At the Main Show, Kevin Downey of the Well-Arranged Molecules dealership (www.wellarrangedmolecules.com) was marketing about a dozen fine miniature to small cabinet-size specimens of
babingtonite from the Lane traprock quarry at Westfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts.
And from Norilsk: short prismatic
babingtonite crystals.
Some Chinese dealers and a few Westerners offered pieces showing surpassingly large--and sharp, shining, clean--crystals of
babingtonite from Meigu, Sichuan.
Finally, Rene Daulon had a major stash, piled up on a table against his tent's inside wall, of ten or so flats full of outstanding specimens of
babingtonite from the outcrop occurrence at Meigu, Sichuan province.
First up is a new Chinese occurrence producing what are clearly the world's best-so-far specimens of
babingtonite, in extremely sharp, lightly striated, short-prismatic black crystals exceptionally to 5 centimeters long, associated with colorless-transparent quartz prisms and with pale green, lustrous spheres of prehnite: the assemblage recalls old specimens from the classic Lane quarry, Massachusetts occurrence.
Pezzotta describes the best specimens there (not only orthoclase, but also quartz, fluorite, datolite,
babingtonite etc.).
This quarry is best known for its outstanding datolite and (rarely)
babingtonite specimens, but these new white, translucent scalenohedrons and compound scalenohedrons of calcite, reaching 10 cm, are no poor sisters either.
Further, it seems that this same quarry has some Alpine cleft-type tension gashes with mineralogy featuring tiny
babingtonite crystals; brilliantly black, thin ilmenite platelets to 1 cm with epitaxial rutile; and (a serious rarity) microcrystals of kainosite-(Y) on muscovite.
Babingtonite [Ca.sub.2]([Fe.sup.2+],Mn)[Fe.sup.3+][Si.sub.5][O.sub.14](OH)
The last American news is from my own corner of the country, New England, which still does corner the market on world-class
babingtonite crystals.
localities have long believed that the Lane quarry at Westfield, Massachusetts, is firmly a thing of the past - a shame, we have thought, as the
babingtonite specimens from there are surely the world's best.
Among the more interesting and spectacular recent finds in Sweden are
babingtonite crystals of international importance.