362 CENTRAL MINERAL REGION OF TEXAS. 



although there may be but few real gems among them. Many of the new 

 and rare minerals will have a ready sale to collectors, who have heretofore 

 been able to procure them at their own prices. While there is enough com- 

 petition to keep values down to a moderate basis, and while the discoverers 

 of even the more common varieties are often disposed to demand more than 

 they can possibly get for inferior specimens, it is not necessary to accept 

 ridiculously low figures for material which is in such demand as to command 

 very high prices in the market. 



If the owners of property in the Central Mineral Region will take the 

 little trouble necessary to inform themselves at a reasonable cost, they will 

 neither expect $10 each for common garnet crystals, nor will they accept 25 

 cents per pound for the rare minerals which collectors eagerly seize at twenty 

 times that price. But it is important to remember that perfect crystals of 

 somewhat common substances may frequently be worth much more than 

 inferior specimens of the rare minerals in large quantity. 



The following summary includes all the known occurrences of commer- 

 cially valuable materials which owe their importance to variety or fitness for 

 use as precious stones: 



1. GARNET. 



The garnets are abundant in the Burnetan rocks in Burnet, Llano, and 

 Gillespie counties; and although fine cabinet specimens, showing both large 

 and attractive crystals, have been taken freely from various excavations, it is 

 very probable that better ones will be discovered as the rocks containing them 

 are more extensively worked. The cabinet of the Geological Survey, in the 

 Capitol at Austin, has some very choice examples of these garnets, of several 

 colors — black, brown, and green. Almandite, andradite, and grossularite are 

 the most common varieties. They occur in great abundance in garnet rock, 

 usually associated with fibrolite as a thick adjoining rock layer. An exposure 

 in Clear Creek valley, two miles southwest of the Witherspoon crossing, on 

 the Burnet and Bluffton road, has been scratched to some extent, but not 

 systematically nor continuously. Other outcrops in the Babyhead Mountains, 

 King Mountains, and elsewhere, have yielded similar products, but nothing 

 but surface digging has been attempted. The promise of profitable results is 

 great enough in all these places to justify more thorough mining; but this 

 must be done in anticipation of moderate pecuniary returns, not with any 

 reasonable hope of securing gems. 



Idocrase or Vesuvianite is not strictly a garnet, but is near enough in gen- 

 eral characters to place it in the same category for commercial purposes. 

 This mineral is also abundant in similar situations, and some large crystals 

 can be secured, which will find ready sale to collectors. 



