worked the place on moonlight nights from 1862 to 1866, and extracted the monster crystals of black spinel peculiar to Orange county. From the sale of these specimens they realized over $6,000, although many fine crystals were ruined in blasting and breaking out. Since the death of these workers the location has been lost.
TURQUOISE.
This mineral is found near Los Cerrillos, Santa Fe" county, and in the Burro Mountains, Grant county, New Mexico; in the Turquois mountains, Cochise county, and in Mineral Park, Mohave county, Arizona; near Columbus, Nevada,- in Saguache county, Colorado, and Taylor's Kanch, Fresno county, California. The first-named locality is part of a group of conical mountains situated about 22 miles southeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and north of the Placer or Gold mountains, from which they are separated by the valley of the Galisteo river. They are composed of yellow and gray quartette sandstones with porphyritic dykes.
During the past two years turquoise has been actively mined for by two companies, the American Turquoise Company and the Azure Turquoise Company; a few minor attempts by others have been made. The first of the. two above-named companies, engaged in mining 6 miles from Los Cerrillos, New Mexico, reopening some of the mines originally worked by the Indians, and have found turquoise equal in color to the finest Persian material. Its stability in retaining color is equally great, not changing within a short time, as does the Egyptian turquoise, which was so extensively placed on the market about the time when the Persian mines were ceasing to yield. In 1891 the writer had started on a trip to Persia, intending to visit the famous mines of turquoise, when the first specimens from this district were sent to him at Berlin with a fixed price on each gem. Word also reached him of the scarcity of the true turquoise in Persia, and he subsequently had opportunity at Nijni Novgorod, of seeing nearly all the yield of the year. He returned to the United States, giving up the projected trip, and purchasing only the finest gems, as nearly all the material shown, although held at high prices, was not up to the standard of the American turquoise. Stones have been found at these new localities weighing up to 60 carats each, one of which was sold for about $1,000; and it is now possible for the first time in the past half century to match a perfect turquoise necklace.
The Azure turquoise mines are in Grant county, New Mexico. The material is of rather a robin's-egg blue; that is, with a faint greenish tinge. This may be due either to a partial change or metamorphism which has taken place while the turquoise was in the rock, or it may be a local peculiarity. The stones are not the sky-blue of the more northern locality, but it is claimed by the owners of the mine that they are not subject to change of color. Turquoise has always been known as an unstable gem. Even the finest Persian stones are liable to change occa-
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