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PLATINUM. It is not at all to be expected that this rare metal should occur in this State. I have had no opportunity to verify the statements quoted below, but I have thought it worth while to give them on the authority of the writer of the article which was published in "Expansion" for May, 1904, by Mr. W. L. Hinchman, B. Sc. of Rutland. Mr. Hinchman says:

"In April, 1901, while assaying some wall rock taken from next to a copper vein in the Plymouth gold district, to see how much copper sulphide it held, I accidentally discovered unmistakeable signs of metallic platinum. I kept on experimenting and in August of that year was sure that the gray sandstone or what some called 'flint' held one-quarter of an ounce of it to the ton, associated with pyrites, worth $5.25. Since then I have submitted samples to a leading chemist and also to a geologist of national reputation, both familiar with platinum, who have detected the metal . After such encouragement I have kept on striving to find a reliable cheap method for extracting the values profitably, and latterly with complete success.

"Now this sandstone lies in a broad belt, consisting of tilted cleavable layers, on the side of a 600 feet-high hill, several thousand feet long and 200 feet wide, showing veins of copper sulphides cutting across the grain of the layers or strata, the whole formation placed between walls of slaty shale cut by parallel fissure veins of quartz. Above this deposit, near the top of the ridge, there is a narrower ledge of black shale containing one-tenth of an ounce of platinum. Above this again is a large vein of platinum-bearing quartz. Across the valley, on the side of the opposite range of hills, lower than the sandstone, and about 1,500 feet away is a fissure quartz vein with one-tenth of an ounce of platinum and one twentieth of an ounce of gold to the ton, altogether free milling ore. All these belts, ledges, and veins run parallel to the ridges of the hills and are located in a serpentine-asbestos-talc-soapstone district, with a dike of chromium oxide within three-quarters of a mile of the platinum, and several trap dikes in the near neighborhood. Some of the quartz veins running with the sandstone and in the slaty shale give $2.06 to the ton in gold, but no platinum. A dike of porphyritic rock some distance away gives three-tenths of an ounce of platinum to the ton with a value of $6.30.

"The gray sandstone when wet looks like the 'True Blue' marble, only darker gray and with very small, bright, iron-looking metallic specks scattered through it.

"The black shale when broken up or the dry 'mud' of the drill hole soils the fingers like black lead. This rock is filled with very small veinlets of quartz and the platinum seems in combination with the many small specks of bright iron pyrites.

"The quartz with platinum in it has the favorable look of iron stained quartz containing gold, but the quartz is clearer and heavily spotted with a maple sugar colored brown. Sometimes there may be a 'powder flash' of light, goldy looking leaf metal in the seams of specimens of smaller grain and this is an alloy of platinum and gold. The porphyritic rock is pinkish in color throughout and crystalized so as to give almost the appearance of quartz and calcite , but it isn't when examined closely. This was pushed up from, way down below in the earth and the platinum is associated with a small quantity of chromic oxide, showing greenish looking stains in the seams. You can detect a metallic point now and then on the surface in the sunlight.

"It is my opinion that the crystalline rocks like quartz and porphyry, possibly granulite, too, in which the chromic oxide occurs. in thin micaceous sheets of glistening green, are the natural sources of platinum in Vermont; the black shale and sandstone having been enriched from solutions flowing through masses of disintegrated crystalline rocks and worked into these under pres sure along with pyritous matter before they were baked."

In addition to the above, Mr. Hinchman has kindly sent me copies of letters from Torrey and Eaton, Assayers, New York, in which they say "No. 4 contains a small amount of platinum, probably not more than 4 oz. per ton of the pulp sent and possibly a trace of gold. " Mr. Hinchman says "The principal platinum prospect mentioned in the article in Expansion is located on the right hand side of the road from Plymouth Five Corners to Tyson and three- fourths of a mile from the former place. August 9th, 1904, Messrs. Torrey & Eaton, 30 Wall Street, New York, found a trace of platinum in grey gneissic rock from the Keyes farm at Readsboro, Southern Vermont."

It should be stated that the No. 4 mentioned above was a pulp obtained from "the crushed vein stuff mixed with quartz, found between the alternate cleavable layers of limestone, slate and sandstone rock."

"The crushed rock matter has been treated to a dead roast. No. 3 was taken out of a chlorine solution as a precipitate by using sal ammoniac and permanganate of potash as precipitants. No. 4 is the pulp then remaining."

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.

Mineral List

9 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

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