Paratacamite, a new oxychloride of copper

About two years ago there was brought to the British Museum a specimen covered with numerous mall cubes—so the crystals appeared to be—of the bluish-green colour suggestive of a mineral containing copper. Judged by their form the crystals might be beleito, but a qualitative analysis by Dr. Prior, while revealing the presence of chlorine and copper, showed no trace of lead. A crystal was then removed from the specimen and measured on a goniometer, and the discovery was at once made that these apparent cubes are iu reality rhombo-hedra with an angle of nearly 88° between adjacent faces. Since no previously known oxychloride of copper crystallizes in this form, these crystals were evidently worthy of further investigation.