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Hitherto, however, the nature of the siliceous substance is not sufficiently known, to enable us to found, upon chemical principles, the mineral operations of nature. That siliceous substance may be dissolved, or rendered soluble in water, by means of alkaline salt, and that it may be also volatilised by means of the fluor acid, is almost all that we know upon the subject.

This scientific question Edison almost immediately solved. Fluorescence is a property which some transparent bodies have of producing, either on their surface or within their substance, light different in color from that of its origin. This happens, for example, when green crystals of fluor spar afford blue reflections of light.

This was done in the mineralogical nomenclature proposed by Professor Mohs. “The names framed by him were not composed of two, but of three elements, designating respectively the Species, the Genus, and the Order; thus he has such species as Rhombohedral Lime Haloide, Octohedral Fluor Haloide, Prismatic Hal Baryte.” The binary construction, however, has been found sufficient in botany and zoology, the only sciences in which this general principle has hitherto been successfully adopted in the construction of a nomenclature.

Korable, remarkable for its many caverns, studded with crystals of translucent quartz and amethyst, the former, together with fluor and heavy spar, being met with, too, in the eastern parts of the mountain. The Kola Peninsula was carefully explored by Finnish Expeditions in 1887-1892. The climate of Lapland is not everywhere uniform, but in general it is bleak and raw.

This deportment of fluor spar determined Stokes in his choice of a name for his great discovery: he called this rendering visible of the ultra-violet rays Fluorescence. By means of a deeply coloured violet glass, we cut off almost the whole of the light of our electric beam; but this glass is peculiarly transparent to the violet and ultra-violet rays.

We have strata consolidated by calcareous spar, a thing perfectly distinguishable from the stalactical concretion of calcareous earth, in consequence of aqueous solution. We have strata made solid by the formation of fluor, a substance not soluble, so far as we know, by water. We have strata consolidated with sulphureous and bituminous substances, which do not correspond to the solution of water.

Our mineralogical museums are filled with beautiful specimens of crystals of quartz, fluor spar, and various ores deposited one on the other; and the student who confines his attention to these is naturally led to believe that he sees before him the process by which mineral veins have been filled.

Among these black schorl or tourmaline, actinolite, zircon, garnet, and fluor spar are not uncommon; but they are too sparingly dispersed to modify the general aspect of the rock. They show, nevertheless, that the ingredients were not everywhere exactly the same; and a still greater difference may be traced in the ever-varying proportions of the feldspar, quartz, and mica.

Lastly, We have another principle for the dissolution of siliceous substance. This is the fluor acid which volatilises the siliceous substance. This, however, requires certain conditions, which cannot be found as a general cause in the mineral regions.

There is a further remarkable mineral collection at the house, with fine specimens of sulphuret of tin and copper, malachite, fluor, crystals, topaz, with some blocks of prehistoric tin. The coast here extends to Gribbin Head, and there is then a sharp bend inward to Par sands.