|
936
|
MINERAL RESOURCES.
|
||
|
|
|||
|
rence Smith, of Louisville, Ky., showed them to be spodumene. He proposed for this new variety the name of hiddemte, which it has since borne, and it has also been called lithia emerald. This discovery excited much interest, and the new and beautiful American gem at once came into favor. The yield, however, was limited in amount, and for several years past, because of litigation and from other causes, the mine has no*t been worked.
Within the last two years another, and by far the most remarkable discovery of gem spodumene, has been made in San Diego Count}-, Cal. The crystals from North Carolina are small, though very beautiful; but the California crystals are of noble size. They are of a delicate rosy lilac or amethystine tint, are perfectly clear and of great brilliancy, so that large and elegant gems can be cut from them. This variety has received the name of kunzite, proposed by Prof. Charles Baskerville, in consequence of its first having been identified by the writer. The amethystine spodumene has also some very marked and peculiar physical properties, to be described further on. which render it a mineral of special interest, apart from its value as a gem stone.
Spodumene occurs abroad in the Tyrol, in Sweden, at Killiney Bay, Ireland, and near Peterhead. Scotland. In the United States it has long been known at Peru and Windham, Me., and at Winchester, N. Ii., but chiefly at several places in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the former it appears at six localities in the western part of Hampshire Count}', in the towns of Chesterfield, Goshen, Chester, and Huntington. These localities and the great crystals there found, with their alteration products and associations, were described and discussed at length in 1878 and 1879 by Dr. Alexis A. Julien." In Connecticut the principal occurrences are at Brookfield and especially at Rranchville, and the remarkable development of spodumene at the latter place was similarly described in four articles, from 1S7S to 18X0, by the late Prof. George J. Brush and Prof. E. S. Dana.4 It was here that the large altered crystals were found to have retained some interior remnants of their original transparent character, of a rich lilac tint. Some specimens from one or two of the Massachusetts localities also showed remnants of an original green color, translucent to transparent. These extended discussions and the evidence which they presented as to the changed and "defunct" character of spodumene awakened much interest in the mineral and a strong desire to iind it somewhere in its original and so largely lost beauty.
Within a year this desire was gratified in part by the finding of the "spodumene emeralds" in North Carolina, already mentioned. The description and analysis were published in 1881 by Dr. ,1. Lawrence
f Julien, Alexis A., Spodumene and its alterations, from the granite veins of Hampshire County, Mass.: Ann. Sew York Acad. Sci., vol. 1, No. 10, November, 1879, pp. 318-35-1.
''Brush, George J., and Dana, Edward S., Spodumene and the results of its alteration, Branehville, Conn.: Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 16, 1878, pp. 33, 114; vol. 18, 1879, p. 45; vol. 20, 1880, p. 257.
|
|||
|
|
|||