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MALACHITE.
This
beautiful green carbonate of copper, often used as an ornamental stone
as well as mined for an ore of the metal, is found somewhat in
Guilford, Cabarrus, and Mecklenburg counties. The fibrous variety has
been observed at Silver Hill and at Conrad Hill, in Davidson County,
and in a number of other localities in North Carolina, but is rarely of
any gem value. In the Torrey Collection at the United States Assay
Office, in New York City, are a few fine gem pieces of malachite from
the Copper Knob mine in Ashe County.
PEARLS.
The
Indians of Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Alabama, gathered mussels and
conchs, as shown by the numerous refuse piles and shell heaps that
abound upon the salt-water creeks. It is not a matter of surprise that
the Indians, as they opened these shells, should have carefully
watched for pearls, and from the vast numbers examined, should have
accumulated a store. If the shores of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida
did not afford the larger and more highly prized pearls, it is not
impossible that pearls from the islands and lower portions of the Gulf
of Mexico, and even from the Pacific coast, may have found their way
into the heart of Georgia and Florida and into more northern
localities, to be there bartered away for skins and other articles. The
replies of Indians to Father Hennepin and others and the presence in
remote localities of beads, ornaments, and drinking-cups made of marine
shells and conchs, still peculiar to the Gulf of Mexico, confirm the
truthfulness of this suggestion.10
9 Analysts, Smith & Brush. Dana, Mineralogy, 5th ed., p. 572.
10 Ancient
Aboriginal Trade in North America, by Charles Rau. Report of the
Smithsonian Institution for 1872, Washington, 1873; Gems and Precious
Stones of North America, New York, 1890-92; U. S. Commission Fish and
Fisheries, 1893-08; Pearls, by Geo. F. Kunz, Charles H. Stevenson,
Century Co., New York, 1907.
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