The herald., 1898-04-20
FORTUNE IN TURQUOISE
TWO UNEQUALED GEMS FROM
SIMMONS MINE
A PR0SPECT0R'S LUCKY FIND
Rediscovers Mine That Was Worked
by Aborigines Centuries Ago.
Cutting Works Here

There is a quiet. unassuming man at the
Natick hotel, who can be seen carrying
little morocco leather case about occa-
sionally. which he handles with no par
ticular anxiety. vet which contains at least
$50 900 or its equivalent. This little SAM
ple of the fortune he has made by hard
work. exposure and the thousand and one
| difficulties which prospectors have to en-
dure, for he is a miner. who. while looking
for a gold vein, found what will make him
even richer than n gold mine. For some
years George Simmons toiled about the
desert in southeastern California and
southwestern Nevada. For miles in every
direction about Vanderbilt he is familiar
| with the country, and about eighteen
months ago he found accidentally what is
pronounced by experts to be the most
valuable deposit of turquoise ever known.
This is only about fifteen miles from Ven
derbilt. just over the state line in Nevada,
and is called the True Blue mine.
From the start Simmons has had hard
| row to hoe, for he has had to fight oppo-
| stion of all kinds. Men have tried to rob
him of his property in all sorts of ways and
/ the dealers who have interests in other
mines have tried in all manners to discour-
age him. But like the true-hearted Amer
lean that he is, he let nothing daunt him
and went ahead. He got the best lapidary
| he could find in the country and set to work
to cut the gems himself He then made
market connections, and now he finds the
dealers are after him and he can sit down
and take life easy.
| He is in the city for the purpose of es-
tablishing his lapidary where there is
| cheap electric power. He will send his
material here in the rough. and it will be
| made ready for the market. He has with
Elm something over $4,000 worth of the cut
gems and number of them still incased
| in their matrices of stone.
Two of these cut ones are supposed to
be the largest and most perfect In color,
| hardness and absence of flaw in the world.
| They are called Texas" and Nevada
| The former weighs 147 carets and the latter
| l40 Both are of the absolute azure tint
which marks the perfect stone, in which
| the most exact eye cannot find the slight
| est indication of green. The Texas is
round. while the Nevada is "oblong, be-
| ing two and seven-eights inches long and
one and three-eighths wide They are eX-
actly like two pieces taken from the clear
est. most beautiful Southern California
sky solidified for the adornment of some
stately dame or lovely girl.
simmons mine is one that was worked
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago
bv Indians or Aztecs. The old sienite
and lava stone hammers and lithograph
stone polishers are found in quantities in
their old diggings in fact, 1t Is in the holes
that these forgotten miners made that
| h; host
Their manner of working was to pound a
hole as deep as possible in the rock, then
build a fire in it, and when it was at
the highest point of heat possible they
would throw cold water on it and trust
to this splitting it open By this tedious
and difficult labor these old workers sue
ceeded in making excavations IN solid rock
as large as fifty feet and more in depth and
| twenty or thirty in width.
A strange fact about the place is that
the former workers evidently left In
hurry and tried to hide all evidence of
their having been there, for when Sim
minis rediscovered the mine the great
| chambers plainly had been all filled up
| with the debris that had been taken from
them and the tools appeared to have been
carefully hidden at the bottom of the
pits before they were filled up.
| William Petry, the lapidary, will In
few days be at work in this city. His
work is of the highest order, he having
graduated at this trade in the best Eu-
ropean shops. He cuts on an average
| twenty stones a day, and finished the
cutting and polishing of the great Texas
| in one day.
There has been some assertion made
that the supply of turquoise would cause
a depression in its market value. This is
not possible. for the reason that the
amount of the quality demanded by jew
elers never has been anywhere up to the
requirements. In 1856, when the Persian
| mines were at their best, the jewellers of
Paris alone ordered 100000 francs worth Of
| high-uuality stones, but the mines were
| only able to supply about 100000 francs
worth The quality of perfect blue tint
| with no green, of permanence of color, of
| hardness, of no flaws or lines, are SO ex-
igent that the poorer quality of gems can
not be handled to any advantage. If Mr..
| Simmons can turn out eight or nine thous-
and good gems year he will not begin to
| fill the demand, particularly as the old
sources of supply are constantly falling
| off in their output. This is notably the case
with the Azure mine in New Mexico from
| which Simmons had offer to take all
of his output if the purchasers were al
lowed to put their old trademark on it, but
| which he refused.
In few days Mr.. Simmons intends to
go east, where he will dispose of his two
big gems mentioned above. He has had
| negotiations for these under way for some
| time, and these have now about been
closed, so that he will get in the neigh
borhood Of 800 900 for the two. All of which
illustrates the fact that prospector
| though looking for gold, should not turn
| up his nose at anything else that comes
| along in the way of jewels.
University News
ion Marada,