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UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO
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267
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the
Museum of the Geological Survey of Canada at Ottawa and in the Peter
Redpath Museum, McGill College, Montreal. These consist of both jade
and pectolite articles, in the form of adzes, drill-points of borers,
cut boulders, sockets for fire-drills, mallets, axes, pendants, and
burnishers. Of the sixty-one objects found, seventeen show evidence
more or less distinct of having been sawn from other pieces.
Nordenskiold' describes figures and a broken harpoon-point of bone and
nephrite, from Point Clarence, 650 north latitude, north of
Norton Sound. Dr. Dawson says: "It is among the highly altered and
decomposed rocks of the Carboniferous and Triassic that silicates of
the jade class might be expected to occur, and I feel little doubt that
when these rocks are carefully investigated they will be found to be
the sources of the jade." The Indians of the region, however, have
usually, if not invariably, obtained their supply from loose fragments
and boulders. Jade is also reported from the Rae River and from the
Hudson Bay district.
Axinite in fine crystals was reported by Dr. Bigsby from a boulder of primitive rock in Hawksbury, near Ottawa.
Epidote
is found in many localities, though not in gem form, except when with
flesh-colored feldspar in the amygdaloid trap on Lake Superior. This
has been polished to form an odd ornamental stone. At the falls of the
Mingam River, Que., and in Ramsay Township, Ont., is found a peculiar,
fine-grained, reddish gneiss, traversed by veins of a pea-green
epidote. It is very beautiful when polished. Pale-green epidote with
quartz is found on the Matane River. The epidote which forms mountain
masses in the Shickshock Mountains, Que., is hard, susceptible of a
high polish, and would be of value as an ornamental stone.
Amazonstone (microcline) has been found in Sebastopol, Ont., and in Hull, Que., in cleavages of good color.
Labradorite,
the most beautiful of all the chatoyant feldspars, exists in great
quantities on the coast of Labrador, especially at Nain, and on St.
Paul's Island adjacent to it, where the finest known occurs in veins of
some size, where for over a century it has been mined for use in the
arts. It occurs on Lake Huron, Ont, at Cape Mahul, and at Abercombie,
Que., also in cleavages
1 Voyage of the Vega, Vol. 2, 1882.
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