ency
in the quality of that found in this country, but because of the
cheapness of the Brazilian crystal. Cut spectacle-glasses can be
imported for less than the cutting costs here. Some of the most
magnificent groups of quartz ever found were formerly obtained at the
Ellenville Lead Mines, Ulster County, N Y., and some of the finest of
these, by gift of Jackson Steward, are now in the Museum of Natural
History, New York City. Few, if any, were cut into gems or used in the
arts, although many were sold in the vicinity as souvenirs. The
Sterling Mine at Antwerp, N. Y., furnishes small, fine, doubly
terminated dodecahedral crystals, and the same forms, with some slight
differences, are found in the specular iron at Fowler, Hermon, and
Edwards, St. Lawrence County. Diamond Hill, Lansingburgh, N. Y., is an
old but poor locality, and Diamond Island, Portland Harbor, Me., is
well known for the small but bright crystals found there. The highly
modified crystals from Diamond Hill and Cumberland Hill, R. I., also
the fine ones from White Plains, in Surrey County, N. C, and Stony
Point, Alexander County, and from Catawba and Burke Counties, N. C, are
worthy of mention as having formed the subject of the crystallographic
memoirs by Dr. Gerhard von Rath.1 Prof. Frederick A. Genth
mentions the finding of fine specimens in Delaware and Chester
Counties, Pa., especially in East Bradford and Pocopson Townships. Rock
crystal seems to have been valued by the Indians of the American
continent. Dr. Daniel G. Britton, in a paper on the folk lore of
Yucatan, quoting Garcia, says that the natives practised witchcraft
and sorcery, their wise men divining by means of a rock crystal, which
was believed to exert great influence over the crops. The presence of
crystals with abraded edges in the mounds of Arkansas, North Carolina,
and elsewhere, would lead to the inference that they were not only
collected to bury with the dead, but were worn as charms and talismans,
and having been used for such purposes, were probably interred with the
dead as their property. Personal observation in Garland and Montgomery
Counties, Ark., forty miles from the Crystal Mountain locality, showed
that these quartz crystals were found in mounds, with a quantity of
some of the smallest, finely-chipped
1 See Naturwissenschaftlichen Verein, Westphalia.
