32. 



URANITE. 



BY L. W. STILWELL, Deadwood, D. T. 



This wonderful Black Hills 

 country, — this isolated group of 

 mountains surrounded by plains, 

 like an island in a sea,— seems to 

 have been designed to represent, in. 

 greater or less quantities most of the 

 metallic minerals of the world. 

 Some startling discovery is being 

 made ever few months, and one by 

 one the list of precious metals is ex- 

 tended, until its length and variety 

 astonish the "old-timer" himself, 

 and the "tenderfoot" finds, as he 

 enumerates its products, the Black 

 Hills to be "a good country to stay 

 in." 



The latest excitement is the dis- 

 covery of what is dubbed "The Tin 

 Mountain," said to be a mountain of 

 tin; surface rock assaying very high. 

 Here are gold, silver, copper, tin, 

 lead, iron, platinum, also mica, salt, 

 coal, oil, etc., but who would have 

 thought of finding the ore of Urani- 

 um (the rare and costly mineral con- 

 fined mostly to Bohemia) in this new 

 country? So it is, the veritable 

 pitch-blende exists here. A foreign- 

 er from the centre of Germany is 

 the discoverer; locality, Bald Moun- 

 tain, nine miles south from Dead- 

 wood. Connecticut and North 

 Carolina yield Uranium ores very 

 sparingly. The specimens of Uran- 

 inite, Johannite and Autunite (ores 

 of Uranium) from Bohemia, ' in my 

 possession, are none of them showy 

 specimens. When it comes to select- 

 ion of specimens by the collector, 

 the plain pitch-blende is not the 

 sort taken, but the Uranite, so 

 beautifully flecked with bright 

 greenish, canary-yellow spots, is 

 what attracts. This incrustation 

 is termed Uran-Mica, which resem- 

 bles small fish-scales, or a waxy 



coating. The green-yellow upon a 

 brown surface makes a fine contrast. 

 A large mineral dealer in Germany 

 is sending here for these Uran-Mica 

 specimens, and giving a large price 

 for them. A several hundred pound 

 shipment was made recently from 

 Deadwood to Germany. The de- 

 mand from that source is indicative 

 of a superior specimen here, or a 

 scarcity there. The oxides of Ur- 

 anium are used in painting upon 

 porcelain, yielding a fine orange in 

 the enameling-fire. When extract- 

 ed from the ores, variously named 

 and concentrated to a fine artistic 

 material, Uranium is then said to 

 be worth upwards of one hundred 



dollars a pound. 



-*-••-#. 



Scale of Hardness. 



To aid in determining the differ- 

 ent minerals a scale of hardness has 

 been adopted, as follows: 



1, Talc. 



2, Rock Salt. 



3, Calc Spar. 



4, Fluo Spar. 



5, Apatite. 



6, Feldspar., 



7, Quartz. 



8, Topaz. 



9, Sapphire. 



10, Diamond. 



If a mineral is found no harder 

 than talc, its hardness is 1. If it 

 can be scratched by quartz, but can 

 itself scratch feldspar, the hard- 

 ness is between 6 and 7. 



High Priced Eggs. 



The New York Sun contains the 

 following: Two eggs of the great 

 auk, supposed to be extinct, recently 

 sold in an auction room in Eden- 

 burg for $16.00. They were after- 

 wards sold in London, one fetching 

 $500.00 and the other 102 guineas. 

 This is believed to be the highest 

 price ever paid for an egg, except a 

 single specimen of a moa egg, which 

 was sold in London in 1865 for 

 $1,000, or £200. 



A nest of these would be worth 

 finding, provided one could find pur- 

 chasers at the above price. 



