of it is of a different nature, and consists of shells and skeletons composed of silex, or pure flint.

Moreover, in the fresh-water rotten-stone beds of Bilin, Ehrenberg had traced out the metamorphosis, effected apparently by the action of percolating water, of the primitively loose and friable deposit of organized particles, in which the silex exists in the hydrated or soluble condition.

The silex, in fact, undergoes solution and slow redeposition, until, in ultimate result, the excessively fine-grained sand, each particle of which is a skeleton, becomes converted into a dense opaline stone, with only here and there an indication of an organism.

Moreover, in the case of freshwater deposits of this kind it is certain that the action of percolating water may convert the originally soft and friable, fine-grained sandstone into a dense, semi-transparent opaline stone, the silicious organized skeletons being dissolved, and the silex re-deposited in an amorphous state.

The similarity of the deposit, thus composed of a large percentage of carbonate of lime, and a small percentage of silex, to chalk, regarded merely as a kind of rock, which was first pointed out by Ehrenberg, is now admitted on all hands; nor can it be reasonably doubted, that ordinary metamorphic agencies are competent to convert the "modern chalk" into hard limestone or even into crystalline marble.

But what are the conditions which determine its occurrence, and whence the silex, the iron, and the alumina (with perhaps potash and some other ingredients in small quantity) of which the Glauconite is composed, proceed, is a point on which no light has yet been thrown.

It must be recollected that Linnaeus included silex, as well as limestone, under the name of "calx," and that he would probably have arranged Diatoms among animals, as part of "chaos."

Possibly there may have been eruptions of steam, of boiling water holding silex (flint) in solutiona very rare occurrence: but something similar is still going on in the famous Geysers or boiling springs of Iceland.

Do the silex, the alumine, and the other earths, with their compounds, emit any odor?

Selections from Herrick, edited by Hale, in Athenaeum Press Series; selections from Herrick, Lovelace, Donne, Herbert, etc., in Manly's English Poetry, Golden Treasury, Oxford Book of English Verse, etc.; Vaughan's Silex Scintillans, in Temple Classics, also in the Aldine Series; Herbert's The Temple, in Everyman's Library, Temple Classics, etc. Bunyan.

The earthy parts were silex and magnesia, in which were interspersed small grains of metallic iron.

[The motto eventually adopted for Barton's Poetic Vigils was from Vaughan's Silex Scintillans: Dear night!

"There we go," she said as coffee began running into the Silex pot.

Silex is the chief ingredient in quartz rock, which is so widely diffused over the earth, and enters into the composition of most of the precious stones.

The ruby, the emerald, the topaz, the amethyst, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper, agate, and garnet, and all the beautiful varieties of rock crystal, are mostly or entirely silex.

Glass is a compound of silex and pearlash.

It was, at first, supposed to be a meteor; but, when chemically examined, it proved to consist of silex, combined with potash,in the form in which it exists in grasses; and, upon further inquiry, it was ascertained that a stack of hay had stood upon the spot, of which nothing remained but the ashes, the whole having been ignited by the lightning.

We have wandered far from the consideration of the propensity of certain species of plants to take up special compound substances from the earth; but the wide-spread silex, with which we set out, displayed so interesting a field of observation, that it could not be resisted, and encouraged a disposition to rove, which has been to us instructive and entertaining.

The highest limestone rocks in this region, those which rise from the plateau or causse and strike the imagination by the strangeness of their forms, are dolomite; in the gorges they approach the character of lias towards the base, and not unfrequently contain lumps of pure silex embedded in their mass.

All about the room lay books that were not of my culling, from the oak cases, whose every door stood ajar,novels innumerable,"The Arabian Nights," Vaughan's "Silex Scintillans," with a scarlet leaf laid in against "Peace," and "Tennyson" turned on its face at "Fatima," a heavy volume of French moral philosophy, a Methodist hymn-book, Sir Thomas Browne's "Hydriotaphia," and a gilded red-bound history of "Five Little Pigs.

These clays, which are eaten not only in Java, but also in Sumatra, New Caledonia, Siberia, Guiana, Terra del Fuego, etc., are essentially composed of silex, alumina, and water in variable proportions, and are colored with various metallic oxides.

VAUGHAN, HENRY, English poet, self-styled the "Silurist" from the seat of his family in South Wales; studied at Oxford, was a partisan of the royal cause; wrote four volumes of poems in the vein of George Herbert, but was much more mystical and had deeper thoughts, could he have expressed them; of his poems the first place has been assigned to "Silex Scintillans," the theme the flinty heart when smelted giving out sparks.