ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 73 



Exposing at full length the upper part of the cavity, it showed 

 all along its sides and at the bottom stalactitic and stalagmitic 

 forms of red mud. 



The quartz, which at one time had completely lined the 

 pocket, had, by process of disintegration, dropped into the open 

 space below. It was in the mud and clay in the bottom of the 

 pocket that all the crystals subsequently found were discovered. 

 Only at the very bottom were the walls found in situ. This 

 pocket differed in no respect from those commonly occurring in 

 this region. They aue all shrinkage fissures, situated in a contra 

 direction to the strata, of very limited extent, and nearly per- 

 pendicular in position. The country rock is gneiss, with a dip 

 nearly vertical. A thick layer of soil everywhere mantles and 

 conceals it from view. Three days of careful, work were spent 

 in exhausting this pocket. 



Over four hundred pounds of perfect quartz crystals were 

 obtained from this one pocket, besides nine emeralds (already 

 noted). Of good, bad and indifferent there was found in all 

 nearly half a ton of crystals. 



It was noticed that the crystals that had been directly attached 

 to the walls were semi-transparent and without any great de- 

 velopment of the prismatic faces, while implanted upon them 

 as a secondary growth were crystals of great beauty and trans- 

 parency, varying from citrine-yellow to dark chocolate-brown 

 in color, and for the most part perfect in form. Two-thirds of 

 them were perfectly terminated at both extremities and with con- 

 siderable prismatic development. It was these latter that con- 

 tained the fluid inclusions. 



Large plates of rosetted mica were quite common, and on 

 them were implanted small crystals of rutile and of quartz in 

 rare perfection. When the smoky crystals were first found they 

 were noticed to contain many cavities seemingly filled with a 

 very clear and lustrous fluid. Though no bubbles of air (or 

 gas) were observed to move in these cavities at that time, yet I 

 knew these crystals to be the so-called "water crystals ^^ of 

 mineralogists. 



