54 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1071 



a variety of uses, botli ornamental and reli- 

 gious, and always held in high esteem it has 

 come to be invested witli many interesting 

 superstitions and woven into numerous legends. 

 The tombs of the earliest Egyptian kings have 

 yielded jewelry of considerable beauty wrought 

 of gold and inlaid with turquoises from the 

 Sinai Peninsula. The inhabitants of China, 

 Tibet and northern India have long valued the 

 turquois and been lavish in its use, while the 

 Persians and neighboring races of western Asia 

 have from time immemorial drawn upon the 

 famous Nishapur deposits near the Caspian 

 Sea which furnished stones of the choicest 

 character. The Europeans during the middle 

 ages and thereafter esteemed the Persian 

 stones that came to them by way of Turkey, 

 and the mineral was known in Europe even 

 prior to the Christian era. The Aztecs of old 

 Mexico, at the time of the Spanish conquest 

 tinder Cortes, employed turquois and " chalcM- 

 huitl," an allied or similar stone of greenish 

 hue, in many of their ceremonies, and a num- 

 ber of remarkable turquois mosaics carried by 

 the conquerors to Europe attest the skill and 

 taste of these early Indian artisans. The 

 Spaniards, on first penetrating the region now 

 occupied by New Mexico and Arizona, lured 

 on by reports of fabulous riches, found the 

 turquois there too held in high regard, and re- 

 cent excavations in the ancient pueblos and 

 cliff-dweUings of these two states have revealed 

 a wealtib of turquois ornaments that reflect 

 considerable credit on the artistie ability of 

 their makers. By virtue of its parallel use in 

 parts of the Orient and America, and its curi- 

 ous introduction into the lore of diverse and 

 widely separated peoples, the turquois therefore 

 carries considerable ethnologic interest. The 

 wide use of turquois can be attributed to four 

 factors: Its characteristic occurrence in desert 

 regions, due to peculiar geologic conditions 

 there obtaining, in positions of significant con- 

 tact with early trade routes and lines of im- 

 portant migrations ; its presence at or near the 

 surface in such occurrences, expediting its 

 discovery by primitive man; its comparative 

 softness, enabling it to be easily worked with 

 the crudest tools; and its distinctive color- 



range from the blue of the sky to the green of 

 water and plants, making a strong psycho- 

 logical appeal to uncivilized peoples, peculiarly 

 fitting their religious ideas, and constantly sug- 

 gesting symbolical application. 



The quarrying of slate is an important 

 mineral industry closely connected with the 

 building trades. The value of slate produced 

 in the United States in 1914, including slate 

 sold in squares for roofing and as slabs for 

 milling and other uses, was $5,706,Y8Y, accord- 

 ing to A. T. Coons, of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey, in the chapter on slate from 

 the report " Mineral Resources, 1914." This 

 was a decrease of over Y per cent, from the 

 value of $6,175,4Y6 for the output of 1913. In 

 1914 the slate operators in general reported 

 the demand for this material as good up to 

 October, when the trade dropped off from 25 to 

 50 per cent. For the last twelve years the 

 value of the slate output has remained prac- 

 tically stationary, fluctuating slightly with 

 changes in trade and financial conditions. As 

 compared with the output in 1905, ten years 

 ago, which was valued at $5,496,207, the out- 

 put in 1914 shows an increase in value of only 

 $210,580, or nearly 4 per cent. The largest 

 output ever reported was in 1908, when the 

 value of $6,316,817 was nearly 10 per cent, 

 greater than that of 1914. The average price 

 per square of roofing slate in 1914 was the 

 highest ever recorded — $4.08. This represents 

 an advance of 39 cents in ten years. Pennsyl- 

 vania, Vermont, Maine, Virginia, New York, 

 Maryland, New Jersey and Utah, named ac- 

 cording to rank of output, were the states pro- 

 ducing slate in 1914. Pennsylvania produced 

 over 63 per cent, of the total output and Ver- 

 mont about 25 per cent. Nearly 73 per cent, of 

 the value of the slate produced represented 

 roofing slate, which is sold in " squares," each 

 square containing a sufficient number of 

 pieces of slate to cover 100 square feet on the 

 roof. The output of roofing slate in 1914 was 

 1,019,553 squares, valued at $4,160,832, the 

 average price being $4.08 per square. Penn- 

 sylvania's output represents about 59 per cent, 

 and Vermont's 29 per cent, of the value of the 



