The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-09-10
FOUND IN ONLY ONE MINE.
Mineral Used in Making Rare chalices
 Vases and Slabs.

|
 Vases and Slabs.
 To the average man the name of l.Blue John'' is as meaningless as the sound of tinkling brass. But strange though it may seem, it is the nome of a stone says the London Leader n pre- leious stone. sold at prices varying from e2j 900 a ton-aceording to size ard quality-found nowhere in the world save in little Derby shire bill lof a surface measurement of 700 yards Tor thereabouts.
 Small though the hill. it is honey combed by three miles of the most lwonderful cayerns and mines. The centre of the great range of caverns- and they branch out for upwards of a mile in each direction-is known as Lord Mulgrave's dining room. It is 60
 feet wide and 160 feet high, and it was given its present name because it was
 here that Lord Mulgraye, on exploring
 the cayerns when first they were found entertained at dinner the miners who
 had lowered him into these great
 fastnesses.
 Blue John is employed in the rich
 vestments of the priest, in the making
 of rare chalices, vases, dishes slaDs the
 ornanentation os the mantelpieces of
 the rich, and in such beautiful em-
 bessing as that to be seen on the pulpit
 and in other portions of St. Georges Chapel It is a topazlike flour of ex-
 ceeding beauty, and the Blues John
 mine Is bound up and combined with
 some of the wierdest and most striking lof the worlds caverns. There are . many coal mines in the world; more than one country can boast of it's salt
 mines, it's lead mines, it's tin workings its gold fields Yet the whole contains
 but one Blue hamlet of Castleton, in
 Derbyshire.
 Thirty steps carry one through the
 mine workings into the caverns, the
 most wonderful of natures handiwork. In remote ages, water bubbling and
 boiling and outrushing in Titanic rage
 in these comparatively confined spaces
 formed rooms and grottoes such as no
 human being could conceive.
 The cystallized cavern is 90 feet
 high, with glorious dome of stalactite forms glistening like rich gems. These
 are the finest stalactites extant.
 It is computed that it has taken na-
 ture 100 years to fashion every eighth lpart of an inch of these stalactites, . N and now there is sufficient to form a frozen cascade. There is, too, a stalag-
 mite, the product of an eternity of time which portrays beehive.
 At one time in the waterWorn chasm l known as the Waterfall Cavern, where 1 the Blue John spar is found, and which
 | is singularly like a waterfall number lof intensely beautiful staiactites
 joined a. large stalagmite and conveyed a wondrous imitation of organ pipes.
 The stalactites were broken by some , wanton visitors.
 , Fossil forms are in various parts of : the caves pointed out to the visitors. } and here and there the candle light will reveal the Blue John coloring or the sparkle of the manganese of iron. , The Great Cave' was explored by : MT. John Royse, the proprietor of the } mine, In 1897. From the entrance to the l; mine to the deepest abyss (which is lrailed off from Lord Mulgrave's dining , lhalD the distance is five hundred yards
 and the depth of three hundred feet. l There seems to be no fnality to the
 discoveries at the Blue John mine, and ] since 1887 five or six fresh caverns
 have been explored.
 Chemically, Blue John is composed of an amalgamation of lime and acid and ) oxide of manganese and iron so dexter ously blended that not even an Ameri- , can combine could initiate it. Indeed : the pestle. and mortar which have served to produce So beautiful a mine , ral are believed by the greatest of ge- Iologists to have consisted of volcano ! and river, limestones and iron deposits : and the mighty upheaval of rocks. ! In the raw Blue John is a study ir lgray and purple, the gray where ths limestone and manganese of iron pre-. Iponderate, and the purple where tn, lpure Blue John enters. When cut and Ipolished 1t becomes transparent, rang. : ling in color from lovely amber : lstreaked with blue to brilliant purple : and crimson dotted with yellow. ol
 blGish black with blood-red markings
 4 little goblet of this precious stone Twill cost you anything up to twelve Iguineas, de pendent upon the purity O : the specimen. Indeed the mineral is discovered in such small quantities ant little blocks that you must be prepared to pay stiff figure for an ornament i, lof any modest proportion.
 , To the Romans must be given tht Ecredit of discovering Blue John. Tha lthey realized it's beauty is patent iron lthe fact that some ten years ago twt , IBlue John vases were found among thu < Iruins of Pompeii. Those Pompeiians 1. Iwho boasted a civilization the essence : lof which we mortals of the twentietf !, !century have not yet grasped, and wht
 ransacked the world for it's treasures , Ihad obtained those vases from the very lmines we are now exploring.
 For hundreds of years the Roman |workings and the Roman shaft were Host sight of Two hundred and twen' ! Ity years ago the Blue John miners re Iopenedl the shaft and began to mine thu Ispar and create a market for it. They ; lwere utterly ignorant of the presence oi 1.-the caverns, and it was not until one hundred years later that the Blue Johr miners accidentally struck into ar Iopening which proved the entrance to a oounrpS tho nvfart of xyhfah