By courtesy of the United States 

 Geological Survey 

 The gem-bearing region in San Diego County, California, possesses to the eye no attractions, un- 

 less its sterile slopes and cactus-invaded valleys, in some lights, offer picturesquely desolate vistas. The 

 prospector's zeal, hovi'ever, has broken through the arid crust of rock, and uncovered a dazzling 

 wealth that has made this inhospitable country a mineral Golconda 



Gem Mining in the United States 

 Tourmaline and Turquoise 



By L . P. (I K A T A C A P 



IF, as an ancient connoit-seur and his- 

 torian of "Pretious Stones" with quiet 

 eonfidence affirms, "the climate fittest 

 for the production of stones of excellent 

 beauty are such as do lie nearest the Trop- 

 icks," the expectant prospector in our own 

 country, guided by so grave a dictum, might 

 too quickly relinquish his pursuit of these 

 mineral rarities. Nature has not blessed 

 the United States very plenteously with gem 

 stones, but neither has she been too niggardly 

 in bestowing, here and there, in the long 

 ranges of our mineralized lielts, very stimu- 

 lating stores of such treasures. Her dis- 

 crimination in being more lavish to us in her 

 gifts of rich economic deposits of earths and 

 ores, was commendable. For although gems 

 may have been, as quaint Thomas Nicols 

 pompously assures us, "generated of an 



humour which containeth in itself purest 

 terrestrial portions," yet the disillusionizing 

 experience of commerce pretty clearly shows 

 them inferior to the more homely coal, clay, 

 metallic oxides, and salts. 



As a matter of fact the United States can- 

 not qualify, at present, as a gem producer of 

 any large commercial importance. In only 

 four important regions have rewards for the 

 gem hunter attained for it a somewhat 

 secondary place among the great gem marts 

 of the world. Nevertheless, in the sporadic 

 development of gems, consequent upon the 

 chemico-crystallographic agencies at work 

 in the formation of large crystalline areas 

 of rock, the United States offers a wide and 

 instructive, if not always profitable, field for 

 exploration. 



Within a few years a quite astonishing 



G.J 



