Four sepiolite deposits of different origin, which occur near Las Vegas, Nevada, are compared and described. They include a playa deposit, a valley terrace deposit, and two types of vein deposits. The physical and chemical characteristics of the four materials are described, the engineering and commercial features are considered, and the varied origins of the sepiolite are discussed. X-ray powder diffraction data, infrared spectra, thermal characteristics, and chemical analyses are given for the Two Crows sepiolite. The vein deposit is proposed for use as a clay mineral reference standard because of its purity and availability. The apparent diverse morphology of the sepiolite deposits is shown with its common, lathlike basic structure.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a legal institution embedded in international politics. Politics shaped the Rome Statute of the ICC, which is rooted in norms and rules of European lineage and security interests of party states. Politics constrains and influences the operation of the Court, which has adapted in response to oversight and governance of the Assembly of States Parties, and to political actions extrinsic to institutional rules. The ICC also has political effects in situation states. A brief history shows that application of Rome Statute triggers across state parties with different social conditions skewed geographic distribution of its investigations and prosecutions towards Africa, a structural bias that catalysed a legitimation crisis for the ICC. Subsequent exercises of expansive jurisdiction aimed at nationals of non-African, non-party states – including Israel and some of the world's great powers – have dampened African complaints and advanced the ICC agenda, but intensified non-legitimacy claims by powerful non-party states. To survive, Court organs must follow legal mandates, yet be responsive to pressing international political demands, continuously risking the legitimacy of the ICC as a legal institution and adverse political reactions by antagonised governments. Careful management of the tension between law and politics at the ICC may modestly reduce antagonism towards the Court, but that tension cannot be resolved, and confrontations over the ICC's legitimacy are certain to recur.

Soil vermiculite clays of varying tetrahedral and octahedral composition and cation exchange capacity (CEC) were examined for their ability to fix K+ in both the wet and dry states. Fixation capacity, expressed as per cent of the CEC, in the wet state was fairly high for most samples but it was enhanced greatly upon drying the K saturated samples. This enhancement indicated that each sample contained a number of vermiculite species with different CECs.

The vermiculite clays, as a group, exhibited a much higher fixation capacity at a much lower CEC than those of the coarse grained vermiculites. This enhanced fixation is believed due to the dioctahedral nature of the coarse grained vermiculites. In samples of nearly equal CECs only those containing Al3+ in tetrahedral positions exhibited an enhanced fixation capacity in the dry state but not in the wet state.

In was remarkable to find that the state of oxidation of crystal structure iron strongly affected the fixation and the CEC. Reduction of Fe3+ to Fe2+ caused a decrease in fixation even though the CEC increased as a result of this change. Conversely these reactions and their effects were found to be reversible.

The variation in the orientation of the dipole of the hydroxyl ion in the octahedral layer with respect to the cleavage plane of the crystal is believed to be responsible for some of the noted differences.

Respect for language, as everyone acknowledges, is a constant of French culture. It is no less clear, however, that the appraisal of language and of its powers and the notion formed of its essential nature vary from epoch to epoch. Intense philosophical, scientific and literary preoccupation with language and the age-old problems it raises is undoubtedly one of the most significant characteristics of pre-romanticism. The traditional respect for language, manifest İn discussions of inversion and of the importance of signs in the formation of ideas, is gradually transformed, when these discussions have run their course, into a cult of language in general and of the word in particular. Indeed, by much insistence on the primordial importance of language in the act of knowledge, thinkers such as Locke and Condillac, and after them Voltaire, Diderot, Maupertuis, Rousseau, Garat, and many others, eventually endow the instrument of thought with an autonomy that thought itself, subjugated by matter, was in danger of losing. “ Ah! Monsieur “, exclaims Diderot, combien notre entendement est modifi・ par les signes.” Minds seem to pass, at this critical moment of European reflection, from a purely intellectual conception of language—which, moreover, the Grammaire de Port-Royal barely distinguished from logic—to a mythological conception of its principal functions.

Probably the most momentous experience in the contacts and mergings among civilizations in the Far East—one shared by China, Japan and Korea—is the introduction of Buddhism from India. This is, of course, a subject on which much has already been written, and even when narrowed to China alone its complexities do not lend themselves readily to summary treatment. Ideally one should have a clear conception of what “Chinese Buddhism” and the “Chinese tradition” represent before proceeding to discuss their interrelations. The most that we can hope for here is that by examining specific points of contact or friction batween Buddhism and the more articulate spokesmen of Chinese tradition some reciprocal identification may emerge.

The crystal structure of nacrite from Pike’s Peak district, Colorado, has been refined by least squares and electron density difference maps utilizing ten levels of data. Complete refinement was inhibited by thick domains involving a/3 interlayer shifts in the “wrong direction”. The ideal structure is based on a 6R stacking sequence of kaolin layers, in which each successive layer is shifted relative to the layer below by −1/3 of the 8·9 Å lateral repeat. This direction is X in nacrite, contrary to the usual convention for layer silicates, because of the positioning of the (010) symmetry planes normal to the 5·1 Å repeat direction. Alternate layers are also rotated by 180°. The pattern of vacant octahedral sites reduces the symmetry to Cc and permits description of the structure as a 2-layer form with an inclined Z axis.

Adjacent tetrahedra are twisted by 7·3° in opposite directions so that the basal oxygens approach more closely both the Al cations in the same layer and the surface hydroxyls of the layer below. Interlocking corrugations in the oxygen and hydroxyl surfaces of adjacent layers run alternately parallel to the [110] and [11̄0] zones in successive layers. The upper and lower anion triads in each Al-octahedron are rotated by 5·4° and 7·0° in opposite directions as a result of shared edge shortening. Nacrite has a greater interlayer separation and smaller lateral dimensions than dickite and kaolinite, and the observed β angle deviates by 1½° from the ideal value. These features, as well as its overall lesser stability, are believed due to the less favorable positioning in nacrite of the basal oxygens relative to the directed interlayer hydrogen bonds.

A black organic-rich alluvial clay from Alleppey, Kerala State, India, gave a well defined 17Å reflection in the natural untreated state. Ethylene glycol and heat treatments showed it to be essentially a smectite. Treatments with H2O2 and 0·1 N NaOH contracted the spacing to about 14Å, indicating that sorbed organic matter was responsible for the original enhanced spacing.

In the natural state, the clay was chiefly divalent with respect to the ions on its exchange sites and was at a pH of 6·2. Subsequent attempts to resorb the organic matter (which had been extracted from the clay by repeated NaOH treatments, converted to the H-form, concentrated and freeze-dried) into the interlamellar space of H2O2-treated clay proved successful only after the pH was brought down to 3•2 and the clay converted to an essentially monovalent state through repeated 1 N NaCl treatments.

Scientific astronomy began with the Greeks. The background for it was a knowledge which the Greeks had in common with older peoples such as the Babylonians and Egyptians of certain celestial regularities: the apparent daily movement of the sun from East to West, the apparent annual motion of the sun in the foreground of different constellations of stars and around the earth, the apparent nightly movement of the moon and visible stars from East to West, the periodic waxing and waning of the moon, and the different periodic displacements of the visible planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All of this antecedent astronomical knowledge and more was knowledge that was sought, acquired, classified, transmitted, and improved because it had practical importance or was deemed to have practical importance, as for calendar-making, time-keeping, and advice to rulers of society concerned about making state decisions under auspicious conditions.

Quartz isolated from soils by the pyrosulfate-H2SiF6 method and chert samples of various origins were examined with the scanning electron microscope. Quartz isolates of the 20–50μm from the A2 and B21t horizons of the Baxter soil (AR), with quartz δ18O of 18·2 and 19·0‰, respectively, showed a mixture of detrital quartz particles and chert clusters of aggregates of fine euhedral quartz crystals. The 2–5 μm fractions of both horizons consisted mainly of euhedral quartz particles. The 20–50 μm fraction from the underlying chert, with a δ18O = 29·6‰, consisted of aggregates of euhedral quartz particles 1–10 μm dia and of subhedral particles 0·1–0·5 μm dia. In the soil fractions, the size and shape of the quartz particles as well as oxygen isotope data indicated that the aggregates were from the underlying chert but that irregular, unaggregated grains were detritally admixed loess, particularly in the medium and coarse silt fractions. This mixing of chert (of low temperature origin and heavy oxygen) with detrital quartz (of high temperature origin and light oxygen) gave rise to the intermediate δ18O values in the soil quartz. The SEM of cherts of different geological ages showed different morphologies. Prismatic, polyhedral microcrystalline quartz of 1–10 μm size as well as submicron, euhedral particles were observed in cavities. Submicron, subhedral particles and interlocking quartz grains were characteristic of Precambrian chert. Quartz grains more than 100 μm in size isolated by HCl from Ordovician dolomite (WI) had large (many microns) subhedral overgrowths and attached clusters of 0·1–0·5 μm microcrystalline quartz. A Danish flint formed in chalk had calcite-lined cavities (x-ray emission determined) in which spheroidal fibrous chalcedony occurred.

Palygorskite and sepiolite were digested with large excesses of hydrochloric acid at constant temperature for various periods of time. The reaction was found to be of first order with respect to the magnesium, aluminum and iron components in the clay and also with respect to hydrochloric acid concentration.

The reaction rate constant for Mg is larger than for Fe, which is larger than for Al. Approximately one-third of the octahedral-type cations are extraneous, suggesting that only three of the five octahedral positions are filled. The reaction rate constant of Mg in sepiolite is about 240 times that for palygorskite. This may be an indication that sepiolite is less stable to chemical weathering than palygorskite.

The activation energies for Mg, Al and Fe in palygorskite were found to be the same and equal to about 18·4 kcal per mole.

Treatment of partially acid-digested palygorskite with magnesium ions under alkaline conditions resulted in an increase in the X-ray intensity of the 10·5 Å spacing, suggesting some of the palygorskite was reconstituted.

Infrared spectra of nontronite reveal shifts to lower wave, number in peaks located at 3570, 1030, and 821 cm-1, which are assigned to vibrational modes for O-H stretching, Si-Ob (basal oxygens) tetrahedral vibrations, and FeO-H deformation, respectively, as the Fe2+ content increases upon reduction. A pleochroic shoulder at 1110 cm-1 resulting from Si-Oa (apical oxygens) interactions appears to be unchanged with reduction. The absorption band at 848 cm-1 shifts to higher energy with reduction of structural iron, and persists at 840 cm-1 after complete deuteration of structural hydroxyls. The band is assigned to a Fe-OH mode where the OH moves as a unit. The shift in the Si-Ob mode to lower vibrational energy with reduction may indicate a decrease in stress forces between the tetrahedral and octahedral sheets.

In the course of the last few centuries the evolution of literature has been marked by the entry of Eastern countries into the system of social and spiritual relationships which came into being in the West at the beginning of the 17th century. This evolution is linked with the changes which have been grouped together as “modernization.” The content of this modernization coincides, more or less, with what Marx and Engels described, in the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto, as the expansion of the bourgeoisie. However, in the 20th century, the possibility of a non-capitalist path has become apparent, and therefore the theory of modernization gives a wider sense to the character of the ruling class (which, in the 19th century, was the European bourgeoisie), and emphasizes changes of a general nature: the differentiation of the social structure, the birth of new institutions and new roles, economic differentiation, industrialization, urbanization, increased vertical and horizontal mobility, cultural differentiation, the birth of a science independent of religion, the substitution of a businesslike, rational attitude to life for a religious one, the development of civic awareness and of civil rights. The cradle of modernization (England, Holland, France) is conventionally called “the West.” Other countries, including those situated to the west of France (e.g. Spain, Portugal) are considered as “the non-West.”

Mineralogical reactions in the system Al2O3-SiO2-H2O are examined and an isothermal, isobaric cross-section of the portion of the system applicable to soil genesis, is determined. The relevance of the cross-section to soil mineralogy is discussed.

A series of chloro-alkylammonium montmorillonites was produced by cation exchange from Na+-montmorillonite. Gas chromatographic data were obtained for light hydrocarbons and certain oxides of nitrogen. Surface area and X-ray powder diffraction studies were made on each organo-clay, making possible differentiation between possible chromatographic pathways. Adsorption of the gas molecules on the silicate sheet was determined to be the dominant chromatographic pathway for all gases studied.

As shown by scanning and transmission electron microscopy, halloysite in three rhyolitic tephras occurs as squat and elongate ellipsoids. Both morphologies are presumed to result from a similar lattice building mechanism. The squat ellipsoids form from allophane; the elongate ellipsoids form from feldspars. The squat ellipsoids do not possess flattened faces or spaces between books of layers at field moisture levels. Outgrowths from the squat ellipsoids are possibly due to inclusions of allophane, glass, ferrihydrite, or feldspar crystallites. Possible spiral growth of halloysite, giving curved surfaces, may be due to a continuous distribution of crystal dislocations.

Since the 1960s sign languages have been identified as natural human languages and conceived of as a key feature of Deaf culture and identity. Eschewing the notion of disability, deaf advocacy organisations have connected the use of sign language to linguistic and cultural rights. Despite the clear preference of deaf advocates, the legal protection of sign languages remains uneven and somewhat difficult to grasp, being situated at the intersection of disability rights and linguistic rights. Few attempts have been made to identify the extent to which sign languages are recognised and enshrined within domestic legal systems. This article aims to propose a novel taxonomy that focuses on the normative conceptualisation of sign language and deaf people in national legislation. Based on a comparative analysis and focusing on European Union Member States, it identifies three main approaches: an explicit ‘minority’ approach—ie the express recognition of deaf persons as a linguistic minority; a more nuanced ‘cultural approach’—which acknowledges sign language as autonomous language and provides for promotional measures; and a ‘disability’ approach—which mandates and/or promotes the use of sign language primarily as an accessibility measure.

Well-crystallized laumontite has been found for the first time precipitating naturally at the earth's surface at temperatures of 89° to 43°C as a component of gray to white coatings and efflorescences on exterior surface and as precipitates on interior fractures of stones and blocks lining Hot Springs Creek immediately downstream from Sespe Hot Springs, Ventura County, California. X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscope (SEM), and electron microprobe analyses show thenardite to be the dominant phase in the exterior coatings, in association with minor microcrystalline (<50 μm) laumontite and gypsum. Macrocrystalline (>1 mm) laumontite is the dominant phase in interior fracture coatings and is associated with quartz, potassium feldspar, and gypsum. Trace amounts of smectite(?), halite, a mercury sulfide, an iron sulfide, an iron-bearing mineral (possibly an oxide or carbonate), and a copper mineral are also present. Zeolites other than laumontite have not been seen, and carbonate minerals are either entirely or nearly absent. SEM textures indicate nonreactive intergrowths of laumontite, quartz, potassium feldspar, and gypsum. Unbroken laumontite crystals are generally euhedral or have skeletal growth characteristics and exhibit sharp, fresh, non-corroded faces, edges, and corners.

The water issuing from the hottest and largest spring is 89°C, has a pH of 7.74, 1200 mg/liter total dissolved solids, and contains Na+, Cl−, SO42-, and H4SiO4 as the dominant dissolved species. Computations indicate that the water is supersaturated with respect to laumontite, quartz, chlorite, and prehnite and is slightly undersaturated with respect to calcite and noncrystalline silica. Water-dominated water-rock interaction is indicated by isotopic analyses. The δO18 composition expectable on the basis of the −81‰ δD composition is −11.38‰ instead of the −9.5‰ actually found (all referred to SMOW). The water chemistry suggests that the subsurface water source may have a temperature of 125°–135°C. This temperature range, together with the regionally low geothermal gradient, implies that the source is probably 3550 to 3900 m beneath the springs in fractured and permeable Mesozoic and older plutonites and gneisses.

The discovery of laumontite crystallizing at atmospheric pressure and 43°C (or lower) provides important insight into the processes responsible for burial diagenetic laumontite and a valuable perspective on the zeolite metamorphic facies.

Words, like human beings, embody avatars. Their meaning is transformed, expanding or contracting under multiple influences; in the end it is the collective will that always triumphs despite the resistance of elites or of schools. Such was the fate of the word which originally denoted the science of man in his totality and in his complexity: the word “anthropology·”