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PRECIOUS STONES.                                    483
An annual importation of $8,000,000 worth of precious stones (to say nothing of the considerable quantities smuggled, which escape the record), shows that this country is an exceptionally heavy purchaser— as would be supposed even in the absence of statistics. The imports vary greatly in different periods and are largely determined, as may be seen by a comparison of the years cited, by changes in the general pros­perity or by speculative profits. The new tariff law fixes the duty on precious stones of all kinds at 10 per centum ad valorem.
AMERICAN GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES, (a)
By Geo. F. Kunz.
In the United States, systematic mining for gems and precious stones is being carried on at only two places, viz., Paris, Maine, and Stony Point, North Carolina. In other cases where gems are found they are either met with accidentally, or occur in connection with other materials that are being mined, or in small veins which are only occasionally met with. They are often gathered with little system on the surface, as is the ease with the sapphire, garnet, and olivine found in Montana and Sew Mexico; or from the beds of streams and decomposing rock, as
a This paper is the result of an .application by Mr. Williams to Messrs. Tiffany & Co., of New York City, for the purpose of obtaining certain facts relative to the gems tnd precious stones of the United States. I may here state that whatever informa­tion is presented is due to the usual courtesy and generosity of that firm, whenever ;cey can assist in advancing science or art, in placing at my disposal not only all the acts and material at their command, but also the time required by me in collecting whatever other existing data there might be relative to this subject. In view of the ittle that has been published and the paucity of reliable facts, it is hoped that the leiicieneies in this article may be overlooked.—G. F. K.