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instances sends out tongue-like processes that penetrate far into the plagioclase in which the pyroxene is imbedded (see Fig. 5), so that there can be no doubt that the conditions were favorable to the formation of intergrowths between these two minerals during the period when they were separating from the rock magma. The only essential differences between the fibrous
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intergrowths and that illustrated in this figure are, first, the finer structure of the former, and second, its occurrence around the older components of the rock. Neither of these differences is important, however. Only the second needs a moment's consideration.
The position of the fibrous growth around the olivine and other minerals is due not necessarily to the fondness of the intergrowth for this place, but simply to the fact that the diallage, during the earlier stages of its growth, fastened itself to the solid particles in its vicinity and coated them with an envelope of its material. Continuing its growth it formed the encircling rims of this material that are so characteristic of many specimens of the gabbro, and, when the feldspar began to separate it formed with this the granophyric intergrowth. Since the position of the diallage had already become fixed, the intergrowth naturally was compelled to occupy a place just without this and around the minerals which the diallage had already partially or entirely encircled.[1] Though a fibrous intergrowth of pyroxene and plagioclase with the aspect of a reaction rim surrounding the older minerals of a rock is a rare phenomenon, it is not a unique one, for
- ↑ For fuller description of the intergrowth, see author's paper in Am. Jour. Sci. XLIII., 1892, p. 515.