24 HISTORY OF THE GEMS FOUND IN NORTH CAROLINA.
two
have been worked somewhat, by the Corundum Mining & Manufacturing
Co., of Philadelphia. These localities are all near the southern border
of the State, and pass over into Rabun County, Georgia.
The Piedmont Counties.—As
was stated above, corundum was early found at some points east of the
mountains; and the references to discoveries arid collecting by Dr. C.
L. Hunter, Prof. J. A. Humphreys, and Prof. Brumby of Columbia, S. C,
antedate the Civil War by about 10 years. Since the new epoch of
mineral development set in after the return of peace, further
discoveries have been made, all of interest, but none as yet of
importance. Mr. J. A. D. Stephenson obtained fine hexagonal prisms of
pale brown corundum at Belt's Eidge, near States-ville, Iredell Co.,
and some crystals of fine colors from other neighboring points. Prof.
Lewis mentions a black corundum in amphibolite, on the Hunter farm, 8
miles north of Statesville, another occurrence in the same rock, at the
Acme mine, and a pink corundum in cyanite at the Collins mine, both in
the same vicinity. An old locality, especially noted by Professor
Humphreys, is Shoup's Ford, in Burke Co., where the corundum is
associated with fibrolite, which sometimes surrounds or encloses the
crystals, forming what Professor Humphreys described as " pods." In
Gaston County, blue corundum occurs with quartz and mica, at Crowders
Mountain and Chubbs Mountain; the latter is the source of the Brumby
specimens in 1852; it was then known properly as Clubb Mountain, named from an old resident and Eevolutionary patriot.
Corundum
in grayish-blue crystals in garnet-bearing schists and gneisses is
reported from points along the ridge stretching from Carpenter's Knob,
northwest, on the borders of Burke, Catawba, and Cleveland counties.
