Formation of Fe-coatings or segregation at the expense of quartz grains is a common process in the tropical environment. Limited information is available about their internal structure at the submicroscopic level. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray microprobe analyses (EDXRMA) techniques were used to identify the nature and arrangement of fundamental mineral particles within the Fe-coatings. Chemical and mineralogical studies showed that the coatings were composed of well-crystallized Fe-oxides, quartz and kaolinite. The EDXRMA analyses revealed the presence of linear concentrations (laminae) of nearly pure Fe oxide along the edges and the contact zone with quartz and within the coatings. Similar atomic proportions of Al and Si in several areas within the interior regions of coatings and the XRD pattern of the crushed coatings are supportive evidence for the presence of kaolinite. Under the TEM, the dense laminae (< 10 μm thick) consisted of elongated Fe-oxide particles (< 1.5 μm long and 0.2 μm thick) accommodated in subparallel arrangement. The interior areas had very high porosity and, in addition to Fe-oxides, contained other minerals: mainly kaolinite, quartz and isolated areas of Al-oxides. High amounts of ultramicroscopic pores (<0.5 μm) in the interior region suggested that dissolution of Fe-oxides occurred under reduced conditions, with subsequent reprecipitation of pure Fe-oxides in the laminae. Very low porosity and parallel arrangement of Fe-oxide particles (laminae) provided new surfaces (barrier) for Fe-accumulation when soil solutions provided new influxes of iron, thereby creating a thicker Fe-coating. The size and geometry of the ultramicroporosity were shown to play a significant role in the dissolution and precipitation of soil minerals, especially those involved in redox reactions.

Increasingly in certain circles the idea is growing up that ‘intellectual property is theft’. With companies being concentrated into multimedia groups, literary works being captured electronically, products being created for a mass-media culture, commercial exchange on a worldwide scale, the legitimacy of the creator's literary and artistic property is being challenged. Originally the ‘droit d'auteur’ or copyright were mainly protective rules laid down by law to regulate the author's status. The legal system of literary and artistic ownership still ensures that creators receive revenue each time their works are reproduced, adapted or communicated to the public. In addition the droit d'auteur has another aspect through the existence of moral right, which establishes a personal link between author and work. It is true that moral right, which is sometimes seen as an obstacle to economic development, is almost non-existent in the systems of law recognizing copyright, which do not incorporate the same balance of interests as between the author and the company. On the other hand, in its formulation the droit d'auteur takes a more human approach and to say that intellectual property is theft would be equivalent to weakening, or even eradicating, a system that protects individual creators facing the reality of the exploitation of their work. This is why this criticism of legitimacy should, in my view, be considered in the context of a debate about the status of the author. The electronic capture of creative works has meant that the general public has easier access to them.

Let us think about metaphysics not as the subject matter of a discipline—as classical rationalism puts it—but as the “natural place” that arouses our curiosity. Let us see in it something that completes and exceeds, shelters and disables, inspires and invalidates all the questions raised by the effect of a primeval impulse. Rather than metaphysics we should hence speak of “the metaphysical,” a horizon rather than a form of knowledge which vainlessly tries to emulate divine wisdom, we are forced to ponder our point of view, the inquisitive gaze cast on that horizon, not so much as determining a position—since horizons tend to dissipate positions, to blur all point of references—but as a sign revealing a disposition, i.e., the trace of an attitude. As an attitude, this dis-position is a disruption or decentering of our habitual positions concerning the world and a bias that stimulates us to demand another kind of responses to questions which obviously are not those of every day.

The pink clays from the Tagus basin, Spain, were characterized by X-ray difraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Chemical data were obtained by plasma emission spectroscopy and analytical electron microscopy (AEM), and specific surface and cation-exchange capacity were measured also. The data indicate that these pink clays are primarily stevensite. This Mg-rich smectite is characterized by poor crystallinity, a high degree of structural disorder, trioctahedral character (pure magnesian), a very low cation-exchange capacity, a very small crystal size (which generates an abnormally high specific surface area), and a deficiency of octahedral cations. On the basis of the very small crystal size, a large number of edge dislocations, the lack of periodicity (turbostratic) in the structure, and a cellular (spherical) texture observed by TEM, we consider this occurrence to be an early stage of crystallization. Unlike other precursor clay materials described in the literature, this clay is not an alteration of volcanic ash, but it was generated by precipitation from a Si- and Mg-saturated medium.

The flutter of a swooping butterfly. The feverish rush of readers as they move from poem to poem, text to text, as if from flower to flower, pursuing a personal pleasure guided by the law of desire and by reasons that reason has no knowledge of. In the Dictionnaire universel of 1690 Antoine Furetière illustrated the word with the following remark: ‘On dit proverbialement qu'un homme court après les papillons quand il s'amuse à des bagatelles’ (The proverb has it that a man is chasing butterflies when he takes pleasure in trivial things). We are also familiar with the words of Jean de La Fontaine, who did not mince epigrams when, four years earlier, he addressed his old friend thus:

Toi qui crois tout savoir, merveilleux Furetière. (p. 646)

(You who think you know it all, marvellous Furetière.)

I speak of stones that have always lain out in the open or sleep in their lair and the dark night of the seam. They hold no interest for the archaeologist, artist or diamond-cutter. No one made palaces, statues, jewels from them; or dams, ramparts, tombs. They are neither useful nor famous. They do not sparkle in any ring, any diadem. They do not publicize lists of victories, laws of Empire, carved in ineffable characters. Neither boundaries nor memorials, yet exposed to the elements, but without honour or veneration, they are witnesses only to themselves.

The Reveries sur la nature primitive de l'homme are one of the important books of the dawn of the nineteenth century. In this text, Senancour limns an image of the world in accordance with the scientific thought of his time. It is a disenchanted image, dominated by mechanical necessity, and in it the distinction between good and evil no longer holds. God is absent; the world is not his creation. And Senancour expresses no regret:

In Russia a monotheism - Orthodox Christianity - and atheism in its Marxist version have succeeded each other as state systems of rites and representations. Rather than contrasting one with the other, term with term, this paper proposes to bring in a third term: the local religious systems of Russia's animist minorities. We examine how Christianity and atheism tried one after the other to get established there and also consider the reactions they encountered. The analysis as planned is undertaken on two levels: on an overall level we look at the strategies and aims of the state and its representatives, and on the local level - illustrated by the particular example of the Nenets - concrete and always specific mechanisms are presented, which application of general policy has implemented on the ground.

A well-characterized kaolinite has been hydrated in order to test the hypothesis that platey kaolinite will roll upon hydration. Kaolinite hydrates are prepared by repeated intercalation of kaolinite with potassium acetate and subsequent washing with water. On hydration, kaolinite plates roll along the major crystallographic directions to form tubes identical to proper tubular halloysite. Most tubes are elongated along the b crystallographic axis, while some are elongated along the a axis. Overall, the tubes exhibit a range of crystallinity. Well-ordered examples show a 2-layer structure, while poorly ordered tubes show little or no 3-dimensional order. Cross-sectional views of the formed tubes show both smoothly curved layers and planar faces. These characteristics of the experimentally formed tubes are shared by natural halloysites. Therefore, it is proposed that planar kaolinite can transform to tubular halloysite.

Among the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs is a sign that can be termed and defined as a “Black Hole.” It is a circle (writing being two-dimensional) filled in black, appearing in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts for the first time. Initially serving as a determinative for concepts like “death” or “enemy,” it is also later used for words like “pit,” “hole,” or “cave,” and in a few rare instances this black circle determines the word for the Netherworld (dat) or shade.

Alumina-pillared montmorillonite is prepared by intercalation of polyoxyhydroxy aluminum cations (Al137+) of a natural montmorillonite from Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria. Transmission electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and surface area (BET) methods are used to study the untreated and pillared forms of the montmorillonite. A structural model involving deformed Al13 pillars is proposed. Four pillar types are derived and these pillars are uniformly distributed over the interlayer-cation positions of montmorillonite. Calculated electron diffraction patterns were simulated using the multi-slice method. The structural model explains the increased ordering along the c axis of the pillared form compared with the untreated montmorillonite. The model explains the structure of a pillared montmorillonite with different distributions of the pillars in the interlayer. The proposed model is consistent with the observed data.

The uptake of Sr and Cs by 2 types of aluminum pillared layered clays (Al-PILC), a reference sample (AZA) and a specially tailored sample (FRAZA), were investigated. The AZA sample was prepared from air-dried precursors and the FRAZA sample from freeze-dried precursors. X-ray diffraction (XRD), pore and grain size measurements revealed that freeze-drying leads to a very fine-grained material with substantial mesoporosity. In contrast, air-drying results in coarse grains and an essentially microporous material. Four different methods were tested for restoring the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the prepared PILCs. The most effective method proved to be exposing the material to ammonia fumes, then soaking it in a NaCl solution at pH =10. Strontium and Cs kinetic experiments were carried out with PILCs after restoring their CEC by this method. The results revealed 1 fast uptake component in both materials but with different relaxation times for each PILC.

On paper, the Russians left Communism behind at a single stroke of the pen. But within their walls and inside their heads the great majority of them remain material and mental prisoners of the Soviet period, whose tattered remnants still ensure - albeit with increasing difficulty - everyday life and survival. As for the Chinese, they continue to celebrate the glory of Mao in the most official fashion. But within their walls and deep within themselves, they are now decidedly elsewhere.

Electroacoustic measurements at 1 MHz, using the Electro-Sonic Amplitude (ESA), on a kaolinite suspension provide a ready method for following the adsorption of hydrolyzable metal ions onto the clay surface. Co2+, Cd2+ and Cu2+ ions show similar behavior: The initially negative surface becomes less negative, approaches zero, and may become positive at pH values around neutral, depending on the initial metal concentration. At higher pH, electrokinetic potential goes through a maximum. If the surface has become positive, it becomes less so; and at still higher pH values it may become negative again, depending on the metal ion concentration. The behavior can be interpreted using the model proposed by James and Healy.

We are frequently asking ourselves today about the role of the historian in a rapidly changing world. Some expect the past provide them with an explanation or a justification of the present. Others search in history for the basic roots of identity or even for keys to the future. More than ever we are being faced with what Lucien Febvre perceived to be the social function of the historian: “to organize the past as a function of the present.” From this arises a responsibility toward society, as the knowledge that is being produced gains its authenticity through being stamped as officially “scientific.” Faced with the expectations of society and the attention of the public, the historian has been called upon to disentangle events and to furnish a guiding thread, frequently by blending his role as a critic with a civic and an ethical one. Even when we are not dealing with the attempt to set up the historian, through an appeal to his great expertise, as the licensed sage in town, it must be stressed that assuming the rostrum in response to the questions of the time is-provided that the rules of the discipline are strictly adhered to-perfectly legitimate in that it provides history with signifiant depth.

The surface microtopography of hematite over the course of dissolution in oxalic and citric acids was examined by in-situ and ex-situ atomic-force microscopy. In-situ imaging of the basal-plane surface of a centimeter-scale natural hematite sample immersed in 2 mM citric acid demonstrated that the basal-plane surface was relatively unreactive; rather, dissolution occurred along step edges and via etch-pit formation. Ex-situ imaging of synthetic hematite particles following batch dissolution in 1 mM oxalic acid showed similar dissolution features on basal-plane surfaces; in addition, etching along particle edges was apparent. The presence of etch features is consistent with a surface-controlled dissolution reaction. The results are in agreement with previous investigations suggesting that the basal-plane surface is relatively unreactive with respect to ligand exchange. Both in-situ and ex-situ imaging of particle surfaces can provide valuable information on the roles of surface structures and microtopographic features in mineral dissolution.

Lath-shaped hydrothermal illite particles in Izumiyama pottery stone were examined by contact-mode atomic force microscopy (CMAFM) and tapping-mode AFM (TMAFM) in air. With CMAFM, the lath-shaped particles showed interlacing patterns on the (001) surface in deflection images, while in height images such patterns were unclear. Also, evidence of artifacts caused by frictional forces between the surface and tip and/or edge effects were found in the CMAFM height images of the particle and Si substrate surfaces. In contrast, TMAFM showed interlacing patterns clearly in both amplitude and height images, and artifacts were barely evident. The TMAFM height images permitted the accurate measurement of 1.0- or 2.0-nm height steps corresponding to single or double mica layers, as well.

Many lath-shaped particles in the Izumiyama hydrothermal illite exhibit interlacing patterns on their (001) surface, as shown by these AFM observations. The interlacing patterns are characterized by polygonal spirals with comparatively wide spacings and steps having a height of 1.0 or 2.0 nm. Generally a single lath-shaped particle has a single spiral center on the (001) surface, and 2 mica layers rotated 120° originate from the dislocation point. These support the view that lath-shaped illites belong to the 2M1 polytype. It is likely that these illite particles were formed by a uniform process of development that is characterized by very slow growth, spiral mechanisms in that growth and low supersaturation conditions.

Black Africans who were brought to Cuba as slaves represented a variety of origins and belonged to linguistic groups that were as divergent as their cultural backgrounds. A huge majority, however, originated in the Congo basin. The last officially recorded arrival of a slave ship in a Cuban port took place in 1873.

It would be impossible to classify expressions of Bantu origin that were used in the slave trade. The arbitrary label “Congo” has been applied to most such expressions with a view to noting and suggesting a kinship with the cultural and religious heritage branching off from the Bantu linguistic trunk.