Cassiterite

To all dedicated collectors of Cornish Cassiterites, here’s one from a fairly seldom seen locality, the Rock Hill China Clay Pit at Bugle, Treverbyn; just one of numerous former China clay pits to the north of St Austell. This small cabinet specimen cannot be dressed-up as aesthetic by any stretch of the imagination. If I were being unkind, the term ‘ugly brute’ would not go amiss, looking like a lump of sintered porous coke with infillings of snow white, hard Kaolinite. But we as connoisseurs of anything Cornish and especially Cassiterite, fully appreciate and love the ‘ugly brutes’ and this is a super-rich specimen composed almost entirely of Cassiterite and under a low power loupe, say x5, it is a mass of honeycomb sooty black Cassiterite pervaded by micro-acicular Cassiterite crystals. It’s a great location piece.