Granite pegmatite, Alstead field. A
beryl locality that produced a small tonnage of beryl ore (about 20 tons of beryl). Also, at times mined for feldspar and quartz. Located near the village of South Acworth.
Beryl Mountain was known in the 1820's and a famous expedition went there in 1829, led by the young Charles Upham Shepard, with Edward Hitchcock and others. By 1837, Francis Alger, noted amateur mineralogist and editor of Phillips' Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy (4th edition, 1844), had found giant beryl crystals (to 4 feet by 5 inches across one prism face = 1.22 m x 12.5 cm)and at that time were regarded as world record size. The longest reliably reported beryl from this locality is 5 feet (Cameron et al., 1954), although some reports of larger crystals (to 6 a 1 feet = 2 x 0.3 meters) appear unsubstantiated.
Early information on the locality is provided by Merrill (1869): "The most interesting locality to the mineralogist, is 'William's Ledge' or 'Beryl Hill,' celebrated for the immense size of its beryls which have been sold to cabinets, in various parts of the world....There is one of them in the Imperial cabinet -in Vienna, highly prized even in that superb collection. The Acworth beryls, when perfect, have a fine light blue green color, of that variety known as aqua marine [sic]."
References:Proceedings of the Lyceum of Natural History, N. York.
May, 2008 (1829) in
American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. XV, p. 358.
Shepard, Charles Upham (1830): Mineralogical Journey in the Northern Parts of New England.
American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. XVII, pp. 353-357.
Shepard, Charles Upham. (1835): Treatise on Mineralogy: Second Part (New Haven: Hezekiah Howe & Co. and Herrick & Noyes), pp. 38-39, 42, 55, 141, 150.
Hitchcock, Edward (1835): Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts, pp.468-470.
Phillips, William and Allan, Robert (1837): An Elementary Introduction to Mineralogy, Fourth Edition. (London: Longman et al.), p. 100.
Feuchtwanger, Lewis (1838): Treatise on Gems, in Reference to Their Practical and Scientific Value (New York: A. Hanford), p. 84.
Jackson, Charles T. (1844): Final Report on The Geology and Mineralogy of New Hampshire, p. 59. [Jackson refers to the locality as "William's Hill."]
Phillips, William; Allan, Robert; Alger, Francis (1844): An Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy: Comprising an Introduction to the Science, Fifth Edition. (Boston: William D. Tickner & Co.), pp. 13, 165, 621.
Teschemacher, J. E. (1847): On the Occurrence of Uranium in the Beryl Locality at Acworth, N. H.
Boston Journal of Natural History, Volume 5, pp. 87-89.
Merrill, John L. (1869): History of Acworth (Acworth, NH; published by the town), p. 119. [Merrill refers to the locality as "Beryl Hill" or "Willam's Ledge".]
Holden, Edward F. (1918): Famous Mineral Localities: Beryl Mountain, Acworth, New Hampshire (American Mineralogist 3:199-200).
US Bureau of Mines Report of Investigation 4410 (1948).
Rocks & Minerals (1949): 24: 594-596.
Palache, C., Berman, H., & Frondel, C. (1951), The System of Mineralogy of James Dwight Dana and Edward Salisbury Dana, Yale University 1837-1892, Volume II: 941.
Hurlbut, C.S., Jr. (1952)
Wardite from Beryl Mountain, New Hampshire. American Mineralogist 37, 849-852. (Erroneously labeled specimen from the Palermo #1 Pegmatite. C. Hurlbut, pers. comm., 1992).
Cameron et al. (1954) Pegmatite Investigations 1942-1945 New England. USGS Professional Paper 255.
Page & Larrabee (1962) Beryl Resources of New Hampshire, USGS Professional Paper 353.
Roy, Walt (1965) Beryl Mountain, South Acworth, New Hampshire.
Rocks and Minerals: April 1965.
Januzzi, R.E. and Seaman, David M. (1976) Mineral Localities Of Connecticut and Southern New York State and Pegmatite Minerals of the World.
King, V., 2006, In Search of Francis Alger, a Boston Mineralogist, Journal of the Geo-Literary Society, v. 21, p. 4-14.
38 entries listed. 23 valid minerals. 2 erroneous literature entries.
