An account of the New Jersey Sapphire. 319 



Art. ^l.—^An account of the Sapphire and other minerals in 

 Newton toivnship, Sussex County, JVeiv Jersey ; by Samuel 

 Fowler, M. D. 



The valley including Sparta, Franklin, Warwick and Newton, for 

 its mineral treasures, useful as well as curious, has very justly been 

 compared to Arendal, in Norway ; both regions abound with magnetic 

 ore of iron, connected also with the same rock formations, but neither 

 of them is truly primitive, though including beds of gneiss and granitic 

 sienite. All the peculiarly curious minerals of this region are uniform- 

 ly connected with subordinate beds of white crystalline limestone, and 

 they occur chiefly near the line of junction which this rock forms with 

 the granitic sienite. In this situation occur the spinelles, ceylonites, 

 garnets, &ic. as well as the beds of curious zinc, and manganesian 

 ores ; and most of them are entirely peculiar to this part of the world. 

 This valley continues uninterruptedly from Byram, in the county of 

 Sussex and state of New Jersey, which is the south western extremity 

 of the white carbonate of lime, to mounts Adam and Eve, in the 

 township of Warwick, in the county of Orange and state of New 

 York, which is the north eastern extremity of the white limestone, a 

 distance of twenty five miles. In this whole distance we observe the 

 white carbonate of lime running in a north easterly and south wester- 

 ly direction. The Franklinite and red zinc ore accompany the same, 

 beginning half a mile north-east of Franklin Furnace, and ending 

 two miles south-west of Sparta, a distance of nine miles. It is in 

 different parts of the township of Warwick that so many curious 

 and splendid things have occurred ; and it is here the calcareous 

 valley is the widest. Several years ago, sapphire as well as spinelle 

 was discovered at Franklin, but apparently only in a single block of 

 stone probably detached from its original bed, so that the spot was 

 no sooner discovered than exhausted, and all subsequent attempts to 

 trace out more of this interesting mineral have proved in vain. It 

 was blue and white or particolored, and imbedded in a rock of com- 

 pact scapolite and feldspar, in connection with black spinelle and 

 black tourmaline. 



About four years since, in company with my neighbor, Mr. Inglis, 

 in the township of Newton, six miles from Franklin and one mile 

 west of the calcareous bed of Byram, we discovered sapphire im- 

 bedded in a whitish feldspar, near the junction of the granitic sienite 



