60 GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES IN THE
from
the stronghold of the Apache chief, Cochise. This locality, likewise
worked by the ancients, is now known as Turquoise Mountain, and as
there are several deposits of silver ores in the vicinity, a mining
district has been formed known as the Turquoise District. At the place
itself, there are two or more ancient excavations upon the south face
of the mountain, and large piles of waste or debris thrown out are
overgrown with vegetation. The place has been worked only for a short
time, and probably never by the Apaches. The excavations are not so
extensive as those at Los Cerrillos, and the mineral is more difficult
to find; but, though it is less abundant here, its identity with the
New Mexican chalchihuitl has been satisfactorily established. The rock
is all similar, and the turquoise occurs in seams and veinlets rarely
more than 1/2 or 1/4 inch in thickness. In color it is light
apple-green or pea-green, rather than blue. The specific gravity of two
different fragments gave 2710 and 2'828, of which the first was
slightly porous and earthy and the second dense, hard, and homogeneous.
In
1883 the author saw a series of finely colored specimens, which had
been obtained at Mineral Park, Ariz., and brought to New York city.
They had been taken from three veins, varying in thickness from 1 to 4
inches, about 100 yards apart, running almost parallel, and traceable
for nearly half a mile. This deposit showed evidences of having been
mined by the Spaniards, and a large number of stone hammers was found,
indicating that it had also been worked by the Indians. Hoffmann, in
the " Mineralogy of Nevada," states that turquoise is also found in a
locality situated in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, five miles north of
Columbus. This locality was visited by J. E. Clayton, who reports
that, on a sharp ridge, about half a mile southwest of the Northern
Bell Mine, in the Columbus District of southern Nevada, he found
turquoise in seams and bunches in a metamorphic sandstone of a brownish
color, not vitreous enough to be classed as a quartzite. The best
specimens were in small, roundish pebbles in clusters, imbedded in the
brown sandstone, in size from that of a duckshot up to a third of an
inch in diameter. Some fine ones have been obtained, equal in color and
hardness to the best standard. Those which occurred in seams were higher
