On January 25th, 1899, at 7.54 a.m., a loud noise as of an explosion was heard at the settlement of Zomba, British Central Africa, and for many miles around ; almost simultaneously therewith, several small stones were seen to reach the earth in the neighbourhood of Zomba and were collected by the observers of their fall.

Mr. Alfred Sharpe, C.B., His Majesty's Commissioner and Consul. General for the Protectorate of British Central Africa, Mr. J. F. Cunningham, Secretary to the Administration, and Mr. J. McClounie, the Acting Collector of Revenues, on hearing the detonation, surmised that it had an origin in the entry of a meteorite into the earth's atmosphere, and with praiseworthy zeal and energy at once proceeded to collect, by aid of the telegraph and by personal interviews with the witnesses, all the reliable evidence that could be obtained relative to so extraordinary a phenomenon.

Minerals containing iodine as an essential constituent are of rare occurrence in nature. The most common, and that first described, is silver iodide, which was analysed by Vauquelin in 1825; hexagonal crystals of iodyrite were described by Des Cloizeaux in 1854. Other iodides are marshite and the new mineral miersite ; iodobromite and schwartzembergite also contain considerable amounts of iodine. The existence of mercury iodide seems to be doubtful; the supposed mercury iodide from Broken Hill consists of an intimate mixture of cinnabar and iodyrite. Two iodates are also known, namely lautarite and dietzeite.

Very little is known of the crystalline form of thc somewhat rare mineral stannite, since in the few localities in which it has been found it usually occurs only in the massive state. Several suggestions, summarised below, have been made as to the type of crystalline symmetry of the mineral, but hitherto no crystals have been completely examined.

• (1) Orthorhombic. Haüy (1822), from an examination of cleavage fragments from Cornwall, concluded that the primitive form might possibly be a right rhombic prism.

• (2) Cubic. Haidinger (1825) mentioned Cornish crystals, having apparently the form of regular cubes, but the dulness of the faces did not allow of any measurements. The massive material appeared to show cleavages in the directions of the faces of the cube and rhombie dodecahedron. (Crystals of Cornish stannite are further mentioned on p. 65 below.)

Many minerals of the rhomhie system are of markedly columnar habit, with the axis of elongation, or vertical axis, as one of the biseetrices of the angles between the optic axes. Such a crystal, in a section parallel to the vertical axis, gives straight extinction. It is natural to expect, and is perhaps generally assumed, that a section slightly oblique to the vertical axis will give nearly straight extinction. The object of the present note is to inquire how far this is true, and in what possible cases a serious error may arise.

The anharmonic ratio here considered is that of the pencil (P) formed by the four lines (lying in a plane perpendicular to the zonal axis) drawn from any point M perpendicular to four faces of the zone. The anharmonic ratio of the pencil P is evidently independent of the position of M.

Let four planes be drawn through M perpendicular to the four lines of the pencil P; these are parallel to the crystal faces and meet in a line (the line through M perpendicular to the plane of the pencil P and parallel to the zonal axis).

These four planes are cut by the plane of the pencil in a pencil having the same angles, and therefore the same anharmonic ratio, as the pencil P.

The evaluation of the determinant

occurriug at the foot of page 345, Vol. XII, can be effected without first squaring it. Multiply Δ1 by

say D 1/2, which is the value of the determinant

The result is

Similarly Δ2 and Δ3 may be evaluated.

In August, 1900, several specimens of this mineral were found attached to gypsum-rock supplied to me from the quarry at Kirkby There, in Westmoreland, by Messrs. Joseph Robinson & Co., Ld., of Carlisle, who kindly inform me that the bed of this rock is about 20 feet thick, being overlaid by about 22 feet of marl, &c. There is very little anhydrite, not more than 2 or 3 inches, which, as a rule, is found in the middle of the bed of gypsum. Although I have used this rock for commercial purposes for years past in regular quantities, yet the mirabilite was never previously noticed.

In a previous paper the author pointed out the advantages of a three circle form of goniometer in the determination of the morphological characters of crystals ; the crystal is adjusted once for all, and measurements may be made in any desired zone. A description was added of such an instrument, which had resulted from the addition of a two-circle apparatus to an ordinary Fuess goniometer with a single horizontal circle. This instrument has been in almost daily use since the end of June, 1899, and the author is, therefore, in a position to appreciate the ease and celerity with which crystals, however small, may be in this manner measured. As was remarked in the paper quoted above, the adapted instrument has the disadvantage that measurements can only be made through little more than a right angle from the pole in which the zone to be measured and the zone of reference intersect, and, therefore, only half a zone can be measured without readjustment of the circles B and C.

Baumhauer, 1896, Zeits. Kryst. Min. XXVI, 598-602. Crystallography. with Analysis by Bömer. (Abstract Min. Mag. XI, 225.)

Jackson, 1900, Min. Mag. XII, 287. Analyses.

System : Rhombic. a : b : c = 0·4782 : 1 : 0·5112.

These ratios are calculated from 010 : 350 = 51°7′ and 010 : 111 = 70°45′ measured On crystal No. 1 (see p. 81). A new orientation has been chosen for the crystals, so that the well-developed prism zone is vertical, and the cleavage plane, (001) of Baumhauer, becomes (010) to correspond with the cleavage of jordanite. The parametral plane has also been changed, chiefly on account of the pyramid planes.

In connection with the investigation of ægirine-anorthoclase rocks from Abyssinia, belonging to the grorudite-tingusite series, an examination was made of specimens of the so-called green phonolite from Elfdalen, which in the British Museum collection accompanied the more ordinary brown and red porphyry from that locality. In the descriptions of the well-known porphyry quarries of Elfdalen, mention is made of this green variety as occurring only in boulders. Törnebohm was the first to record the occurrence of these rocks in situ, and to describe their characters, They were found in the form of dykes in the neighbourhood of Heden, near Särna, Dalarne, Sweden, and were interesting as containing cancrinite in clear, well-defined porphyritic crystals as undoubtedly a primary constituent.