The manganese ores of the Benallt mine are pervaded by an orange-coloured mineral which occurs very poorly crystallized as patches and small specks in the matrix. Less commonly it occurs as minute flakes in the ore and sometimes as a constituent of very thin veins which traverse the ore. In some specimens the mineral is better developed. It then shows a good cleavage and resembles in appearance in thin section a weakly pleochroic mica or chlorite. Patches of this mineral in the matrix frequently enclose very small rounded garnets which are believed to be spessartine.

In 1932 Dr. A. F. Hallimond examined some sections of ore from the old Benallt mine for Dr. C. A. Matley and suggested that one of the constituent minerals might be a manganiferous chlorite.

The Isle of Rum contains one of the most interesting assemblages of plutonic rocks of Tertiary age in the British Isles. The pioneer work of Macculloch and the later exploratory efforts of Judd and Geikie were followed by an admirable account of the rocks by Harker, given with his usual lucidity and precision. In 1938 I spent a fortnight on this island, and this paper—the outcome of my visit—aims merely at supplementing Harker's petrographical description by certain quantitative data in respect of the ultrabasic and basic rocks found there and of recording certain observations relating to the igneous tectonics.

The earliest phase of igneous activity on Rum was the eruption of doleritic and mugearitic lavas. As shown by Bailey the eruptive phase of igneous activity was followed or accompanied by the formation of a ring-fault and two subordinate vents iufilted with explosive breccia and intruded by felsite. The space inside the ring-fault was then intruded by a banded peridotite-allivalite complex and later by eucrite in the form of a semicircular ring-dike and associated sheets. Finally, a granophyre boss was intruded along the western side of the ultrabasic-basic complex.

In recent years there has been little essential change in the design of the petrological microscope. F. E. Wright directed attention to the improvement that could be obtained by using a full-sized condenser with a large polarizer, but the high cost of the latter seems to have restricted its use to a few special models.

With the introduction of ‘polaroid’, a thin, intensely pleochroic film mounted between glass disks, this restriction no longer holds. A polarizer can be supplied of sufficient size to cover an ordinary Abbe condenser, while the analyser no longer requires the compensating lenses which usually accompany a calcite prism, with the indirect result that the definition of the interference-figure is improved.

Research into the history of the old mines suggests that two mineralized fissuring systems intersect in central Devon, often carrying commercial ore-bodies. The older of these is the east-west system usually carrying copper, iron, or tin, which has been extensively worked in west Devon, but is less developed on the eastern flank of the Dartmoor granite massif.

The younger north-south series, characterized by its lead and silver ores and baryte is particularly well developed in the Teign valley. This band of mineralization can be traced from the north of Scotland through Brittany and Spain to Algeria. In Devon it appears to be divided into three main fissure bands:

1. 1. Combe Martin to Plymouth.

2. 2. North Molton to Spreyton, with a possible extension south of the Dartmoor granite.

3. 3. Molland to Newton St. Cyres and the Teign valley.

In 1941 the Home Ore Department of Iron and Steel Control, Ministry of Supply, took over the old Benallt manganese mine at Rhiw in the Lleyn Peninsula, Carnarvonshire. A new shaft was sunk and a new mine was developed among and mainly below the old workings. It was in one of the old workings of Benallt that Mr. (now Sir) Arthur Russell discovered in 1911 the well-crystallized specimens of celsian and paracelsian recently described by Dr. L. J. Spencer.

Dr. A. W. Groves of the Mineral Resources Department of the Imperial Institute and geologist to the Home Ore Department had had a sharp look-out kept for the reappearance of the barium-felspars in the new workings, and when thin bands of coarsely crystallized but compact, white ‘sparry’ minerals were found in one of the ore-bodies he sent specimens to the Department of Mineralogy of the British Museum for investigation.

The Little Avon river rises on the scarp slope of the Cotswolds near Hawkesbury, 14 miles north-east of Bristol, and flows in a westerly direction over Mesozoic strata, until half a mile south-east of Wickwar it cuts through the Triassic mantle and exposes to view three inliers of Wenlock Limestone (Whittard & Smith, 1944, p. 65 and map). The West Gloucestershire Water Company was interested in the valley as a possible site for an impounded reservoir, and as part of a preliminary survey a trial-shaft was sunk into the Wenlock Limestone of the southernmost inlier situated near Sturt Bridge. The shaft penetrated 28 feet of dolomitized siltstones and crinoidal limestones, and at a depth of 4 feet it entered a band of calcareous chamositic siltstone averaging 9 inches in thickness. The shaft had been completed and the sides boarded before we heard it had been sunk; the hand-specimens were therefore obtained from the tip-heaps, but there is no doubt that all the material originated from the same horizon.

Cuttings from their Eskdale no. 2 boring, Aislaby, near Whitby, at a depth of 4095–4100 feet from the surface were presented to the Geological Museum by the D'Arcy Exploration Co. Limited, in response to a request for a specimen from the Permian Saliferous Series which might contain polyhalite, a mineral already recorded by Professor C. E. Tilley from this boring (Min. Mag., 1943, vol. 26, p. lvii). The cuttings were examined by Dr. J. Phemister who found no polyhalite in them, but a small quantity of a mineral which he thought was probably boracite. In response to a request for additional material the company very kindly supplied further cuttings from depths in the bore between 4090 and 4160 feet.

Lxullianite is well known, at least by name, in this country, and indeed it enjoys an international reputation among petrologists. Its general characters have been described by Bonney and Sir John Flett, while reference to the type is to be found in most standard text-books on petrology. It is, however, a rock of outstanding interest and deserves fuller description and illustration than have yet been accorded it.

The preparation by Mr. A. V. Weatherhead of a large set of thin sections for teaching purposes has given the writer an opportunity of making a more detailed examination of the micropetrology of the rock, with special reference to the manner of the replacement of the several original components.

Palmer's investigation of the chemical and mineralogical aspects of soil-forming processes was restricted to comparative chemical analyses of the weathered shells and the essentially unaltered cores of certain spheroidal basic boulders from Wahiawa in the Hawaiian Islands.

The present writer describes an experimental approach to the general problem of rock-weathering on lines suggested by Dr. A. Brammall:

1. (a) Electrodialysis of eight typical rock-forming mineral silicates, each of which was dialysed separately after having been ground to an impalpable powder and analysed in detail.

2. (b) Assessment of the effect of dialysis by comparing the composition of the unaltered mineral with that of the slime left in the mineral-chamber when dialysis was virtually at an end.

3. (c) X-ray and kathode-ray tests on three of these minerals and the corresponding slimes, to ascertain whether colloidal end-products associated with, or coating, particles of unaltered mineral had integrated to form one or other of the specific ‘crystalline colloids’ identifiable in soils and clays.

Cristobalite is found as the first product in the conversion of quartz following a high-temperature heating, and it constitutes a large percentage of the crystalline material in most manufactured silica bricks. It is present also in fireclay products, the amount being dependent upon the nature of the raw material and the conditions of firing. In the majority of these products the cristobalite is only poorly developed, i.e. the crystals are only perfect over distances of the order of about 1 × 10-6 cm. This value is derived from the diffuseness of the high-order reflections on the X-ray powder photograph. On the other hand, the crystals of cristobalite are well developed in the hot face of an open hearth silica roof-brick.

On June 6, 1940, Mr. John Blackwood of Leadhills, while searching for gold in the alluvial wash at the head of the Shortcleuch Water, Leadhills, Lanarkshire, a spot which has for many years been the happy hunting ground of Mr. Blackwood and John D. Weir, Leadhills' two most persistent and successful gold winners, was lucky enough to discover a water-worn mass of gold in quartz weighing 501·2 grains, by far the largest and richest specimen that has been found within the memory of those living in the district. The specimen (plate I) was found while removing a mass of rock at a depth of about 3 feet, the exact spot being a few yards from the east bank of Shortcleuch Water, about midway between the ruined Lowther Cottage (wrongly shown on the six-inch Ordnance map, Lanarkshire 49 NE., as Lauder Cottage) and the junction with the Windgate Burn (Windgate Foot).

In the early days of X-ray crystallography the study of the atomic and molecular structure of crystals was of primary importance. It was more necessary to know the arrangement of the atoms in, say, rocksalt, quartz, diamond, or graphite, than to know the exact distances apart of the atoms, or the small deviations from the mean atomic structure which may result from heat movements, eccentricity of growth, mechanical distortion, and other factors.

Now, however, the range of problems is widening, and X-ray methods are being used as a research tool by many workers whose main interest is in other branches of science. It is necessary, therefore, to point out that the familiar Bragg law, nλ = 2d sin θ, which relates order of spectrum n, wave-length λ, crystal spacing d, and diffraction angle θ in an ideal crystal, though still of course applicable, must be applied with some caution to crystals which are not ideal in either structure or texture, and which may be of irregular or eccentric shape.

Of the many small manganese deposits which have in the past been worked in both Cornwall and Devonshire that of Treburland is from the mineralogical point of view by far the most remarkable, its especial interest being due to the variety of minerals which it has afforded and to the fact that it and one other are the only manganese deposits in the west of England which are known to lie on the contact of igneous and sedimentary rocks and which have consequently been vitally affected by contact metamorphism.

The following observations are based on frequent visits to the spot since the year 1906, when I first stumbled across the locality, which, strange to say, has only received very cursory mention by the Geological Survey and has altogether escaped mention in mineralogical literature.

A peculiar occurrence of anhydrous sodium sulphate, thenardite, has recently been discovered below the salt crystallizing pans at Didwana, Jodhpur State, India. Here salt (NaCl) is crystallized out by evaporation in open pans from brine obtained by sinking wells alongside the pans, to a depth of about 15–20 feet below the surface. The land surface consists of very fine sandy silt and the salt-pans are made by cutting shallow depressions about 120 feet long by 85 feet wide, a low ridge of silt about 2 feet high and 3 feet broad being left between them. The pans are cleaned out at the beginning of the salt season (February-March): the brine from the wells is run into them to a depth of 1 to 2 inches and the salt crystallizes out by evaporation.

It seems to be a peculiarity in the history of the diamond that from time to time operations which have been known from time immemorial are re-invented and claimed to be new. For instance, cleaving, which is said to have been known to the Indians, was discovered again by W. H. Wollaston. It is obvious, too, that cleaving was already known to A. B. de Boodt in 1604. The same applies to the sawing of gems by a thin rotating disk, which seems to be as old as the engraver's treadle lathe (earliest reference about 1520) ; but this art does not seem to have been applied to diamonds, as the first reference to diamond sawing with a thin rotating blade is that in 1874. All previous references seem to be to the sawing of diamonds with a thin wire moistened with a paste of diamond dust and oil, and otherwise designated as the Chinese method. Other gemstones, were always sawn with thin disks on lapidaries' benches with vertical spindle. Similar remarks may be applied to bruting and drilling, but only polishing seems to have always been recognized as the main operation.

The Struy lead mines (Six-inch ordnance Survey, Inverness-shire, sheet 17) are situated on the west side of Strath Glass, about two miles south-west of Struy village, and comprise three distinct sets of small long-abandoned workings, two of them being in the nature of trials only. All three workings are shown on the six-inch map, and are on veins traversing the Moine schists. The Geological Survey Memoir of the district says that four veins may be traced on the hill face between the Dùn south of Struy school and Crelevan; if this is correct there are two outcrops I have not seen. The mines are on what was until a few years ago part of Lord Lovat's estate. The date of their discovery is not known, but they were apparently worked about the year 1818 by Thomas Alexander Fraser (afterwards 12th Lord Lovat) at the same time as his graphite mine in Strath Farrar; most of the work seems, however, to have been done by him between 1838 and 1845, when miners were brought from England and housed in cottages specially built for them in Struy village. In 1864 the Loch na Mèine workings were cleared and prospected, but since then no further work has been done.