HIDDENITE

LiAl(SiO3)2
Crystal: Monoclinic
Cleavage: Perfect, Prismatic
Hardness: 6.5 - 7
Sp.G.: 3.03 - 3.23
Fracture: Uneven, Sub-conchoidal
Colour: Yellow, Green
Lustre: Vitreous, Pearly on cleavage.

 
According to New Age Therapists Hiddenite is The Stone of Expansion.

It benefits intellectual and emotional experiences and Boosts creativity.
This stone will help you feel emotions, release fear, promote compassion for others and reaching out to others. It will help you with self awareness, discernment and letting go. It will gently release feelings of failure
and help people who "put on a brave face" to be able to accept comfort and support from other people.

Zodiac: Scorpio

Please read our DISCLAIMER

 
ABOUT HIDDENITE

Hiddenite is a pale to emerald green variety of spodumene that is sometimes used as a gemstone. The first specimens of the hiddenite variety of spodumene were recovered in about 1879 near the tiny settlement of White Plains, west of Stony Point,
Alexander County, North Carolina, USA.

According to contemporary accounts, a young man named Lackey brought them to the attention of J.A.D. Stephenson, a local merchant who was also an ardent collector of minerals. Initially, the yellowish to greenish-yellow hiddenites were thought to be gemmy diopside. Stephenson brought the discovery to the attention of exploration geologist William Earl Hidden, who had been commissioned by Thomas Edison to search for any sources of platinum in North Carolina (an effort that was, in and of itself, unsuccessful).

Hidden sent samples of the odd green material to J. Lawrence Smith, a prominent chemist and mineralogist of Louisville, Kentucky. Smith correctly identified the specimens as being a variety of spodumene, and named them "hiddenite" in honor of Hidden. The community in which the gemstones were first found would later be renamed "Hiddenite". During the hey-day of hiddenite mining in the 1880s and 1890s it was also known as "lithia emerald".

Hidden recognised the value of the emeralds and the potential of the new gemmy green spodumene. He acquired a tract of poor quality land, which was either the site of the initial discovery or near to it, for $1500. The Emerald and Hiddenite Mining Company was organized and excavations on the site quickly recovered loose hiddenites and emeralds in the red, gravelly clay. At a depth of about 26 feet they struck bedrock and soon were recovering hiddenites from solid rock. Oddly, period newspaper accounts and statements by George Frederick Kunz (1892) indicate that mining on the site was never undertaken as a full-time operation, but was only prosecuted a few weeks or months during the summer.

Writing in 1892, Kunz described the hiddenite being recovered as "always transparent, ranges from colourless (rare) to a light yellow, into a yellowish green, then into a deep yellow emerald green. Sometimes an entire crystal has a uniform green colour, but generally one end is yellow and the other green."
Kunz noted that the finest crystal recovered prior to 1892 measured 68 mm tall, and could have cut a gem
of 5.5ct estimated weight.
The size of most cut gems were small, with a 2ct hiddenite in the Augustus C. Hamlin collection being considered among the finest of the large stones. The colouring agent is chromium.
Colours can gradually fade. Hiddenite has a strong vitreous luster and displays strong colours due to pleochroism. In addition to the North Carolina locality, Hiddenite has also been found in Brazil, China, and Madagascar. Green spodumene found in Afghanistan and Pakistan has excited modest amounts of controversy in the mineral and gemological communities with debate over whether or not it should be truly considered "hiddenite" as well as claims that the green colouration is induced by irradiation and is fugitive.

Back To Mineral Specimen Gallery
Are you looking for clear boxes
for displaying and protecting your
favourite minerals, gems, fossils, meteorites or other collectibles.
We also make mineral
display stands and acrylic blocks.

CHECK OUT THE
FOLLOWING LINK BELOW:

MINERAL BOXES
And DISPLAY PRODUCTS

© COPYRIGHT 2023, Gerald Reginald Pauley
This website was designed by Gerald Reginald Pauley
All Rights Reserved.

Back To Mineral Specimen Gallery