QUARTZ AND OPAL.
Quartz
in its various crystalline forms,—rock-crystal, amethyst, and smoky
quartz,—occurs at many points in North Carolina, and in some cases of
fine quality (PL V). The non-crystalline varieties, such as agate,
jasper, etc., have not, on the other hand, been found to any important
extent in the State, until very recently in the chrysoprase workings
near Asheville.
CRYSTALLINE VARIETIES.
Rock-Crystal-—Much
interest was created in 1886, when a remarkable mass of rock-crystal,
weighing 51 pounds, was sent to Tiffany & Company, New York. It
purported to be from Cave City, Va., but was subsequently traced with
certainty to the mountainous part of Ashe County, N. C The original
crystal, which must have weighed 300 pounds,.was unfortunately broken
in pieces by the ignorant mountain girl who found it, but the fragment
sent to New York was sufficiently large to admit of being cut into
slabs 6 inches square and from half an inch to an inch thick. This
superb crystal, if it had not been broken, would have furnished an
almost perfect ball 4-1/2 or 5 inches in diameter. It is now in the
Morgan' Collection at the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
A visit to the locality by the author traced this specimen to the place
of its discovery near Long Shoal Creek, on a spur of Phoenix Mountain
in Chestnut Hill Township. There have also been found at 2 places, 600
feet apart (about 1 mile from the former locality), 2 crystals,
weighing respectively 285 and 188 pounds. The larger of the 2 was 29
inches long, 18 inches wide, 13 inches thick, showing 1 pyramidal
termination entirely perfect and the other less complete. All these
crystals were lying in decomposed crystalline rock consisting of a
coarse feldspathic granite, and were obtained either by digging or by
driving a plow through the soil. Altogether several dozen crystals have
been found in this vicinity weighing from 20 to 300 pounds each, and
future working will undoubtedly reveal more. These large crystals are
often very irregular and pitted, like many of those from St. Gothard.
Of those now in
