The journal of a naturalist / [Anon].

  • John Leonard Knapp
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The journal of a naturalist / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/450 page 14
    may be used for all agricultural purposes with advantage. Many detached blocks of limestone are found about us, having broken shelly remains, and the joints of the encrinite, greatly mutilated, embedded in them. Irregularly wandering near the lime-ridge is a vein of impure sandy soil, covering a coarse-grained silicious stone; sand agglutinated, and coloured by oxide of iron, re- sisting heat, and used in the construction of our lime-kilns: the labourers call it “fire stone.” We occasionally, though sparingly, find,in afew places on our downs, nodules of lead ore, which induced persons in years past to seek for mineral riches; but the trial being soon abandoned, the result, I suppose, afforded no reasonable ground for success. We likewise find thin veins of car- bonate of strontian, but make no use of it; nor is it noted by us different from common rubbish; nor do I know any purpose to which it is pecu- liarly applicable, but in pyrotechnics. Spirit of wine, in which nitrate of strontian has been mixed, will burn with a beautiful bright red flame; barytes, which approaches near to stron- tian, affords a fine green; nitrates of both, com- pounded with other matters, are used in theatrical representations. Strontian exists in many places, and plentifully; some future wants or experi-
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