[Ads-l] "hog tush", a type of mineral crystal

[George Thompson]

            A Geologist, to descend and follow along the bottom of the
Canal, and examine the regularity and order with which the different strata
are piled the one above the other, would be delighted; but the
Mineralogist, in beholding the numerous cavities in the rock, and the
almost endless variety of crystalline, form and color, with which these
cavities are lined, is thrown into raptures.  In many instances these
cavities, which are from an inch to a foot in diameter, are filled in
different proportions, with perfectly transparent crystals, both of the
Carbonate and Sulphate of Lime.  The inhabitants have bestowed on this
crystals the very sonorous and classical name, "*hog tush*" spar, from a
supposed resemblance they bear to the tooth of this animal.

            "Pilgrim's Letters [I]"  National Aegis (Worcester,
Massachusetts), January 12, 1825


He's writing about a deep cut over a ridge, made at Lockport, New York for
the Erie Canal, then under construction.

I believe that now Mineralogists are allowed to view these cavities only
under careful supervision, their raptures having lead to undesirable
behavior.


GAT

-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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