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PRECIOUS STONES.
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It
is stated that some years since a Mr. Thiery devised a method of fusing
quartz and throwing in lumps of heavily alloyed gold, and allowing the
material to cool in molds of required shapes. It is said the mingling
of the metal and the quartz was complete, but the quartz had a milky,
unnatural glasslike appearance entirely unlike the gold quartz it was
intended to represent. Messrs. LeDuc, Connor & Laine, on applying
for a patent for an imitation gold quartz produced by means of
electricity, found that a similar patent had been issued nearly fifty
years ago to a New York man. However, notwithstanding they were not
able to obtain the monopoly, they started as manufacturers of jewelers'
quartz, but abandoned it, as it proved so unsatisfactory.
Actinolite.—The
emerald-green glassy actinolite of Concord township, Pennsylvania, is
very fine and might be utilized in some form, possibly the compact, as
a form of cat's-eye. An inlaid ornament of this mineral taken from an
old piece of furniture in London during the early cat's-eye excitement
netted the persons who cut it up hundreds of dollars.
Rutile.—The
rutile of Middletown, Connecticut, was cut into gems that were almost
ruby in color, as early as 1836, by Prof. C. U. Shepard.
The
finest small brilliant geniculated crystals are found at Mill-holland's
Mills, White Plains, at John Lackey's farm, near Liberty Church, and at
Wilson's near Poplar Springs, in Alexander county, North Carolina.
These have furnished some of the finest cut black rutile, which more
closely approaches the black diamond in appearance than any other known
gem. Some of the lighter colored ones furnished gems closely resembling
common garnet.
Beautiful
long crystals, at times transparent red, have been found, ranging in
thickness from that of a hair to one-quarter and in some few cases
nearly two-thirds of an inch across, and from 1 to 6 inches in length,
at Taylorsville and vicinity, and at Stony Point, North Carolina. These
are very brilliant and at times doubly terminated.
Beautiful
crystals are also found in quartz and loose in the soil at Sadsbury
township, Pennsylvania, for 7 miles along the valley, especially near
Paiksburg, where double geuiculations and geniculations forming
complete circles are found, weighing over 1 pound. This is the " money
stone," so called by the inhabitants of the district, as it is often
looked for because they can obtain money for it from the collectors;
some of the finer small ones are worn as ornaments.
Some
of the beautiful geniculated nigrine from Magnet cove would also well
"serve the purpose of ornament. These and the Alexander county rutiles
are possibly the finest in the world.
Axinite has
been observed with the essonite and idocrase at Phipps-. burg and
Wales, Maine, and also at Cold Spring, New York. The best American
locality is the one near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, first found by Prof.
F. Prime, jr., and Dr. Beopper, and described by Prof. B. W.
Frazier.(a) These crystals, colorless, pale yellowish, and brown, are
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