The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1894-12-13
MINING MONAZITE,
IMPORTANT INDUSTRY IN MOTH
CAROLINA.
Where This Rare Mineral is Found
and What it is Used fOr-fIOw MANY
People Ever Heard of it?-Some
Interesting Information About the
New Industry in This State.
New York SUM-

Fifty times the question was put by
Sun reporter to as many of those
shrewd New Workers who make hand
some fortunes in dull offices in Maiden
lane and Burling slip and Cedar street
and the regions roundabout, and fifty
times, with more or less variation OF
accent, came the answer:
" Never heard of it,"
Yet mOnazite is commercial fact
of importance; being talked of learn
edly in learned societies; it is being
quietly handled here in New York,
while down in North Carolina there is
monazite boom Of yelled and
secret Sort
Quiet, mysterious references have
been made to it by quiet, sedate busi-
ness men, but the limit of information
has seemed to be soon reached. One
Pearl street millionaire, who has han
died oils for fifty years, informed his
book-keeper last Monday that he was
going down to North Carolina to buy
a few square miles of land. "What
for r?'' asked the book-keeper. " Mon
azite,' replied the millionaire, and
that is all that he could or would say.
Another old gentleman just around
the corner on Pine street has sent his
sonin-law to Germany, where the
inner secrets of monazite are to be
gathered. An agent for a commission
firm has been slipping around from
point to point in North Carolina
buying up all the monazite in sight.
There were millions in it. The
market was g busted" 1t was used to
deteriorate gold. 1t was patent
medicine. No one outside of two
people, one in New York and one in
Hamburg, knew what it was used for.
1t was an open secret and not worth
talking about. OF such were the
varying and contradictory hints and
phrases that had floated into the
reporters ken, when it came to the
simple question, &c What is monazite ?"
the answer was almost Invariably the
one just quoted. Sometimes, however,
it was accompanied by half friendly
pointer, such as, /" Go down and see
Flinkstein: he knows all about it," or
Run over to DR.. Schwartzman'
place and ask him. And so by dint
Of mounting many dark and greasy
steps, getting into all sorts of strange
smelling laboratories and by taking up
leads and hints and indications, the
following facts about monazite were
secured:
Monazite is a strange, rare mineral
found in that rich metallic heart of
the Appalachian mountains that lie in
North Carolina. Some year or SO ago
one of the gold mining companies
down there discovered in their placers
deposit of small, brown crystalline
sand which was quite unfamiliar to
any of the miners. They sent sam
pie to their agent here in New York.
The agent sent it to famous German
analytical chemist, by whom it was
recognized as monazite. Up to that
time it had only been found in small
scattered deposits in such widely sepa
rated localities as Finland and Corn
wall, Norway and Bohemia, and in
such small quantities that only the
richer laboratories had any specimens.
1t was not like anything else under the
sun, and SO the few brown octahedron
crystals that had been bottled up were
labelled monazite, or the d" lonely" or
" solitary" mineral. The composition
| of the mineral was even more curious,
| for it was found to contain six of those
undefnable products known as "rare
earths" and all ending in cum
which is a peculiarity, it seems, OF
these imperishable dusts. What these
dusts had gone through before arriv-
ing at the ca!alogued state of " lums'
and :. ites'' can only be guessed at,
but the inference is that they had been
born in a period of intense cosmic
energy, for they proved to be the most
refractory" things on record.
Chemists call things refractory when
they can neither melt nor burn them
back any further toward the point OF
elementary origin, and these earths
wouldn't 60 back at all. No matter
how great the heat, they just became
incandescent, and Slowed with a
brightness that was like that of the
sun but when the fame was turntd
off they were just rare earths, unde
stroyed .lums' as before.
1t happened about this time that 3
certain illuminating company wa:
looking for just such a material a:
monazlte, and IN correspondence heard
of it. Investigations were made, ex
perts were dispatched to North Caro-
lima, and nonazite was found by tht
ton. Along the river banks and il
the river beds, in the clei,s of aurifer
Gus rocks, and at the bottom Of guile
the brown crystalline sand was found
and bought and shipped TO Germany
But it took lot of sand TO furnish tht
impcrshable material in the shap'
that was needed, and the price wen
up until it reached one hundred anC
fifty dollars ton, and from that up t
two hundred dollars and over. Thel
the search for monazite was begun il
earnest, and now in Alexander
Madison, Mitchell, Yancey, Burke
Polk, Mcdowell, and Rutherford
She" It takes two TO make a bar
l.