184 A Book of Precious Stones
lected
and cut only for collector's specimens. Brief mention will be here
given to some of the minerals that occasionally appear and are included
in the stocks of the principal stone merchants. In the American market
there is a difference in this respect between the market east of the
Pacific coast cities and localities near them or close to the Rocky
Mountains and the Sierras, because that mountainous region is a great
mineral treasure house, yielding many welcome finds of attractive and
beautiful semi-precious stones; therefore in San Francisco, Denver, and
other Western cities, these local minerals are used in jewelry to a
greater extent than they are in the midland cities and those of the
Eastern States.
Among the stones most likely to appear from time to time in the shops are:
ADAMANTINE SPAR, which includes hair-brown varieties of corundum.
ALABASTER.
Although its uses in the arts are principally as a material for
carvings, statuettes, and other ornamental objects, alabaster is
frequently worked up into beads, pins, and other jewelry. Alabaster is
a fine-grained white or clouded variety of gypsum; it holds a place so
low in the Mohs scale of hardness—2
