One of the greatest impediments to the interpretation of the local mineral assemblages is the widespread, speedy, and unsystematic dispersal of almost all collected specimens. Fragmentation and dispersal of assemblages often precluded the recognition of any large-scale textural features. Most specimens were brought out of the mine by miners and workmen who often converted them to cash at the first reasonable offer. The buyers, often middlemen or dealers, in some cases waited outside the plant gates to proposition miners to sell immediately; other buyers made the rounds of miners’ houses on evenings or weekends. The process was a vigorous one which, most literally, left “no stone unturned.” Buyers of lots or of individual specimens, stimulated by a collector demand that sometimes approached a feeding-frenzy, dispersed such assemblages with no constraints. Indirectly, this process did serve science, for the profit-motive is a strong one, and great amounts of material were preserved, albeit unsystematically; otherwise, much of this specimen material would have gone through the crushers or been used as mine-fill.

In many cases, even weakly approximate reconstructions of assemblages is nearly impossible. From time-to-time, local collectors have agreed to bring their specimens from specific assemblages to a common site for a seminar; such efforts are only slightly fruitful in a scientific sense but do give the collector a recognition that his holdings are parts of a discrete assemblage and a greater whole.

The specimens which have been collected have been chosen with a number of biases and factors. Many of these are quite subjective and personal judgments on the collector’s part, and several may have been operative simultaneously. Others are part-and-parcel of the local mineral culture and are interwoven as a tight, intimate fabric in local collectors’ minds. Still others can be considered in a more general sense, as noted below. These considerations have varied greatly during the long period of local mineral collecting.

a)       Size and weight considerations.

The preserved specimens are those which could be carried, transported, and stored with a minimum or tolerable amount of inconvenience. Only in relatively recent times has the transportation of large specimens and bulk quantities of smaller specimens become a relatively simple matter. Large, bulky, and very heavy specimens were mostly left behind; they were carried only short distances before other motivations overruled desire. The large atomic weight of zinc (65.37) has played a significant role in size-and- weight specimen-reduction decisions. Small hand-sized specimens have been overwhelmingly preferred, even by curators of formal collections in museums.

b)      Color and textural considerations.

Specimens with bright, pleasing colors or combinations of colors, and/or interesting textural features were overcollected relative to common-grade specimen material and less-attractive or less-prized specimens. Specimens with euhedral crystals are universally preferred by most collectors. However, because such well-crystallized specimens are generally uncommon at Franklin and Sterling Hill, and because many local minerals do not commonly form such crystals, color and texture became very significant factors in specimen collecting and in retention decisions. In fact, for many species, such factors were the prime discriminants. Although many scientifically useful specimens were retained in this manner, and genetically significant textures were fortuitously preserved, it was a very undisciplined process. Aesthetics had a pervasive and perverse influence.

c)       Avoidance of dull specimens.

It is likely that the preponderance of common feldspars, garnets, pyroxenes, and amphiboles were undercollected relative to both common material and more attractive and unusual material. Dull, drab, fine-grained, decomposing, friable, or unattractive specimens were likely not retained except by John Baum and Lawson Bauer and by a very few insightful collectors like Phillip Betancourt, Richard Bostwick, John Kolic, and Stephen Sanford. The messiest specimens, covered with sooty manganese-oxides, may have been undercollected as well, for at least part of the local collecting history. It is very likely that significant representative assemblages were not collected at all. 

d)      The influence of fluorescence.

Because a significant number of local specimens are fluorescent in ultraviolet, and brightly so, such specimens were selectively overcollected relative to their natural abundance. This factor has been in effect at least since the early part of the twentieth century, when Franklin minerals were found to be fluorescent. This bias increased, perhaps greatly so, when portable ultraviolet lamps became available and were taken underground by miners in search of specimens for their private collections, or for sale, possibly contributing indirectly to a commensurate reduction in the preservation of non-fluorescent specimens. This possible shortfall, however, was likely balanced or offset in part by the collection of a greater abundance and variety of fluorescent material.

e)       The mineral marketplace.

For well over a century, local mineral specimens have been extensively marketed to collectors, who in turn have generated a demand for certain desirable species. Their desires have influenced the selective collection by miners and others of salable specimens.

f)       Erroneous information.

The specimen base has also been influenced by erroneous information pertaining to both local and non-indigenous material. Local specimens have been mislabeled both as to species and specific deposit, and such erroneous information has persisted in collections. Most mislabeling regarding either local species or specific localities has been innocent, such as Edison Mine molybdenite thought to be from Franklin, one example among many. Some of it, however, has not been guileless, especially when specimens and currency have changed hands, occasionally leaving honor behind. Additionally, many local collections are not labeled at all; their owners collect at but a few local mineral localities, recognize the identity and provenance of several hundred species by sight alone, and have no personal need for labels.

Other mislabelings have occurred because of outside contamination of the local specimen base, much of it inadvertent, casual, fortuitous, and innocent, and some small part of it deliberate and devious. Some contamination has resulted from industrial operations by the New Jersey Zinc Company and possibly other companies, which imported non-local minerals. Also, specimens from other mineral localities have been discarded on local dumps, and then “found” again by subsequent collectors who attributed local provenance to them. These might include iron ores, like magnetite, from other localities. The local distribution of waste-rock for road-metal and fill, together with other modes of provenance-confusion, contributed to this matter. However, the problem is relatively minor in scope, is well known to the more sophisticated of the local collectors, and has not led to problems in geological or mineralogical interpretations.

g)      Fraud.

The local mineral markets are no more immune to fraud than others, and such perverse habits are deeply rooted in local history; historically, fraud is a persistent central theme in local mineral interactions. Swayze (1903), an historian, recounts the narrative of William Kirby, a deserter from the British army who worked at the Andover Mine in 1762. He noted that “the wood-chopper piled his wood to cheat the collier. The collier put his charcoal into baskets in such a manner as to deceive the iron master; and the iron master, not to be outdone, sold his provisions to the men at an extortionate price.” Farrington, a local mining engineer with a wry sense of humor and clear mind, in discussing the various persons with whom Dr. Samuel Fowler interacted, noted that “It is also to be presumed, as is so often the case, the Doctor was imposed upon by charlatans and pretenders, who laid claim to possessing the true Philosopher’s Stone, whose [sic] magic touch was to turn the hills of Stirling and Franklin into metallic zinc and iron” (Farrington, 1852).

Contemporary mineral fraud has centered on commerce in rare minerals, with common material often purported to be rare and/or valuable; some local sellers are well-skilled in the art of carefully crafted “misunderstandings.” The arguments and subject matter have varied over the years, but not the local pervasiveness of deceit or the general encouragement, tolerance, and acceptance of it by some collectors. It is still possible to acquire mineral specimens in the Franklin area; caveat emptor!

Additionally, faked specimens (Dunn , 1981a) have been very common here, particularly late in the 19^th century and early in the 20^th century. The creative and artistic melding of specimen-fragments, crystals, plaster, lampblack, and glues has added to the non-scientific, artistic, creative part of the specimen base. The Canfield collection in the National Museum is particularly richly-endowed with faked Franklin-Sterling Hill specimens, most of which were very well-crafted. Most types of such fakes, however, are locally well known as such, are discernible upon careful examination, and have had only a minor impact on the local specimen base.

h)      Other factors.

The above biases are but some of those which have skewed the representativeness of species-variety and textural-variety in the specimen base. Other factors currently exist or may have in the past, and their effects are unknown. The existence of picking tables at both deposits until the 1950’s facilitated some specimen preservation, and conversely the underground crushing operations at Sterling Hill after 1960 inhibited it. Communications from distant laboratories indicating, for example, that newly-discovered and still-collectable assemblages should be retained, became rapid, simple, and inexpensive only late in the history of local mineral collecting. With some exceptions, the writer has avoided the use of the word “rare,” in large part because it has markedly different meanings for the collector and the mineralogist. Some minerals are geologically rare locally, but are over-represented in local collections, whereas others are geologically common here but are under-represented in collections.

In summary, the specimens available to science were predominantly chosen for non-scientific reasons, and are not necessarily a comprehensive or proportional representation of the mineral content of these deposits. However, they are assuredly useful.

Copyright © 1995 by Pete J. Dunn			Website by Herb Yeates
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This page created: January 11, 2001