A new occurrence of holmquistite is described. The mineral is found in amphibolite at the contact of a lithium pegmatite. Chemical analyses and optical data of the holmquistite and an associated hornblende are given.

Natural Mn oxides are an important component of biogeochemical cycles in many environmental settings. Mn oxides are strong oxidizing agents, facilitating the breakdown of organic contaminants and enhancing humification of soil organic matter. Interactions with metals and radionuclides, including surface adsorption, sequestration and oxidation can lead to incorporation of metals into insoluble mineral phases and a consequent reduction in bioavailability of toxic contaminants. Because of these properties, addition of Mn oxides may prove an effective treatment method for land contaminated by a range of organic and inorganic contaminants.

There is general agreement as to the basis on which most major igneous rock-types are defined despite some difference of opinion as to quantitative limits. This is not true of diorites and gabbros (or of their hypabyssal and volcanic equivalents) in distinguishing between which at least four different criteria are in current use.

Favourability of uranium mineralization in six tertiary granitic plutons of the Alaska Range in the Talkeetna and Mt McKinley quadrangles was studied. The uranium concentrations of drainage sediment samples, which were collected and analysed by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for the National Uranium Resources Evaluation, were statistically evaluated and compared to those of the surrounding area using factor and cluster analyses. The results of this study suggest that five of the six plutons under consideration are likely to contain uranium mineralization. These plutons are probably a potential source rock for uranium in the region.

During the year 1919 specimens of some of the meteorites preserved in the Public Museum of King Willlam's Town, South Africa, were kindly placed by the Curator, the late Yr. F. A. O. Pyre, at the disposal of the writer for investigation. One of these specimens was a meteoric iron labelled Mount Ayliff, another a mass of oxidized material labelled Western Cape Province, and a third a small piece of iron labelled ‘found on Elandsburg at an altitude of 6,000 ft. in 1888’ Unfortunately Mr. Pyre was not in a position to supply very much more information about the specimens.

On Saturday, September 18, 1902, at 10.30 a.m. (Irish time), a stone coming from the sky struck the earth (let. 54° 88' 20" N., long. 6° 12' 10" W. of Greenwich) at a farm, belonging to Mr. Andrew Walker, situated in the district termed Crossbill, a mile to the north of the village of Crumlin, in which there is a station of the same name on the line of railway between Lisburn and Antrim. The place of fall is 3½ miles east of Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles, and I2 miles almost due west of Belfast, in which city nearly two thousand members of the British Association were then assembled for the annual meeting (September 10-17).

It is but seldom, at least in the experience of the writer, that a new mineral locality is now found in this country. By a mineral locality I mean, not a spot where one or two specimens may be gathered, but one at which there is a supply sufficient to entitle it to be recorded as a spot likely to be productive to a sequence of gleaners; and such as holds out hopes of its yielding specimens of more than average excellence.

The instrumentation and procedure is described for the extraction of very small and pure samples from polished mounts and thin sections of minerals, for X-ray analysis and other micro-analytical techniques. It uses a stand-mounted, tunable ultrasonic probe (400 W/15–50 kHz) inclined at 45°C to a microscope stage. The tip of the probe, usually a steel needle, is located on the desired mineral and an appropriate ultrasonic frequency is selected. Very fine powders are produced from grains as small as 0.01–0.005 mm. A distinct advantage of this technique is that, as different minerals powder at different rates and different frequencies, it is possible to separate a single mineral from an intergrowth of two or more minerals.

Calcite is widespread in amygdales associated with the zeolites; the characteristic forms being and a steep scalenohedron in the zone , usually . Crystals from one locality have faces of , a form new to calcite.

In October 1875 the late J. G. Goodchild recorded his then recent discovery of a mineral which he stated 'he believed' to be wulfenite and which he had found on an old mine dump near Carrock Fell, Troutbeck, Cumberland. One specimen only was, I believe, found by Mr. Goodehild, and this he presented to the Carlisle Museum, where it has been seen by myself, the label bearing the more precise locality of Brandy Gill.

It is now well recognized that quartz undergoes a sudden change near 575° C., and Wright and Larsen (1) have shown that the characteristics of quartz formed above or below this point are so marked that they can be utilized to determine the temperature of formation of rocks containing quartz. Quartz formed above 575° so-called β-quartz, is of distinctly hexagonal development, and occurs generally as regular hexagonal bipyramids with or without a subordinate prism-face. These external characteristics are of course preserved on cooling, and the bipyramids are converted into apseudomorphous aggregate of α-quartz.