ing
in the center a small grain or kernel of transparent quartz. These
garnets are found in a large variety of tints of red, claret,
aimandine, and even yellow essonite-colored stones. They are often
believed by the finders to be spinels or rubies, and have been sold as
Arizona or Colorado rubies.
Although
the garnets found in washing and mining diamonds at the Cape of Good
Hope, the so-called " Cape Rubies," are of larger size than those found
in Arizona and New Mexico, and perhaps equal to them in color by
daylight, the latter are much superior by artificial light, only the
clear, blood-red hue being visible, while in the " Cape Rubies " the
dark color remains unchanged. They are extensively used as gems, the
annual sales amounting to about $5,000 worth of cut stones. A few
remarkably fine ones have hrought $50 each, though stones equally good
have frequently sold for much less. Fine stones of 1 carat sell at from
$1 to $3 each, the exceptional ones rarely for $5. They seldom exceed 3
carats in size. Pyrope garnet of good color, that has furnished gems,
has been found in the sands of the gold-washings of Burke, McDowell,
and Alexander Counties, N. C. In the peridote rock of Elliott County,
Ky., are found deep ruby-red grains of pyrope garnet, locally regarded
as rubies, having a specific gravity of 3.673, and varying in size from
1/10 to 1/4 inch in
diameter. They are especially abundant along the line of the peridote
trap-dykes in the soil resulting from the disintegration of the rock,
and would cut into gems almost as beautiful as those from Arizona.
Garnets are found in many localities in California ; at Roger's Mine,
in the eastern part of El Dorado County, they are associated with
specular iron, calcite, and iron and copper pyrites ; in the Coosa
district, Inyo County, they are found in large, semi-crystalline
masses, of a light-yellow color, some specimens of which were taken to
San Francisco under the impression that they contained tin. Three miles
from Pilot Hill, El Dorado County, garnet rock is found in blocks
several feet thick. They also occur in Plumas, Mono, Fresno, Los
Angeles, and San Diego Counties, Cal. In Burke, Caldwell, and Catawba
Counties, N. C, are found large dode-cahedral and trapezohedral
almandite garnets, coated externally with a brown crust of limonite,
the result of superficial altera-
