CORUNDUM. 453 



based on data collected by him at a point in the alluvium in India 

 where the natives had for ages gathered the mineral. Those by Count 

 Bournon were the results of his studies of the mineral at Paris, from 

 specimens brought him from several points, especially in India and 

 Ceylon. At a later date, we have interesting information from Sir 

 Alexander Burnes as to the celebrated ruby locality of ancient Bac- 

 tna ; and from Sir James Tennent and Sir Samuel Baker, as to the 

 famed sapphire districts of Ceylon, which were carefully examined by 

 them during a protracted residence there. A most interesting ac- 

 count of these localities was also published in the Ceylon Observer 

 for June, 1855, by Mr. William Stewart, of Colombo. In the Ameri- 

 can Journal of Science for the years 1850, 1851, and 1866, are three 

 papers on granular corundum, or emery, by Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, 

 of Kentucky ; the first two descriptive of the emeries of Asia Minor, 

 and localities on the islands of the JEgean Sea ; the third, on the mine 

 in Western Massachusetts, known as the Chester mine. These papers 

 are of the first importance in all questions concerning the commercial 

 emeries of our own or foreign countries, and cover the ground of in- 

 vestigation to the date of the North Carolina discovery, and the com- 

 munications thereon, enumerated in the opening paragraph of this 

 article. 



Up to the date of 1871, corundum, or its gems, had never been 

 found in situ. Both were looked for in mountain-torrents, or beds of 

 gravel at their base. Emery had for many years been mined in the 

 islands of the JSgean Sea, but had not been scientifically studied in 

 position, until the researches of Dr. Smith, alluded to ; since which 

 date, however, it has been found in place at various points in our own 

 and other lands. About the year 1800 it became known that corun- 

 dum existed, in small quantities, all along the mountain-line of sea- 

 coast, from Maine to Georgia ; and, twenty-five years since, it was 

 found in bowlders, in considerable quantities, in Southeastern Penn- 

 sylvania. Near the same time a large fragment of massive sapphire 

 was picked up in Western North Carolina, and elicited much attention 

 from mineralogists ; but, careful further search in the locality for it 

 being fruitless, there has been since but little effort to find it at any 

 point in the Appalachian range. Whatever effort was made, however, 

 settled the point that corundum existed, in considerable quantity and 

 different degrees of purity, at twenty-five or more localities scattered 

 from New York to Northern Alabama. 



In the spring of 1871 Colonel C. W. Jenks, of St. Louis, being in 

 want of an abrasive more powerful than Naxos emery, started out into 

 the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina in search of corundum, 

 in sufficient quantity to mine profitably. From many localities where 

 the mineral showed itself, he selected one near the head-waters of the 

 Tennessee, in Southwestern North Carolina, nine miles east from 

 Franklin, the county-seat of Macon, and commenced his work. A 



