Anyone who contemplates on a map the great size of this island in geographic extension, and its extraordinarily irregular outline, would conclude that it must be composed of various formations, and that the connections and dispositions of these must be intricate in the extreme.

The latter conclusion will, however, upon a more careful observation, be found to apply only to the western portion of the island. However deeply trenched by the sea iu its lower grounds, however persistently thrusting its cliffs oceanward in its higher, the ridged and furrowed outlines of the eastern, disposed in almost rectilinear sequence, indicate but one formation,—various as the members of that formation may in mere lithological features appear.

Some extremely beautiful but rather soft gems of various green hues have been extensively sold during the last year or two. They are found in the gold washings of the river Bobrowska, near Poldnewaja, district of Syssersk, in the Urals, and occur in the form of nodular masses, varying in size from a pea to a chestnut. These closely resemble the jelletite from Monte Rosa. All the specimens which I have examined present a roughly radiate structure, are irregularly fissured and veined, and are coated with a talcose mineral, glistening and nearly white. The exposed uninjured surfaces of the nodules are minutely and unevenly striated. The mineral shows no cleavages, but the broken surfaces have a resinous or semi-adamantine lustre, and show a small conchoidal fracture.

In a former paper I pointed out that it was likely that some of the rocks and minerals at present classed as magnetic were so only by reason of intermixture of a silicate of iron having the formula of Fe 3 O4 2 Si O2, or Fe8 Si2 O8, and that when purified from the particles of this body by pulverization and magnetic sifting, they might be found to be either much less magnetic or even diamagnetic.

The vast commerce of Liverpool enables those resident in it to observe some very interesting mineralogical facts, though its position among the gently undulating hills of the New Red Sandstone deprives them of the opportunity of collecting indigenous minerals.

Having in the course of the past few years specially studied some of the chrysocolla ores imported there, I have been very much struck with the vast differences to be detected in most of their physical characters. These differences in fact are of such importance, as will be seen in the sequel, that I have thought it advisable to mention them to some of our ablest English mineralogists and at their request I have been tempted to insert a record of them in the pages of the Mineralogical Magazine.

One and all of the writers who notice the substance or substances which have received the trivial names of mountain cork and mountain leather, agree in placing them among the fibrous amphiboles, intermediate between asbestus and rock wood.

In a monograph of the hornblendes, lately published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, I have indicated that the above view was probably incorrect ; and having, since that monograph was issued, obtained and analysed several specimens from other localities, I now propose to show that this is a substance distinct from amphibole, and from any any other known mineral.

During this autumn I had the opportunity of examining several different batches of celestine which had been dug out of the foundations of houses in this neighbourhood. On analysing one specimen which I took to be blue celestine, barium was found to be present in considerable quantities ; I then made a more exact qualitative analysis but failed to detect calcium or any other metal. The mineral then obviously consists of a double sulphate of barium and strontium, and a mineral of that kind has been found by Thomson, and was called by him baryto-celestine. Baryto-celestine, so far as I can ascertain, has not, however, been previously found in the British Isles.

At the General Meeting of the Society held at the rooms of the Royal Microscopical Society, King's College, London, on March 14th, 1877, were exhibited some octahedral crystals of iron, which were procured from a hollow cavity in the middle of a bar of pig iron. The way in which they came into my possession was this.

A friend was walking on the Docks at Liverpool some years ago, watching a vessel being unloaded, which had arrived freighted with pig iron from Gartsherrie. These pigs were lifted by cranes, and one accidentally slipped, and dropped on to its end, and was fractured in two pieces, showing a cavity about the size of a duck's egg, and his attention was drawn to some bright lustrous objects which he saw roll out of the cavity. These he at once picked up, and found they were crystals of the metal, octahedral in shape, and about ⅗ of an inch in size.