8 HISTORY OF THE GEMS FOUND IN NORTH CAROLINA.
interest that attaches to it as a local specimen of large size and fine appearance. (See Plate III.)
Another
diamond is reported to have been found 9 years before, in 1877, by a
small boy, in the same region as the last. It weighed 2f carats, and is
described as white and lustrous, but somewhat flawed, and of irregular
flattened form, resembling a bean, with the crystal faces obscure. The
finder sold it in Marion for a mere nominal sum. Mr. B. B. Price, of
Marion, put it for disposal into the hands of Mr. James M. Gere, of
Spruce Pine, an extensive buyer and miner of North Carolina mica. He
took it to Syracuse, 1ST. Y., and sold it there to Messrs. C. M. Ball
& Co., jewelers, for the sum of $18. It was finally sent to New
York, where it was cut into a small gem and its identity lost.'
Still
another crystal is in the State Museum at Ealeigh. The particulars of
its discovery are not known; but it was purchased by the State with the
collection of the late Dr. J. A. D. Stephenson, of Statesville, N. C,
who had possessed it for some years, and reported that he had bought
it, with other minerals, from a countryman in Burke County. It has an
oblong spheroidal form, the faces being curved and rounded; and it
weighs 5/16 of a carat. These particulars are given in a recent letter
from Mr. T. K. Brunner, Secretary of the State Department of
Agriculture at Ealeigh.
The
latest well established discovery was in 1893, in Cleveland County,
near King's Mountain. It was a polished octahedron, weighing f carat,
of a bright light canary yellow.
It
will be noticed that most of these localities are situated in the same
section of the State,—in the mountainous district, lying just north
from the northernmost extension of the border of South Carolina. Here
the counties of Burke, Rutherford, McDowell, and Cleveland lie closely
adjacent, and Mecklenburg only a short distance eastward.
The
foregoing list includes all the authentic diamonds thus far discovered
in North Carolina. A number of small stones, exhibited as diamonds,
have been found at Brackettstown. They are similar to supposed diamonds
found by J. C. Mills at his mine at Brindletown, but these were
transparent zircon or smoky-colored quartz, the former of which has a
lustre readily mistaken by an inexperienced person for that of a
diamond. A number of pieces of rough diamond, exhibited as from the
same section, have been decided to be of South African, not Carolinian
origin. It is to be hoped that the few legitimate discoveries
