Colorado
produced various precious stones. Turquoise, pyrite, and quartz had the
greatest value, and those of less value were garnet, covellite, and
topaz.
Maine yielded tourmaline, spodumene, topaz, beryl, garnet, and quartz.
Arizona produced turquoise, garnet, copper-ore gems, agate, peridot, obsidian, tourmaline, and turquoise.
Value of precious stones produced in, 1916, by States.
Montana______________________________________ $108,263
California_____________________________________ 54, 885
Nevada_______________________________________ 15, 734
Colorado______________________________________ 10, 818
Maine________________________________________ 8, 458
Arizona_______________________________________ 4, 878
Oregon________________________________________ 4, 492
Utah and Arkansas_____________________________ 5,515
Other States1__________________________________ 4,750
217, 793
In
the number of distinct minerals mined for their value as precious
stones (grouping chalcedony, jasper, rock crystal, smoky quartz,
amethyst, etc., as one mineral—quartz), California leads with 11 and is
followed in order by Arizona with 9, Colorado, North Carolina, and
Pennsylvania with 7 each, Maine with 6, and Montana and Texas with 5
each.
NOTES ON INDIVIDUAL PRECIOUS STONES.
BERYL.
Five
States reported a production of beryl in 1916, namely, California
(colorless, pink, and aquamarine), Maine (colorless, aquamarine, and
golden), North Carolina (colorless, aquamarine,blue, green, and
golden), Connecticut, and New Hampshire.
Mr.
Rolf A. Schroeder, 53 Westbourne Terrace, Brookline, Mass., reports the
occurrence of gem beryl in small quantities at Rollstone Hill,
Fitchburg, Mass. The beryl occurs sparingly in the pegmatite dikes that
cut the granite on the west side of the hill. The pegmatite and granite
are crushed as soon as quarried, and many fine beryl crystals have
doubtless been lost. The beryl is pale yellowish green, rarely golden,
but never blue. Mr. Schroeder states that he found half a dozen
crystals which yielded cut stones weighing from one-half to 1 carat. A
single larger crystal yielded a cut stone weighing 2-1/2 carats. A
matrix specimen showed pegmatite with white feldspar and granular
glassy quartz of a smoky-gray color, similar to that of Royalston,
Mass. An embedded bluish crystal was clear where it lay in the quartz
but fractured and opaque where it was inclosed in the feldspar. A cut
stone weighing 1.1 carat, kindly lent by Mr. Schroeder for examination,
was of rather pale color but very brilliant and showy. There was
apparently no production of gem beryl from this locality in 1916.
1
Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North
Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming.
Production of each State less than $1,000.
