Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1893 — Tennessee Onyx Caves. [ARTICLE]

Tennessee Onyx Caves.

“What I believe to be the largest and finest onyx deposits in the world,” said Philo B. Shepard, “have recently been discovered in some caves in the Cumberland Mountains of West Tennessee. It has been known for some time tint there was a fine quality of onyx or chalcedony there, but the mines or caves have scarcely been touched, aDd recently my attention was brought to the existence of large caves in Anderson County, the roofs of which are bristling with stalactities of onyx, and in some cases the columns reach to the floor of the cavern. I found one column fourteen feet in length, the top of which is more than four feet iu diameter, and, I believe, an onyx slab four feec wide by six long could be sawed from it. The onyx in these caves is wonderfully free from sand pockets and other blemishes, and is more richly colored than any I ever saw,, and seems to exist in unlimited quautitv. Onyx, as you may know, is formed by the drippings of limestone, and in early stages looks like prisms of glass or frosted icicles hanging from the roof, and countless ages must elapse before even the smallest cone of onyx could form, while the large column I have described must have been grdwin** since the beginning of time. When the value of these stones becomes known to the world then Tennessee onyx will be more widely known than Italian marble, but as yet only a few samples have been taken out.”—[St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat.

A local paper tells how Albert Smith, of Milford, Penn., allowed an old appletree to stand between him and a fortune. A party of oil prospectors, having become convinced that there was oil on his farm, decided to bore a well in his orchard. Smith objected strenuously because it would destroy au apple-tree for which he had a particular fondness. After vaiol/ endeavoring to have Smith change his mind, the prospectors removed their apparatus a few feet beyond his tree., on the edge of another man’s land, and in a few days oil was flowing at the rate of 100 barrels an hour. Fa* mer Smith saved his apple-tree and his neighbor got $3b,000 in royalties.