UNIVERSITY GEOLOGISTS TO HAVE NEW SPECIMENS SOON

Nearly a ton of specimen granite is being prepared for exhibition in the University Museum as a result of the work carried on by the Department of Mineralogy last summer.

Sometime ago money was given to the department to buy a quarry suitable for research and last summer an additional contribution enabled Professor Charles Palache to obtain quarry rights on a large ledge of granite in Greenwood Maine. K. K. Landis 3G, started work early in the summer with two miners and blasted hundreds of tons of rock all of which had to be examined and if interesting a small specimen had to be saved for experimentation in the laboratories in the University Museum.

In the course of the blasting the miners had to run many risks and had many narrow escapes from flying rock. Two and a half kegs of black-powder were used and from 40 to 50 tons of rock were lifted in one explosion which cut off some trees 18 inches thick that grew farther down the mountain. The cliff on which the work was done was very steep and rose for 400 feet on the side of the mountain. One large boulder 40 feet long and 10 feet wide was found some distance on occasion and smaller fragments from the block clipped off an oak tree two feet in diameter.

The miners used used a cave in the cliff for a battery room and for a bomb proof shelter during the blasts. the specimens that are now being arranged for exhibition are largely specimens of feldspar quartz and spodumene. A number of specimens of pink afatite, a rare formation of granite, were found.