| | It seems that it came by degrees to the people of Paris, Maine, just what kind of a locality theirs was. There was nothing significant or especially attractive in a farm with wood lots, cow pastures, and rugged stone walls. On this quiet, beautiful spot, one would look out and beyond, rather than down at those weather-worn rocks under the feet. Yet this place is the renowned Mount Mica, where the rarest treasures have lain concealed, while mighty forces have been silently at work forming and perfecting them. Chief among them is the tourmaline, in the utmost perfection of its crystallization and color. It is unsurpassed by any gem of its kind in the world. This elevation of land — for it is but a gradual ascent from the farm-house below — was so named from the great sheets of mica that lay glittering upon its surface when discovered.
It came about by accident — or what one terms an accident. The rocks had kept their secret, age after age, weather-beaten above, but accumulating, forming, disintegrating, below, when in 1820 two students, Elijah L. Hamlin and Ezekiel Holmes, were searching the locality for minerals. Half concealed and very unpretending lay the dull feldspar and quartz, holding fast to their prize, but a discerning eye detected the fragment of a transparent green crystal lying loose upon some earth which clung to the roots of a tree. The students felt sure of a treasure, but darkness was well upon them and they resolved to leave the place until the following morning; but during the night a snow fell and remained until spring.
Our two students were promptly on the spot the coming season. Their astonishment knew no bounds — or their joy, we may well believe — when they laid bare many more pink and green crystals half exposed upon the rough, jagged ledge. After carefully removing the overlying soil which the decaying rocks had formed, scraping cavities here and there, working with whole heart and soul, lo, the reward of their labor, in form of thirty or more crystals of evident beauty and clearness.
And more; all over the top of the rocks and down the hillside lay riches untold of the associate minerals. The people of the town hastened to the spot, and immediately some very valuable specimens were obtained. No one knew up to that time what to call their prize, so the young men enclosed a few of their best crystals in a letter to Professor Silliman, awaiting his reply with impatience. He hastened to tell them that they had made a most important discovery in finding a rare gem. And these were the first tourmalines of Mount Mica. This place, in its ages of silence, had been waiting, perfecting itself, that the hand of man should finally unlock its treasures and give them to the light of day.
In 1825 Professor Shepard visited the place and found several very fine crystals; and later Professor Webster opened a “pocket,” which revealed a fine grass-green specimen, also a most remarkable red one. In 1865 the deposit was believed to be exhausted, though the work had been extremely superficial, the excavations being only fifteen feet square and six feet deep. Fresh encouragement came later, as investigations were made by true votaries of science, and new pockets were constantly opened, with the tourmalines lying loose in the decaying feldspar, or embedded in the floor of the cavity.
About this time Dr. A. C. Hamlin, collecting the facts here outlined, made most important explorations, and added greatly to the knowledge of the capacities of the ledge. His excavations made from time to time have yielded to him one of the most valuable collections in the world. Rock was removed by tons, and cavities were struck yielding more wonderful results than before. Again came a time when the deposit was considered mostly exhausted; but the interest in the place was beginning to become general, in other countries as well as our own, and the feeling was strong that fresh exertions should be made to develop its resources still farther. This led to the formation, a few years ago, of the Mount Mica Company, now successfully in operation. The ledge has been explored for over one hundred feet, and tourmalines found at both ends, and it is thought there are possibilities for four hundred feet or more. Mount Mica has thus fairly earned its reputation among mineralogists, as being one of the most remarkable places in the world for this beautiful gem. Nor is this all. Not for its tourmalines alone is it interesting, as we shall see later, for nearly forty varieties of the associate minerals are here found.
But let us describe some of these crystals. In color they are white, blue, pink, and green, the color varying with the composition. Two years ago some of the pockets opened contained grass-green or blue-green crystals, one of which measured ten inches in length by two inches in diameter. This is believed to be the largest found in the world. Another was seven inches long by one inch in diameter. Others without number were phenomenal in size and beauty, some of them having the lustre and nearly the color of the ruby. The gradations of color are a most important feature in the gem. On this point the mineralogist revels in ecstasy; and well he may. Here a crystal red within, passing to green outside; there an exquisite red shaded to white, then blending into green again; or they may simply be red and green or white and green. They are marvellous in beauty.
The tourmaline in its physical character is first, in crystallization, rhombohedral, in prisms of three, six, nine, and twelve sides, terminating in a low three-sided pyramid. It occurs also massive, and coarse columnar, somewhat resinous when fractured. In hardness it is about 7.5, a little harder than quartz. It is brittle and, as in the case of the beryl, well-terminated crystals are most difficult to obtain. In constitution it is complicated, containing silica, alumina, magnesia, and a variety of other elements in small proportions. The presence of boron trioxide gives an interesting feature in the analysis of the mineral, while its electric and optical properties are an increasing delight to the student. The sides of the prisms are often rounded or striated. This is due to oscillatory combination, which is a tendency in the forming crystal to make two different planes at the same time. This makes a very interesting study, and the presence of these striations is welcome assurance to the beginner that he is correct in his conclusions.
Let us return to the associate minerals, which are found in profusion at Mount Mica. Truly the setting is worthy of the gem. Mica should be mentioned first, for tons of this mineral have been taken out, with its associate rock. Some specimens were more than a foot in diameter, weighing from twenty to forty pounds. Brookeite, spodumene, yircon, apatite, hebronite, amblygonite, and cassiterite, in all their varieties, have been mined, the latter by what has already been found giving much promise that a valuable deposit may be met in time.
After the blasting, the great business of the moment is to reach the pockets. But that is no concern of ours; to the humbler aspirant, when the working-hours are done, there are treasures still left in the way of fragments of crystals of all colors and varieties and rejected pieces of rock. These the student knows how to value, a sort of aftermath they are to the gleaner of knowledge. The workmen are prodigal of these riches, and we were grateful for the crumbs from the royal table. Blocks of mica glitter everywhere, and beautiful lilac lepidolite-lithia mica lies about in small pieces, as part of the débris. Several tons of this mineral have been disposed of to collectors, one mass weighing five hundred pounds. Graphic granite; gray and white albite, the latter perfect in its snowy whiteness and dendritic delineations; feldspar, white and pink, with its beautiful pearly cleavage; cleavelandite, a lamellan variety of albite; quartz in many of its varieties, the smoky and white most plentiful. Here a beryl, and fragments of beryl lying everywhere; and cookeite, most interesting because it is thought to proceed from the alteration of red tourmaline, — all these are here, and many more.
During the drive from South Paris to this famous ledge, abundant examples of the black tourmaline may be seen in the stone walls by the roadside. They are in the form of slender crystals, or occur massive, embedded in masses of granite or feldspar. These are black from the presence of iron. In these observations the student may pass some most profitable mornings. The great contortions in mica schist in their fantastic shapes are special objects of interest, and mica, always mica, glitters everywhere. There seems a great waste of material on every side; but the eye becomes accustomed to the prodigality of nature in this region, and looks in some expectation of more at every turn. The future resources of Mount Mica remain to be proved; but reasoning from the known to the unknown, the outlook is certainly most promising, both for the development of the ledges now being worked, and of those in close proximity. |
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