In Mexico, in Central America and in the northern part of South
America, objects of jadeite are common. The Kunz votive adze from
Oaxaca, in Mexico, is now in the American Museum of Natural History,
New York. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico amulets of
green stone were highly venerated, and it is believed that jadeite was
one of the stones prized under the name of _chalchihuitl_. Probably
turquoise was another stone included under this name, and indeed any
green stone capable of being polished, such as the Amazon stone, now
recognized as a green feldspar, may have been numbered among the Aztec
amulets. Dr Kunz suggests that the chalchihuitl was jadeite in
southern Mexico and Central America, and turquoise in northern Mexico
and New Mexico. He thinks that Mexican jadeite may yet be discovered
in places (_Gems and Precious Stones of Mexico_, by G. F. Kunz:
Mexico, 1907).
Chloromelanite is Damour's name for a dense, dark mineral which has
been regarded as a kind of jade, and was used for the manufacture of
celts found in the dolmens of France and in certain Swiss
lake-dwellings. It is a mineral of spinach-green or dark-green colour,
having a specific gravity of 3.4, or even as high as 3.65, and may be
regarded as a variety of jadeite rich in iron. Chloromelanite occurs
in the Cyclops Mountains in New Guinea, and is used for hatchets or
agricultural implements, whilst the sago-clubs of the island are
usually of serpentine. Sillimanite, or fibrolite, is a mineral which,
like chloromelanite, was used by the Neolithic occupants of western
Europe, and is sometimes mistaken for a pale kind of jade. It is an
aluminium silicate, of specific gravity about 3.2, distinguished by
its infusibility. The _jade tenace_ of J. R. Haüy, discovered by H. B.
de Saussure in the Swiss Alps, is now known as saussurite. Among other
substances sometimes taken for jade may be mentioned prehnite, a
hydrous calcium-aluminium silicate, which when polished much resembles
certain kinds of jade. Pectolite has been used, like jade, in Alaska.
A variety of vesuvianite (idocrase) from California, described by Dr.
G. F. Kunz as californite, was at first mistaken for jade. The name
jadeolite has been given by Kunz to a green chromiferous syenite from
the jadeite mines of Burma. The mineral called bowenite, at one time
supposed to be jade, is a hard and tough variety of serpentine. Some
of the common Chinese ornaments imitating jade are carved in steatite
or serpentine, while others are merely glass. The _pâte de riz_ is a
fine white glass. The so-called "pink jade" is mostly quartz,
artificially coloured, and "black jade," though sometimes mentioned,
has no existence.
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