthonous granites to Or-rich for intrusive granites. This trend is related to the varying roles of mineral solubility under stress, selective melting, and potassium metasomatism.

Two new microanalyses of delafossite from Nizhniĭ Tagil (the type locality) and Kimberly, Nevada, confirm the accepted formula CuFeO2.

Members of the KAlSi3O8-BaAl2Si2O8 feldspar series have been synthesized by hydrothermal methods. Although the products are too finely crystalline for complete detailed study, some X-ray and optical measurements have been made, together with some electron-diffraction observations.

The results presented confirm the existence of high structural states over the greater part of the series, and suggest that a simple solid-solution series is formed between the end-members at high temperatures.

Solid-liquid-vapour phase equilibria for the join Ca(OH)2-Ca3(PO4)2-H2O at 1000 bars are determined in the temperature range 700 to 950°C. The isobaric invariant equilibrium portlandite + hydroxyapatite → liquid on the join Ca(OH)2-Ca3(PO4)2 involves a liquid with the composition 96 wt. % Ca(OH)2, 4 wt. % Ca2(PO4)2 and occurs at 765°C. The isobaric invariant equilibrium portlandite + hydroxyapatite + vapour → liquid on the join Ca(OH)2-Ca3(PO4)2-H2O is encountered at 735°C, and involves a liquid containing 92 wt. % Ca(OH)2, 4 wt. % Ca3(PO4)2, and 4 wt. % H2O. The apatites are shown by X-ray diffraction techniques to vary in composition with changes in the bulk composition from which crystallization occurred.

The apatite liquidus is steep; apatite is the first mineral to crystallize from calcium-hydroxide-rich liquids containing as little as 4 wt. % Ca2(PO4)2 (1·8 % P2O5) at temperatures as low as 735°C in the presence of vapour at 1000 bars pressure; and rapid crystal settling of apatite was experimentally noted. These observations suggest that concentrations of apatite in carbonatites are the result of crystal accumulation from liquids relatively poor in P2O5.

For the estimation of the properties of calcium-iron olivines in ironore sinters, synthetic mixtures of CaO, FeO, and SiO2 were prepared and melted; the obtained olivines were then examined microscopically and by X-ray powder method. The investigations allowed to state, that with the increase of the basicity of sinters, the relation of Fe : Ca in olivines decreases, which causes the change of their physical, optical, and röntgenometric properties.

Some structural analogies found in tsumebite, vauquelinite, fornacite, and brackebuschite make it possible to place these secondary lead minerals in the same series with general formula Pb2MeII(Z)(XO4)(YO4), where MeII is a bivalent cation as Cu2+ or Mn2+, Z is the hydroxyl group or the water molecule, X is S, Cr, or V, and Y is P, As, or V. Some crystallochemical considerations are developed in order to explain how the replacement of these elements affects the crystal structure in these substances.

Vlasovite, Na2ZrSi4O11, previously reported as monoclinic by Pyatenko and Voronkov from an occurrence in the Kola Peninsula, Russia, has been found in rocks from Ascension Island in a triclinic twinned modification. The obliquity is very slight (α and γ, differ from 90° by less than 1°), and X-ray photographs show arrays of paired spots corresponding to diffraction by different parts of the crystal related by the twinning operation, reflexion across (010).

On heating, this vlasovite is found to transform to the monoclinic variety at 29° C. The phase change has been followed on a single-crystal X-ray heating camera, and the obliquity is found to have successively smaller values as the crystal is heated from temperatures below room temperature to 29° C. The obliquity is characteristic of the particular temperature over the transformation range and is not affected by thermal history.

The transformation appears to be a displacive one, similar in some respects to α → β tridymite and α → β cristobalite, and some information has been obtained by X-ray structural investigations about the nature of the atomic movements involved.

Curves relating spacing, Or content, and structural state of alkali feldspars are reviewed. Discrepancies between the compositions of heated natural perthitic alkali feldspars determined by this method and by chemical analysis are discussed and shown to be largely consistent with incomplete homogenization.

Hydrothermal studies in the silica-rich region of the CaO-SiO2-H2O system have given information on the stability field of tobermorite. At saturated steam pressures tobermorite is unstable relative to xonotlite (C6S6H) above 140 °C but between 10 000 and 40 000 lb/in.2 (69 and 276 N/mm2), the decomposition temperature is raised to 285±5 °C. Tobermorite is stable at all compositions between C/S = 0·67 and 1·0 up to this temperature and has a formula close to C5S6H5. Variable compositions reported earlier are thought to be mixtures rather than lime-rich or silica-rich tobermorites.

Data have also been collected on the equilibrium assemblages below C/S = 0·67 and between C/S = 1·0 and 1·5 involving truscottite, gyrolite, xonotlite, foshagite, and hillebrandite.

The geological set-up, chemical composition, physical and optical properties, and X-ray data of one sample of chrome-chlorite (kämmererite) and of a chrome-garnet (uvarovite) from Kalrangi chromite mines, Orissa, India, are presented here. Chrome-bearing solution contributed in the formation of both the minerals in the hydrothermal stage. It is suggested that the garnet is an intermediary form between uvarovite and pyrope.

When the microscope is used in the measurement of reflectivity there is a glare effect, due to internal reflections from optical parts, for which corrections have to be made. In the present paper these effects are measured in a new series of objectives for reflected-light microscopes, and it is shown that the factors involved are the number, curvature, separation, and blooming of the lenses, along with the conditions of adjustment of the microscope. For a given objective the conditions producing the smallest glare are: small area of specimen illuminated and measured, high numerical aperture of the illuminating system, and adjustment of the illuminaton in such a way that the axis of the illuminating beams is slightly oblique. A theory of glare is outlined, and procedures for making the necessary corrections are described—by calculation and by graphical procedure. These corrections can be neglected when a sufficient number of graded standards is used.

The compositions of more than eighty synthetic members of the apatite group with the general formula A10(XO4)6Z2 have been used as a basis for classifying the apatites into three groups. The ratios of the mean sizes of the ‘A’ ions to those of the ‘X’ ions for all these compositions lie between the limits of 1·89 and 4·43. A discontinuity occurs between ratios of 2·50 and 2·60 and probably another between 3·25 and 3·35, and these discontinuities provide a structural basis for the division into the three groups. The groups are named after well-known mineral species occurring in each group, i.e. the vanadinite-svabites with an A : X ratio less than 2·5, the apatite-mimetites between 2·60 and 3·25, and the pyromorphites with A : X greater than 3·25.

X-ray, infra-red, and optical studies suggest that the bluish-grey crust (previously described as plumbogummite) on arsenian pyromorphite from Roughten Gill, Cumberland, is a carbonate-bearing mix-crystal of plumbogummite, hinsdalite, and hidalgoite with a 7·018 Å, c 16·784 Å; arh 6·907, a 61° 3′; ω 1·680, ɛ 1·698.

The effects to be expected from the interaction of possible electric currents at depth with bodies of basaltic magma have been investigated experimentally. Trough-shaped molten specimens were produced in the surface of basalt blocks by heating from above ; the melts were electrolysed and the products analysed chemically.

Si, Al, Ti, P, Fe2+, and probably Fe3+ are concentrated towards the anode, apparently in the form of drifting lattice remnants; oxygen gas is liberated. Na, K, Ca, Mn, and Mg ions concentrate towards the cathode.

Relatively to basalt, the cathodic product is an alkaline and femic rock with normative nepheline and a more acid plagioclase. The anodic rock is distinctly calc-alkaline and salic, with normative quartz and a plagioclase that is more basic. The precise ‘rock-type’ developed depends on the amount of electricity passed, but the trends are distinct. In that increasing basicity and alkalinity (cathodic rocks) are accompanied by both increasing Na/K and Mg/(Fe2+ + Fe3+) ratios (which ratios decrease with decreasing basicity and alkalinity) the electrolytic series developed from a basalt magma appears to have few counterparts among natural rocks.

In the absence of published experimental data on phase equilibria in the ternary system Fe-Sb-S and on the stability relations of gudmundite (FeSbS) and berthierite (FeSb2S4) , some preliminary investigations on the upper stability limit of natural gudmundite are briefly described. On heating in vacuo, As-free gudmundite broke down between 269° and 288°C, an approximate upper stability limit of 280±10°C conforming to the stability relations of the associated phases.