Next in importance is an occurrence in the United States at Pablo Beach, Florida, where not only the beach sands, but the dunes bordering them, contain appreciable quantities of the following minerals in their relative order of abundance: ilmenite, garnet, epidote, zircon, rutile, and other heavy minerals including monazite.[101]
[101] Hess, Frank L., Letter of May 1, 1918.
Other occurrences in this country, most of which are of academic interest only, are in Colorado, at St. Peter’s Dome, near Pike’s Peak; in Idaho, in the Clearwater region and elsewhere in black sands and in certain granitic rocks; in Sussex County, New Jersey, at the Williams mine, where zircon occurs abundantly in magnetite; in New York at Lyon Mountain, Clinton County; at a few places near Crown Point; abundantly in pegmatite at Old Red Mines, Mineville, Essex County, and in numerous places in Orange County on the south, and St Lawrence County on the north. In North Carolina, in Burke, McDowell, and Rutherford counties, zircon occurs in monazite sands, and also in Henderson County near Zirconia and in Fredell County near Sterling.
Large crystals of zircon occur in a small pegmatite area in Comanche County, Oklahoma, in the southwestern portion of the Wichita National Forest. Oregon has many localities in which the presence of zircon has been noted, chiefly in black sands, old and present beaches, placer gravels, etc., and the same is true of Washington. In Virginia, zircon is found in pegmatite in Aurelia County, and in sandstone near Ashland, not far from Richmond.
Zircon is also found in Norway, the Ural Mountains, Ceylon, Australia, and British South Africa.
POLITICAL CONTROL
The important zirconium resources of the world are controlled politically, in the order of their commercial importance, by Brazil, Great Britain, and the United States.
Brazil.
—A number of years ago John Gordon, an American mining engineer, became interested in deposits of monazite sand on the coast of Brazil in the vicinity of Prado, Bahia. A thorough investigation of all the known monazite deposits of the world showed that those in Brazil were by far the most desirable, and that those in Travancore, India, were second in commercial importance.[102]
[102] See [Chapter XIII].