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PhotosAchroite - East Hampton, Middlesex Co., Connecticut, USA

21st Feb 2011 14:27 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

Achroite, Elbaite, Smoky Quartz

Gillette Quarry (J-J Mine; Haddam Neck Quarry), Haddam Neck, Haddam, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USA

http://www.mindat.org/photo-61876.html

Nice crystals on smoky quartz. Based on the quality and the color of the elbaites, this piece is almost certainly from the GIllette Quarry in the Haddam Neck section of Haddam, which was active when this specimen was collected. Old specimens from there are commonly labeled as coming from East Hampton, even Cameron et al (1954) Pegmatite Investigations New England had it wrong. The blue termination on the flat end of at least one crystal has been seen there (http://www.mindat.org/photo-288651.html) and the association of elbaites penetrating smoky quartz is very characteristic of that locality. It looks like there may be a fibrous muscovite (schernikite) also penetrating the quartz in the lower part of the photo, if so, of if there is schernikite elsewhere on the specimen, this would be diagnostic as Gillette.

21st Feb 2011 17:42 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

Message sent.

21st Feb 2011 19:14 UTCPeter Cristofono

Thanks Harold. I'll move the photo to Gillette and reference your note.

22nd Feb 2011 00:33 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

Great, thanks. I've been trying to get more precise localities for photos that are just posted under a town name. While I'm at it, this beryl http://www.mindat.org/photo-272207.html is from the Brainerd Quarries in Haddam Neck, see description here http://www.mindat.org/loc-209580.html. I didnt know Harvard had one also, that makes three museums with them!

22nd Feb 2011 01:56 UTCPeter Cristofono

Moved. Thanks again!

23rd Feb 2011 13:45 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

Thanks Peter. It is very common that old specimens from Haddam have no specific locality. The place was so rural (and still is), there are many small pegmatites, and there were few landmarks. Many references say things like "two miles south of the meetinghouse" - is that linear miles?, road miles (if so which roads?), crow fly miles?, etc. Often specimens were shipped to the museums without any details (which they would demand now). Fortunately many places became well-known enough that a specific place was noted, but even now a GPS is still needed to pin some of them down further. Haddam's library had a circa 1945 map by Horace Williams with dozens of localities on it - and they lost it! They still have the list that went with it. There was a place in the mid 19th century called "Cook Brothers Gem Mine" somewhere in Haddam Neck that produced colored tourmaline well before Gillette and Swanson existed. Oh well...

BTW, attached is a snapshot of beryls from the Brainerd quarries on display at Yale's Peabody Museum.

Fritz

23rd Feb 2011 19:31 UTCDavid Bernstein Expert

Fritz,

Do you need me to locate the Cook Bros. Gem Mine? You know I can find anything. I'm up to the challenge!!!

23rd Feb 2011 23:10 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

Hi Dave:

No, it was possibly somewhere near the Swanson Mine (or could have become it later), and you dont want to go there....:)

It's all very vague and lost to history, I've never seen or heard of a specimen from there anyway.

Fritz

21st May 2019 22:47 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

Peter,

I'm revising where this piece is from and think it may in fact be East Hampton after all.

Based on the description from Bastin 1910 I think it is the old, small Eureka Quarry:

https://www.mindat.org/loc-253775.html

"Pockets or cavities are irregularly distributed through this pegmatite. The largest are 7 or 8 inches in diameter, and some of them, especially the smaller ones, contain tourmalines of gem quality. In color these are usually grass to olive green, and many show very perfect terminations. Some are of the variety achroite, being colorless or very pale green or pink. Near the pockets opaque or translucent green tourmalines, granular aggregates of lepidolite, and muscovite bordered by lepidolite or in parallel intergrowth with it, are common."

Description sounds a lot like your specimen, especially as the pockets were pretty small, so the specimens would be also.

I thought this might have been an old description of Gillette Quarry, based on similar minerals, but he also describes it in this document and other details given, like 1.25 miles from the river, clearly make it not Gillette. Apparently did not operate for very long so never made it into many later pegmatite documents. I bet there are some pieces floating around from it that are mislabeled as Gillette. Given its general proximity to Swanson, it may also be the very poorly documented "Cook Brothers Gem Mine" but I doubt that will ever be confirmed.

22nd May 2019 00:29 UTCPeter Cristofono

Hi Fritz,

According to the dealer's label, this specimen was field collected by Warren Johansson (1921-2014) sometime between 1939 to the early 1940s, which was long after Bastin's (1910) description of the Eureka quarry, and after Shannon (1920) reported the site was not worth visiting. So while it's possible that Johansson discovered some new pocket material at the Eureka, it could be that Gillette is the source of this specimen after all and mislabeled "East Hampton." What do you think?

22nd May 2019 01:47 UTCKevin Conroy Manager

All I know about this locality is that I don't know anything. However, unless there is something really distinctive about this specimen that rules out the locale on the original label, conjecture at this point seems a bit reckless.

22nd May 2019 13:32 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

Hi Peter:

In 1920 Shannon said the Swanson mine was not worth visiting either! It's possible that the site was worked again during WWII (as was Swanson - as the Anderson Mica Mine #1 - which then became a much better site) because the nearby Worth quarry (Mr. Worth worked a lot of places between the wars and during WWII, including the State Forest Quarry #1) was operated then and many other places were opened or at least investigated then, as you know. They didnt all end up in Cameron. While in principle I agree with Kevin, I have seen so many mislabeled old specimens to have a healthy skepticism, and there is usually something about the label or date of the find, etc. that explains the error. Because the Haddam Neck section of town of Haddam, where the Gillette Quarry is located, is physically separated from the rest of the town of Haddam by the Connecticut River and is accessed via roads from adjacent East Hampton, Gillette got frequently incorrectly placed in the latter town on labels and articles - see Cameron (and Jeff Scovil's article in Min Record)! Until I read the old description of Eureka by Bastin, I was unaware there was even a pockety pegmatite in East Hampton, small though it is. Your specimen fits his description very well, especially the mention of achroite, which is actually rare at Gillette. So now that I know it has a viable East Hampton source, I no longer see a reason to change the locality and find it very cool that an apparently rare specimen from this small peg is preserved! Is the other achroite specimen in the Gillette photo gallery also from there?

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