huge Paravauxite plate, ex. Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences circa 1910

Item Description

A rich plate with DOZENS of sharp, translucent, beautiful crystals running all over it, to 1.2 cm in length; and many of which are doubly-terminated. A vein of some white phosphate material runs through the middle. Despite its size, this plate, and the hundred-plus crystals on it, are largely unscathed. Coverage on the back is more sparse, but with larger crystals to 1.75 cm. The piece is quite display worthy and comes with a nice original label. Almost certainly this was field-collected on one of the famous Vaux expeditions in the early 1900s. TYPE LOCALITY MATERIAL: Paravauxite was described in 1922 and so it is not a huge leap of faith to assume this specimen and others in the Academy collections came from some of the same sources at the same time as the type study material.