one
or more figures on the stem, which is sometimes made of several pieces,
usually, however, of wood. Parts of the pipes are often laid out in
designs that are filled in with lead.
This
stone is also worked into a variety of ornaments and into small charms
of different kinds. These are offered and find a ready sale to persons
visiting Minnehaha Falls, Lake Minnetonka, various hotels in Saint Paul
and Minneapolis, and other cities in Minnesota and Dakota as far west
as Fort Sully. The amount sold annually is perhaps $10,000 to $15,000
worth. This stone should surely find more uses from its compactness,
easy working, and the fine polish it admits of. One curious spotted
variety is very beautiful, and would make a good contrast with the
regular red pipestone.
Catlinite is also found at Rice lake, Barron county, Wisconsin.
Amber.—Before
the New York Academy of Sciences, February 5, 1883, I exhibited and
described an elongated, twisted mass of amber(a) of a rich yellow
color, but opaque, weighing 12 ounces, that had been found on the shore
at Nantucket, Massachusetts, evidently from the Tertiary deposits
there. This mass "more closely resembled the true amber than any other
American specimen yet seen.
The
Rev. Phoebe Hanaford, at the same meeting, mentioned having found a
small piece weighing about 1 ounce at the same locality. Amber has also
been found at Martha's Vineyard and at Gay Head.
In
a paper read before the New York Academy of Sciences, on the same date,
I described a mass of amber 20 inches long, G inches wide, and 1 inch
thick, and weighing 64 ounces, found at Kirby's marl pit, on Old Man's
creek, near Harrisonville, Gloucester county, New Jersey. A
one-fourth-inch section showed a light grayish-yellow color. A section
one-fourth inch thick showed a light, very transparent yellowish-brown
color. The entire mass was filled with botryoidal-shaped cavities
filled with glauconite or greensand and a trace of vivi-anite. The
hardness is the same as the Baltic amber, only slightly tougher and
cutting more like horn, and the cut surface showing a curious pearly
luster, differing in this respect from any other amber yet examined by
me. This luster is not produced by the impurities, for the clearest
parts show it the best. It admitted of a good polish. The specific
gravity of a very pure piece of the carefully selected amber is 1.061,
which is the lowest density on record, the usual amber range being from
1.065 to 1.081. It ignites in the same way as other ambers. It was
found at a depth of 28 feet and under 20 feet of the Cretaceous marl,
the amber being found in a 6-foot stratum of fossils.
Dr. N. L. Britton has observed traces of amber near Camden, New Jersey, in the Cretaceous deposits.
Dr.
Charles C. Abbott(b) mentions having several times found small grains
or pebbles of amber in the bed of Crosswick's creek. These he
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