The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17972338688)

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo17amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library



Text Appearing Before Image:
'
Text Appearing After Image:
By courtesy of the United States Geological Survey The gem-bearing region in San Diego County, California, possesses to the eye no attractions, un- less its sterile slopes and cactus-invaded valleys, in some lights, offer picturesquely desolate vistas. The prospector's zeal, hovi'ever, has broken through the arid crust of rock, and uncovered a dazzling wealth that has made this inhospitable country a mineral Golconda Gem Mining in the United States Tourmaline and Turquoise By L. P. (I K A T A C A P IF, as an ancient connoit-seur and his- torian of "Pretious Stones" with quiet eonfidence affirms, "the climate fittest for the production of stones of excellent beauty are such as do lie nearest the Trop- icks," the expectant prospector in our own country, guided by so grave a dictum, might too quickly relinquish his pursuit of these mineral rarities. Nature has not blessed the United States very plenteously with gem stones, but neither has she been too niggardly in bestowing, here and there, in the long ranges of our mineralized lielts, very stimu- lating stores of such treasures. Her dis- crimination in being more lavish to us in her gifts of rich economic deposits of earths and ores, was commendable. For although gems may have been, as quaint Thomas Nicols pompously assures us, "generated of an humour which containeth in itself purest terrestrial portions," yet the disillusionizing experience of commerce pretty clearly shows them inferior to the more homely coal, clay, metallic oxides, and salts. As a matter of fact the United States can- not qualify, at present, as a gem producer of any large commercial importance. In only four important regions have rewards for the gem hunter attained for it a somewhat secondary place among the great gem marts of the world. Nevertheless, in the sporadic development of gems, consequent upon the chemico-crystallographic agencies at work in the formation of large crystalline areas of rock, the United States offers a wide and instructive, if not always profitable, field for exploration. Within a few years a quite astonishing G.J