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164 GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES IN THE
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through
it, very closely approaches sunstone in appearance. Beautiful varieties
of orthoclase sunstone were discovered near Crown Point, N. Y., by
William P. Blake. On the Horace Greeley Farm, at Chappaqua, N. Y.,
small pieces of orthoclase sunstone were found, almost as fine as that
from Swedestrandr Norway. It also occurs at Amelia Court
House, Amelia County, Va. A very interesting variety of sunstone was
found by J. A. D. Stephenson at the quarry in Statesville, N. C; the
reflections are as fine as those of the Norwegian, but the spots of
color are very small. Several hundred dollars' worth from this locality
have been sold as gems.
SUNSTONE—AVENTURINE ORTHOCLASE
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Labrador
spar is found in large quantities in Lewis and Essex Counties, N. Y.,
and as boulders in the drift, all the way down to Long Island and New
Jersey. In Lewis County the boulders are so plentiful in one of the
rivers that it has been named Opalescent River. Large quantities of
this labradorite rock are quarried at Keeseville, Essex County, N. Y.,
for monumental and building work. It is polished there for similar
purposes at a cost of about one dollar a square foot, and finds a
ready sale under the name of Au Sable granite. The Young Men's
Christian Association Building at Burlington, Vt., and one of the
public buildings in Minneapolis are built with it. Within a few miles
of Amity, in Orange County, a boulder of fine material for specimens,
weighing over 2 tons and showing the characteristic chatoyant play of
colors, was found. In Pennsylvania labradorite occurs at Mineral Hill,
Chester County, and opposite New Hope, Bucks County; and also in the
Wichita Mountains, Ark. Mention is made by Professors Genth and Kerr '
of a curi-
1 Minerals and Mineral localities of North Carolina, p. 48.
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