Hungry Hill, Guilford, New Haven Co., Connecticut, USA

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The best description of this old (and reportedly now played out and closed) locality comes from Hovey (1888):

"The outcrops begin on the western side of a hill 375 ft. east of the Guilford-Durham turnpike, about two and a half miles north of the railway station on the farm of Richard Woodruff; the line of ledges was traced for a fifth of a mile. The general course of the ledges is N. 15° W. (true), while the strike of the bedding of the rock seems to be N. 25° W., which gives them a calculated aggregate width of more than 175 feet. Their natural faces are from five to fifteen feet in height. The cordierite is more thickly disseminated through the rock, and is in larger grains in the southern ledge than it is in the northern. The rock is composed of biotite, quartz, and cordierite, with some plagioclase. In the hand specimen the cordierite has a deep blue color, and shows its characteristic dichroism plainly. In a thin section it is clear and almost free from alteration, has a delicate violet tint which readily escapes detection, and is with out perceptible dichroism. No optical characters other than those noted by Rosenbusch were observed. Acicular inclusions of sillimanite are abundant, but they are arranged without apparent accordance with any law. They serve as a convenient means of distinguishing most of the cordierite from the quartz which it closely resembles. The axial figure is excellent and is easy to get."

"A few rods west of the line of ledges of cordierite gneiss, and with the same general course, there is a ledge of hornblende schist and gneiss containing numerous veins of garnet associated with vesuvianite of a dark green color. The vesuvianite occurs massive in the veins, showing few crystalline planes and those mostly prismatic. The garnet also is massive, but it shows many crystalline points of clear material. Its color is yellowish red, and its appearance entirely different from that of the deep red individual garnets which are so common in the gneiss....The veins vary from half an inch to four inches in width coincide with the bedding of the gneiss, and are seen for only 100 feet on the east side of a ledge but fifty feet wide. No cordierite was found in this ledge. Many garnets of value as gems have been taken from the ledge in the last six years."

Ryerson (1976) noted that the locality was, at that time, at the home of Ms. W. H. Thompson on Route 77. Weber and Sullivan (1995) describe it as "lost".

Probably because of its proximity to Yale and Wesleyan Universities, many specimens and gems from here ended up in museum collections.

Mineral List

Biotite Cordierite

'Garnet' Sillimanite

Vesuvianite

5 entries listed. 3 valid minerals.

References