Hidden and Pratt — Twinned Crystals of Zircon. 323 



Art. XXXII. — Twinned Crystals of Zircon from North 

 Carolina ; by W. E. Hidden and J. H. Pratt. 



The zircon crystals to be described in this paper were 

 found at the Meredeth Freeman Zircon Mine in Henderson 

 County, North Carolina. The mine is located near Green 

 River and about two miles nearly south from the railroad 

 station now known as Zirconia. This is the mine from which 

 Gen. Thomas Clingman procured one thousand pounds of 

 zircons as early as 1869 and which became later a large pro- 

 ducer. The crystals occur in a saprolitic rock that was prob- 

 ably a biotite gneiss. 



The attention of one of us was drawn to some peculiar 

 crystals of zircon in May, 1888, by a miner who was then 

 regularly employed in washing out zircons from the rock of 

 this region. This miner stated that some of the men were 

 finding " zircon-crosses " which they were wearing as orna- 

 ments, some having them " sewed to the lapels of their coats " 

 and others " using them as watch charms." At first, no seri- 

 ous attention was paid to the miner's statement, for at that 

 time it was impossible to visit the mine and verify it and 

 besides staurolite seemed suggested by this description. 

 Specimens of these " crosses " were received during the same 

 month, but unfortunately they were badly broken in transit. 



During the following summer the locality was visited by 

 one of us, but all work had ceased at the mines. The dump 

 was carefully searched over for the "zircon-crosses" but with- 

 out success. The miners, while they well remembered the 

 finding of these crystals, had not saved any specimens of them. 

 The foreman, Mr. Edward H. Freeman, had fortunately pre- 

 served a small collection of different crystals found at this 

 mine and it was from this collection that the crystals described 

 in this paper were selected. Mr. Freeman stated that the 

 " zircon-crosses " were obtained from only one portion of the 

 mine and that some were found about \\ in. long by f in. 

 thick. He also said that they were very easily broken if care- 

 lessly handled. 



All the zircon from this region occurs as crystals which vary 

 in size from l mm to 30 mm in the direction of the c axis and 

 from l mm to 25 mm in that of the horizontal axes. The color 

 varies from gray to grayish and reddish brown. 



The common type is the prism of the first order, m, 110, 

 terminated by the unit pyramid of the same order, p, 111. A 

 few crystals have been observed with the prism terminated by 

 the steeper pyramid, u, 331 alone and also a combination of 



