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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



discovery of a new mineral and a new gem 

 in San Benito County, California, revealed 

 an unsuspected hidden pocket of interesting 

 mineral associations, instructive to the 

 mineralogist, but, alas, delusive to the gem 

 hunter. A new gem was indeed revealed, 

 but it had, so to speak, a most tantalizing 

 brevity of life, disappearing almost as soon 

 as found. The mercantile epigram, current 

 some twenty years ago, that a day 's yield 

 of coal or iron, or a week 's work in a granite 

 quarry, would exceed the money worth of an 

 entire year 's output of precious stones f loin 

 the United States, might be slightly modi- 

 fied in view of the phenomenal developments 

 in southern California. Yet, allowing to 

 these latter every possible weight, the qualifi- 

 cation would turn out to be scarcely more 

 than an academic correction. Even the dia- 

 mond discoveries in Arkansas have proved 

 to be rather sensational and promissory 

 hints, than practically valid assets. 



The important localities of precious stones 

 in the United States, as at present best 

 recognized, are the tourmaline properties of 

 Maine, the tourmaline veins of southern 

 California, the turquoise diggings of Ari- 

 zona, New Mexico, and Nevada, and the 

 sapphire quarries of Montana. Of course 

 this is doing scant justice to the wide preva- 

 lence of a host of lesser gems, which, 

 throughout the crystalline belts, momentarily 

 illuminate with glimpses of color and bril- 

 liancy the prosaic work of mining. There 

 are incidental revelations of handsome gems 

 in the granite beds from time to time, which 

 appear only to vanish in a miscellaneous 

 assembly of worthless companions. Among 

 these gems may be inentioned the beryls of 

 North Carolina and elsewhere, sometimes 

 graduating into unmistakable emerald, the 

 topazes of Texas, the opals of the West, the 

 wonderful kunzite of California, and the not 

 infrequent garnets and amethysts every- 

 where. A painstaking empiricism has also 

 involved — we think rather spuriously — a 

 great number of less truly gemlike minerals 

 within the aristocracy of gems, and they are 

 all well represented in the United States. 

 But they have really effected a purely para- 

 sitic association with the invincible precious 

 stones of the world. 



The specimens of gem tourmaline, found at 

 Mt. Mica, Maine, ushered the United States 

 upon the gem exchange of the world, since 

 its products rivaled the best tourmalines 



found anj'where. The discovery, now a well- 

 rehearsed tale, was made by Elijah L. 

 Hamlin and Ezekiel Holmes, both of them 

 enthusiastic mineral himters, and both boys. 

 They had started upon one of those familiar 

 tours among the hills with hammer and 

 chisel, which so often reward the devotee 

 with little more than the exercise. Young 

 Hamlin picked up a crystal — it was during 

 an autumn snowstorm — which had separated 

 from the roots of a fallen tree, dislodged 

 ])erhaps from its mineral setting by the in- 

 truding roots. A little further investigation 

 lirought the overjoyed collector thirty more 

 beautiful crystals. All but one of these 

 were subsequently lost, and then, according 

 to a malicious rumor, reappeared in the Im- 

 perial Cabinet at Vienna. 



The locality of Mt. Mica, after the an- 

 nouncement of its wonderful contents, was 

 visited by many mineralogists, and upon 

 more disclosures, a mining company with 

 Dr. Augustus Hamlin as its president, was 

 organized iu ISSl. This company has prose- 

 cuted the work of mining the gems ever 

 since, with varying success. There have 

 been taken out from the Mt. Mica mine, 

 and from the neighboring localities of Au- 

 burn, Hebron, and Norway, some superb 

 green stones, flawless and delicately dichroic 

 with yellow tints; also some remarkable 

 dark blue crystals exhibiting the familiar 

 zonal colorations from end to end, and with 

 rubellite centers framed in green borders. 



The region in which the tourmalines occur 

 is formed of coarse granite veins, piercing 

 mica schist, and these pegmatitie invading 

 masses are banded. The coarser elements, 

 that is the portions in which the quartz, feld- 

 spar, and mica attain a larger individual 

 development, encase the gems. The mother 

 vein contracts and then again spreads, as 

 though in its upward flow through the coun- 

 try rock, it had paused, expanding like an 

 arrested stream and continued its penetrat- 

 ing course through constricted openings, 

 while within, slowly crystallizing, the gem 

 tourmalines shaped themselves. The zonal 

 character is revealed in the rude alignment 

 of a feldspar strip against a garnet-bearing 

 ribbon of rock, with a lower granitic under- 

 wall. The lithia mica (lepidolite) — so con- 

 stant an associate of the precious tourma- 

 lines both in California and in Madagascar 

 — is blended with common mica (muscovite), 

 and everjTvhere the vein is most capriciously 



