|
108
|
GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES IN THE
|
||
|
|
|||
|
Egyptian Jasper.—Opaque, concentric, with other layers of brown, yellow, or black.
Heliotrope.—With base of chalcedony colored with green delessite, red spots of iron oxide.
Jasper.—Impure, opaque-colored quartz, red, yellow, brown, or gray-blue, called ribbon jasper when striped.
Onyx.—Like agate, but consisting of distinct, even layers, so that it can be used in cutting cameos.
Plasma.—Bright green, leaf-green, and almost emerald-green, very translucent.
Porcelain Jasper.—Different from true jasper in being visible gray, white, and pink.
Sard.—Translucent, red, brownish red, crimson, blue-red and blackish red, golden and amber.
Sard Onyx.—Like onyx, but having a stratum or several strata of sard.
A
remarkable mass of rock crystal, weighing 51 pounds, was sent, in 1886,
to Tiffany & Co., New York. It purported to be from Cave City,
Va., but as it subsequently proved was found in the mountainous part of
Ash 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 8 inches square and from half an
inch to an inch thick. The original crystal, if it had not been broken,
would have furnished an almost perfect ball 4-1/2 or 5 inches in
diameter. A visit to the locality by the author showed that this
specimen had been found near Long Shoal Creek, on a spur of Phoenix
Mountain in Chestnut Hill Township. There have also been found at two
places, 600 feet apart (about one mile from the former locality), two
crystals, one weighing 285 pounds, that was 29 inches long, 18 inches
wide, 13 inches thick, showing one pyramidal termination entirely
perfect and the other partly so ; also another specimen that weighed
188 pounds. These crystals were all found in decomposed crystalline
rocks consisting of a
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
1 Proc. Am. Ass'n Adv. Sci., Vol. 35, p. 229, 1886.
|
|||
|
|
|||