Where To Look

Bill James (Australia) writes:

It is a similar process to that which causes tree trunks of long ago to be changed to stone in cheerful yellows, browns and grays which now turn up as pebbles that make attractive costume jewelry. In Queensland, opal is found inside small boulders of dark sandstone known to miners as Yowah nuts. Some of these contain kernels of precious opal, rather like the thunder eggs of agate. In these many varied ways, over immense periods of time, Australia’s jewel box of gems has been built up. Already many of these deposits have been discovered, but others await discovery, and it may well be by some amateur gem seeker.

These stones are all products of our earths crust, except one—the tektite, a word that means ‘melted rock’. Tektites are thought to have come from space, either as volcanic glass from the surface of the moon or in the tail of a comet. Tektites are translucent, greenish to brownish objects, averaging an ounce or more in weight and occurring in a number of rounded shapes. They are estimated to be less than 10 millions years old. They occur in at least six other parts of the world as well Australia and North Western Tasmania. Millions are scattered south of an irregular line from the Kimberleys to Kyogle in New South Wales.

In some areas they are scattered thickly. Around Charlotte Waters in the Northern Territory, an explorer collected 8000. Over the course of time, like other gemstones, tektites found their way into alluvial deposits. Early New South Wales gold miners called them ‘button stones’ and believed they indicated rich yields of gold. Some even took them to California as lucky charms. As substances which have reached us from the remoteness of space, tektites have a peculiar appeal to the imagination. They make up readily into costume jewelry that is certain to create interest.