Fluorite (Ref: 11)

A fine specimen with nicely cubed and well developed crystals of light honey yellow Fluorite, richly perched on matrix. The Fluorite is highly lustrous, transparent and sharp edged as well. A fine small cabinet sized specimen from a relatively old find in the 1990s. Despite the specimen is not absolutely perfect it is anyway a good and showy piece from a classic and rarely seen French locale, the St. Pierre Vein near Belfort. The oldest documents describing the operation of the vein ´Saint-Pierre Vein´ dates from the fifteenth century, but they may have begun well before during the thirteenth century. It was a great mine in the past, one of three most profitable. Before the nineteenth century historians have described a deep mine with 13 shafts below the river level (approx. 400 meters). One of the most important regional pumping machinery was installed into the mine and with a water wheel outside the edge of the first shaft. This mine cannot be visited since closure in 1850. (mindat)