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UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO
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Fluorite,
in the colored transparent varieties, is designated as false ruby,
emerald, sapphire, topaz, amethyst, etc. Thirty years ago many
specimens of the green variety were found at Muscalonge Lake, St.
Lawrence County, N. Y., where the mineral was taken out from a vein
which ran under the lake ; and in the autumn of 1888, an immense cavity
lined with large cubic crystals of green fluorite was discovered at
Macomb. This furnished groups measuring nearly two feet across and
single composite crystals nearly a foot across, in all, several tons of
fine crystals. The largest deposits in the United States are at
Rosiclaire, Shawneetown, and Elizabethtown, Hardin County, 111., and
some thousands of tons are annually mined there, crystals of the
richest purple, yellow, red, rose-colored, green, and other shades
being very common. It differs from English
FLUORITE
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fluorite
in that the crystalline faces in nearly all the specimens are dull, and
the colors show only by transmitted light. Crystals a foot across were
observed here twenty years ago during the workings of the Rosiclaire
lead mine. In the mounds of this region it has occasionally been found
shaped into ornaments by the hand of prehistoric man. This is the only
instance that is known of its being used as an ornament. The amount
mined here for the arts amounts to over $15,000 a year. On the
Cumberland River, Tenn., and at Pike's Peak, Col., some fine crystals
of a blue-green fluorite have been found ; also yellow crystals in the
géodes of the limestone at St. Louis, Mo. One of the most remarkable
varieties of this mineral is a chlorophane from the microlite
localities at Amelia Court House, Va., which has been described by W.
M. Fontaine,1 who also noted the brilliancy of the phosphorescent light that it gives out at a low
1 Am. J. Sci. III., Vol. 25, p. 330, May, 1883 Minerals in Amelia County, Va
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