The parish of Engie in Banffshire lies on the south shore of the Moray Firth, to the East of the Spey. From the Spey to Buckle on the East the rock is Old lied Sandstone, which extends from the sea inland for about two or two and a half miles. This sandstone area is bounded on the south by a series of clay-slates and mica-schists. Both on the low and high grounds of this little parish, specimens of Kyanite were often picked up, sometimes associated with quartz, and sometimes with the schistose rocks of the district.

In dana's System of Mineralogy, 5th Edition, 1883, page 747, the following description of this substance is given :—" Crystallisable in needles; butter-like in consistence; colour, white; melting point of impure native material, 47°, Brazier; but of material after solution in alcohol, 51°, Luck ; 52°-52°· Brazier ; easily soluble in alcohol or ether."

In " Notes on some Minerals of the Mawddach Valley, Merionethshire," Min. Mag, Vol. III. p. 122, I referred to their general auriferous character; and to the occasional occurrence of flee or native Gold in workable quantity, often in states of Electrum, &c.

Since then I have been experimenting rather large!y with the auriferous lode-stuff and its enclosing Silurian slate-rock, just at its junction with the coarse Cambrian (or, it may be, pre-Cambrian) sandstone, about 1,000 feet up the Gwynfynydd or white mountain, ascending from the beautiful waterfalls known to tourists as Pistyll-y-Cain and Rhiadr Mawddach.

In the American Eagle Mine, Utah Territory, occur in intimate association with olivenite and other copper compounds, two copper minerals of an interesting and rare composition.

Covering the surface of often large pieces of more or less friable mixed arseniates, sometimes forming a complete green coating, are numbers of beautiful emerald-green globules. In consequence of the firm adherence of the base of the globules to the underlying gangue matter, it was difficult to obtain material pure enough for analysis, and therefore the results given below lay no claim to great accuracy.

In the Article "Mineralogy,"in the Encyclopædia Britannica, written by Professor Heddle, of St. Andrew's, that gentleman gives the formula of Zoisite :—

4 CaO, 3 Al2O3, 6 SiO2+H2O.

Alumina 29·8; Lime 24·35; Oxide of Iron 2·8; Silica 40·3; and Water 2·1.) Cleavage, brachy-diagonal, perfect : H=6, G—3·2 to 3·4. White, brownish gray, and dark green. Localities, Glen Urquhart , Dalnein (Grantown), and Alt Gonalan, Inverness-shire ; Sterzing in Tyrol, the San-Alp in Carinthia, the Urals, and Connecticut.