The Bitterroot Conglomerate
Newsletter of the Bitterroot Gem & Mineral Society
Vol. XXVI issue 1
Minutes of the Bitterroot Gem and Mineral Society January, 2007
BGMS CHRISTMAS DINNER & AUCTION – DEC. 9, 2006
The Bitterroot Gem & Mineral Society (BGMS) annual Christmas Dinner & Auction was held from 1:00 to 4:00 PM on Dec. 9, 2006 at the Corvallis Community Church at Church & Second St. in Corvallis, MT. There were 31 members present and 2 guests.
The meeting opened with a pledge to the USA flag. Following the pledge, officers were sworn in by Mildred Soll for the year 2007. The elected officers for 2007 are: Larry Jones for President, Stephen Vieth for Vice President, Wayne Farley for Secretary, and Betty Hodge for Treasurer.
For the dinner, Turkey & Ham were furnished by the club, and potluck contributions were furnished by members of the club. The food was excellent, and there was plenty to go around. Decorations on the tables were contributed and arranged by Sharlene Farley and Jo Farley.
The dinner was followed by an auction of rocks, minerals, books, preserves, nicnaks, etc. Don Tibbs was the auctioneer, and was assisted by Don Farley. They did an excellent job, as usual, adding humor and entertainment to the process. Margaret Sharp was the bookkeeper and treasurer for the auction. There were approximately 68 items or lots auctioned, which brought in $417 to the club. Also, $60.00 was collected in membership dues. These auctions are important for the club coffers, and enable the BGMS club to have the lowest membership fees of any of the Rock & Mineral clubs in Montana.
Non perishable foods were collected at the party for the Haven House, and were later delivered to the Haven House by Pat Tibbs.
Respectfully submitted by
William Ponder
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Notes from the Editor
Since the Treasurer was not available at the Christmas Potluck our dues must be paid at the January meeting or mailed to the clubs P O Box 942, Hamilton. We are hoping to see all of you again this new year at the meetings, potlucks and outings.
The new President, Larry Jones, is planning to appoint a number of committee chairpersons and members at the next meeting. After our next meeting he is also planning to have a meeting of the Executive Committee to go over the Club’s By-Laws and look at correcting or revising them as necessary. If you have any input please let Larry know at the next meeting or by phone.
How many of you have checked out the Club web-site at http://www.bitterrootgms.org which will be upgraded by Michael Wilder to include other items such as Club By-laws, links to other useful sites and our proposed outings for this year if these are things you as Club members want. I can see many possibilities for the site. I’m quite sure that we could also be included in other sites which might give us exposure to people looking for a Rock Club in this area. What suggestions do you have? Michael is looking for some guidance from the membership so please write down what you want on the web-site and give it to Michael or to Ralph Luther. In addition to your suggestions please write down any web links you would like to have included in the links on the web-site
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Presidents Column
Hello Everybody and Happy New Year,
I would like to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my history. My name is Larry Jones (your new club president). I am a retired teacher and football and wrestling coach. I taught and coached for thirty eight years at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, California. I have to say, that all during that time I never thought about “Rock Hounding” but when we moved to Montana my grandson, Conrad Dean, talked me into joining the Gem & Mineral Club. The rest is history. Well that’s my story, what’s yours? Please fill out the enclosed questionnaire and give it to the Treasurer or President or mail it in so it can be tabulated and used to plan future events for the club meetings and outings.
For Sale. An ore car from a mine in Nevada, In good shape. $500.00. Contact Posey at 961-4116
Wanted. A Faceting Machine. Please contact Mildred at 363-5224 or Cathy at 777-2598
Club Goal: To stimulate interest in all aspects of our hobby including lapidary, fossils, faceting, geology, metal-smithing, collecting, displaying, education and recreation.
Where did gemcutting get its start?
What are the origins of the ancient and honorable craft known as lapidary? Gemcutting, or lapidary, occurred as the most likely answer suggests that an offshoot of more mundane strivings. A stone may have fallen into a fire where the heat caused it to break or flake. Perhaps a sharp edge resulted? Certainly, flint and other hard stone possess sharp edges, but a blade-like cutting edge on a newly flaked piece meant something else.
Then perhaps, someone viewed stone fragments from a more abstract perspective. To regard the unusual configuration, texture, or coloring of a piece of stone or mineral crystal, to contemplate the possible alterations of a stone so as to wring from it the promise of greater beauty is to begin to understand the mysteries of lapidary.
In prehistoric times, man hammered out his tools of stone, presumably smacking one stone against another, scratched and chiseled out symbols and primitive writings on hard rock and cave walls - and gradually learned the great secret: some stones are harder, i.e., they are more capable of inflicting scratches on other less hard stones.
From such an understanding, drilling and bruting became possible. Drilling, one of the first of the lapidary arts, shows itself in history as far back as 6,000 years ago. In these same times, the primitive peoples learned that rocks could be broken or fractured. First, the breakage provided random fragments, but ultimately experimentation no doubt demonstrated that breakage could also be achieved with some semblance of control.
This same knowledge of relative hardness led to bruting, the shaping of a gem specimen through rubbing against another harder mineral type. The slow, tedious practice of bruting was used for centuries until more refined techniques were introduced.
At this early date, historians are reluctant to attribute anything quite so intellectual as an understanding of cleavages. It was satisfactory that the breaking, chipping, or flaking of a stone could be disciplined...made to occur in desired directions and depth.
River Rolling Produces a Smooth Finish
No doubt, too, man compared the smooth, river and stream rolled stones with those found elsewhere. Even here, it required no great stretch of thinking to conclude that something was exerting a smoothing or polishing effect on certain stones. Could it be other mineral particles in the river working to complement the action of the constantly running water? From such questions, the advance to a rubbing paste of water and sand was virtually inevitable.
Whether many of these later discoveries broke in the Paleo or Neolithic, (early or late Stone Age,) is of little consequence. What is known is that man used the new found phenomena in anticipation of the many tools and pieces of equipment of succeeding years.
By 3,000 B. C., man had developed his lapidary skills to such a level that cylinders made of serpentine, were commonplace. The Scanning Electron Microscope has analyzed many seals of the early Bronze Age that were uncovered in ancient Mesopotamia. Showing remarkable skill and tool control by the gemcutters, these seals were often shaped to form a flat or convex seal face with a raised perforated handle on the back.
Highly valued, the seals were worn as amulets that could be removed quickly and pressed into a clay tablet. Indeed, they were the mark of early man as each seal was an individual creation, made exclusively for its owner.
Old Tools Show Age of Lapidary
What is so inspiring about these ancient artifacts is that they prove how old lapidary is. They show that, well before Christ, lapidaries had pretty much conquered the challenges of sawing, chipping, drilling, polishing and, yes, faceting. By today's standards, the work was rudimentary but the principals upon which this work was performed are still with us.
From the beginning of recorded history, use of jade and jade look-alikes were prevalent. Materials like serpentine only look like jade, but the real value lies in the lapidary skill lavished on the original rough.
Centuries before Christ, the Chinese knew how to work the tough green material they called yu and which we call jade. It was also a sacred stone to the Aztecs of North America as well as the Maoris of New Zealand. The tribes of the Swiss Lake District also worked jade.
To be sure, pre-Columbian beads of Mexico and South America were crudely worked samples of jade, but some of the more advanced cultures of ancient Mexico worked the material into incredibly intricate and complex carvings. Where available, other forms of jade were also used extensively. These other similar appearing by non-jade types included serpentine, prehnite, and aventurine.
Naturally, the various kinds of quartz found quick favor among stone workers. They represented an explosion of varied, rich colors and, although their hardness made them a more difficult to work than the softer stones, many different cultures sought them not for their lush cosmetic values but for mystic purposes as well.
The faceted gems of today are incredible optical performers. It has always been that way. For example, the marvelous translucency and transparency of the crystalline quartzes ranged from carnelian, sardonyx, agate, amethyst to rock crystal. The early Chinese, Japanese, Grecian, and Mycenaean peoples found quartz a marvelous mineral for gemcutting, as did the craftsmen of India and Scotland.
Amber Still Considered Earliest Gem Materials
Amber is undoubtedly one of the earliest stones to be used in jewelry. It is lightweight, easily drilled, and features a pleasing warm color. It was also found floating in numerous parts of the world in fairly large pieces.
Such folk work comes from the Orient, Morocco, Afghanistan, and, of course, the Baltic countries. Used mostly in necklaces, many of the beads are large, hand-shaped spheres or ovals.
Turquoise has a long history in jewelry. The Egyptians of the earliest dynasties focused great attention on this sky-blue stone, often grinding lit into a powder form to provide a unique blue eye shadowing.
It was a highly prized gem of the Mexican cultures, and the Persians and Tibetans used turquoise extensively. Some Germanic people used it as a betrothal stone. Among the American Indians, it was the principal stone. In almost all instances, the workings were those of cabochon cutters, carvers and sculptors who specialized in representational art.
A relatively soft stone, turquoise was easily worked and could quickly be buffed to a nice polished finish with a mixture of sand and water. Sometimes it was worked in a nugget form and other times it was shaped. Used alone or in combination with shell, coral and other soft materials, turquoise has continued in great popularity even up to contemporary times. Coral, incidentally, is usually vivid in color and easy to shape so it naturally became famous in Tibet, China, India, northern Africa, and the American Indians.
Other stones that found early use among gemcutters were meerschaum, jet and lignite, soapstone, lapis lazuli, and malachite. Where volcanic action was evident, obsidian was also used. It is a medium soft stone, but gemcutters quickly found that quartz pieces and flint could be used to shape it. Obsidian was valued among the Stone Age artisans and then later by Aztecs, Mayans, and Indian tribes of the Western U. S.
Glass, Too, Has Long Lapidary History
As a matter of fact, in 5,000 B. C. the Zadim, (stone workers,) of Sumeria were even making and working with an early form of glass. Not so surprising is the fact that the initial use of glass was to serve as an imitation gemstone.
Later, the Egyptians were to be given false credit for the development of glass or faience, (fah-yahnse'). It is pretty much established now that the real discovery of this glazed terra cotta ceramic ware, with its colored decorations, took place farther East and was brought to Egypt by Sumerian merchants.
Even farther east in Cambay, (in Western India's Gujarat State,) bead making has progressed to a fine art. Factories there were producing a variety of beads made from siliceous stones that are even today marketed all over the world.
Artisans of the Bronze and Classical Age, especially those who carved Greek seal stones, used techniques that were enormously time consuming. It was their habit to cut small chunks from large local blocks. Obsidian served as the sawing agent, the chunks were shaped with Naxian emery, and then apparently given a final polish with other corundum powders made into a watery paste.
BITTERROOT GEM & MINERAL SOCIETY is a member of the Montana State Council, Northwest Federation and American Federation. We support State and Federation projects and goals. We are guided by the AFMS code of ethics:
I will respect private property. No rockhounding without permission.
I will use no firearms or blasting material in rockhounding areas.
I will take all garbage home, or dispose of it in proper receptacles.
I will leave gates as found.
I will cause no willful damage to materials or take more than I can use.
I will build fires in designated or safe places only.
I will not contaminate wells, creeks or other water supplies.
I will appreciate and protect our heritage or natural resources and wildlife. I will always use good outdoor manners.
SAVE USED POSTAGE STAMPS FOR CANCER RESEARCH!
GIVE A HOOT - DON"T POLLUTE! KEEP MONTANA GREEN
