Pearls, Peridot, Kyanite, Epidote, Tourmaline, Malachite, Cheysolite, Serpentine, Lazulite, and Serpentine Page 81



	CYANITE, EPIDOTE, TOURMALINE, SMARAGDITE, ETC. 55 gems have been cut, and a fine example is in the United States National Museum. It is, however, too soft to admit of much wear. Another locality of fine cyanite in the same vicinity, was described in 1898 by Dr. J. H. Pratt.² This was on the farm of Mr. T. Young, in Yancey County, on North Toe River, a few miles from Spruce Pine, Mitchell County. Here the cyanite is frequently of a rich mossy green color, sometimes perfectly transparent; and some of the crystals are blue along the center with grass-green margins. Many of them are terminated, which is not common in cyanite; and the locality seems a very promising one. EPIDOTE. Prof. Frederick A. Genth mentions³ a crystal of epidote in the cabinet of the University of Pennsylvania, from the gold-washings of Rutherford County, N. C. This crystal is strongly pleochroic, like the so-called puscli-kinite from the auriferous sands of Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, and would cut into a small gem. Some fine highly complex forms have been observed at Hampton's, Yancey County, by William E. Hidden. These crystals might possibly afford cabinet gems, not equal, however, to the Tyrolese epidote. Handsome prismatic crystals, l-1/2 inches in length and 1/8 in diameter, have been reported by Mr. 0. H. Blocher, of Old Fort, McDowell Count}', as found some 40 miles from that place, but with no more specific location. They are brilliant, but of too dark a green to have much promise as gems. Crocidolite was observed by Joseph Wilcox in long, delicate fibers of a blue color, in one of the western counties of North Carolina. TOURMALINE. This is a complex boro-silicate of alumina and several oxides, which is frequent in various crystalline rocks, and in its common black form is found at numerous North Carolina localities. But the richly colored varieties which are valued as gem stones, and are found in Maine, Connecticut, and Southern California, do not appear in North Carolina. The only announcement of the presence of any of them, thus far, was made several years ago by Messrs. D. C. Morgan and Company, of Waynes-ville, Haywood County, who reported crystals of transparent green tourmaline as found near that place. The colored tourmalines usually contain some lithia, and are nearly always found, when they do occur, in pegmatite dikes. As these latter are frequent in the western counties,