PIIKXAC1TE.
Phenacite was first identified in the United States in 1888 in the Pike's Peak range, El Paso county, Colorado, in fine crystals. Since then it has also been found on Mount Antero, where the crystals occur at an altitude of about 14,000 feet in a region of almost perpetual snow, accessible for only a short period in the summer. Some crystals of phenacite were described by the author as occurring on Bald mountain, North Chatham, New Hampshire, near the State Hue between Maine and New Hampshire, and also in the neighborhood of Stoneham, Maine. From all the localities gems have been cut from the transparent crystals.
GARNET.
The pyrope (precious) garnets are found in the United States, in New Mexico, Arizona, southern Colorado, and Utah, where they are often miscalled rubies. In New Mexico they occur, it is believed, only on the Navajo reservation, where the Indians collect them largely from ant hills and scorpion holes, and are also said to pound Them out of rocks. They are associated with olivine and chrome pyroxene. In northeastern Arizona they occur in loose sand, and have probably been brought by the action of water from a point 50 miles to the north, where they occur, as the writer believes, in a peridotite rock.' In western Arizona (on the same parallel with Fort Defiance), on both sides of the Colorado river, garnets are similarly associated with grains of peridot, a chrome pyroxene and a hyaline chalcedony. Here also they are found on the ant hills and near the excavations made by scorpions, and are collected by soldiers and Indians, and sold to the Indian traders who send them to the large cities in lots of an ounce and upwards. They vary from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in diameter and a few measure one-half inch across. They have never been found in place by any geologist, and it has been suggested that they are derived from some lower cretaceous" sandstone, but it is very evident, from the associated minerals, that they have weathered out of a peridotite rock under an identical mode of occurrence as the pyrope garnets in Bohemia, Elliot county, Kentucky, and Kimberly, South Africa.
Although the garnets found in washing and mining for diamonds in south Africa (the so-called " Cape Rubies") are larger than those of Arizona and New Mexico, and perhaps equal to them in color by daylight, the latter are much superior by artificial light. Only the clear" blood-red hue is then visible, while in the " cape rubies" the dark color remains unchanged. They are much used as gems, the annual sales amounting to about $5,000 worth of cut stones. A few remarkably fine ones have brought from $50 to over $100 each, though others equally good have been sold for much less. Fine stones of 1 carat bring from $1 to $3 each, and exceptional ones even $5. They seldom exceed 3 carats. Pyrope garnet of good color that has furnished gems has been found in the sands of some of the gold washings of North
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