FELDSPAR.
CALIFORNIA.
Mr.
Joseph Ward, of Lone Pine, Cal., has sent additional specimens of
amazon stone from the Death Valley region of California to the Survey.
Some of the smaller pieces show a good color, and it is possible that
further exploitation will show larger and deeper-colored material.
Microcline
with interlaminated albite (perthite) is found in considerable
quantity in the gem mines of San Diego County. The possibilities of
cutting this material into cabochon stones, so oriented as to show the
albite lamellae to the best advantage, do not seem to have been fully
developed.
COLORADO.
The
bulk of the feldspar, used as a precious stone, was produced by
Colorado, the amazon stone leading all the other feldspars in value.
Some gem orthoclase and oligoclase were also produced.
NEW YORK.
Mr.
W. G. Levison, of Brooklyn, N. Y., reports-that peristerite was found
at Valhalla, N. Y., in one of the gneiss quarries from which some of
the stone used in building the Kensico dam is obtained. The material
seems to form part of a dike, and some of it shows on certain surfaces
a beautiful blue sheen by reflected light. Several dozen stones have
been .cut.
UTAH.
A new find of transparent pale-yellow labradorite is reported by Kunz.1
The locality is given as Millard County, Utah. The material is said to
be similar to that found in the Altar Mountains of Arizona, described
in this report for 1914.
GARNET.
ALASKA.
The
Alaska Garnet Mining & Manufacturing Co., of Minneapolis, Minn.,
worked the deposit of garnets near Wrangell, at the mouth of Stikine
River. The garnets are thickly distributed through the mica schist, 15
to 25 garnet crystals being often found on a square foot of rock. The
largest garnets weigh half a pound. Although the surface stones are
badly flawed, gems of fine color and quality are obtained by deep
mining. Many were cut in cabochon shapes and a large number of such
stones as well as specimens of garnet in the matrix were sold at the
San Francisco Exposition.
1 Kunz, G. F., The production of precious stones for the year 1915: Mineral Industry, vol. 24, p. 611,
