SynopsisThe curious history of the mineral eggonite is reviewed, and two new occurrences are described. The original specimens, for which Schrauf gave good morphological and optical data in 1879, with a tentative suggestion that it was a cadmium silicate, were fakes; the tiny crystals of the new mineral were glued on to hemimorphite specimens from Altenberg, Belgium. In 1929, Zimanyi edited and published observations by Krenner, who found the mineral on silver ores from Felsöbánya, Hungary, added to Schrauf's physical data, and identified it as an aluminium phosphate. It was not until 1959 that Mrose and Wappner showed that it is scandium phosphate, ScPO4 · 2H2O, and essentially identical with kolbeckite, described by Edelmann in 1926 as a phosphate and silicate of beryllium, aluminium, and calcium from Saxony, and with sterrettite, described by Larsen and Montgomery in 1940 as an aluminium phosphate from Fairfield, Utah.In 1980 the IMA Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names, while accepting the identity of the three minerals and rejecting the name sterrettite, were almost equally divided over the names eggonite and kolbeckite, which are thus both acceptable; since eggonite has 47 years priority, we suggest that it should have preference.The available physical and chemical data on eggonite are summarized and added to, and two new occurrences, at Potash Sulfur Springs, Arkansas, and at Sakpur, Gujarat, India, are described.
RAINBOW OF COLOURS – THE PAHARI MINIATURE PAINTING”
