Native Silver with Galena

This lovely cabinet specimen of Native Silver with Galena is from the Hiendelaencina mining district in the province of Guadalajara, north-east of Madrid in central Spain; a district famous for its silver sulphosalts.  This is a rather unusual and seldom seen combination of well crystallised Galena with wires of Native Silver, covering a 1 cm thick layer of banded Galena matrix.  The Galena shows a variety of crystal habits, exhibiting many forms of the cuboctahedral, ranging between the cube and octahedral end members.  These cluster to form Galena groups commonly to over 2 cm across and between which nestle rich infillings of twisted Native Silver wires ranging from greyish-silver to a patina of bronze-brown.  An excellent combination of these two species from Hiendelaencina in Spain, accompanied with two previous labels.