Hemimorphite (old) ex Chadburn, Scalisi and Feist Coll.

Item Description

An old-time, classic and rare CABINET piece from the site of the first United States lead mining "rush" in the 1820s in the Upper Mississippi Valley Lead District. A large and showy vug in sculptural matrix is fully lined with botryoids of lustrous, glassy, bladed, olive-brown, hemimorphite crystals. This fine, large, historic specimen certainly dates to the late 1800s or early 1900s, at the latest. Ex E.R. Chadburn, Northeastern University, Phil Scalisi and George Feist Collection # 2279. The specimen is listed as "calamine" on the Chadburn label. Calamine is an early name that covered the zinc minerals smithsonite, hydrozincite and hemimorphite.