gems, lapis lazuli, North America, California, San Bernardino

As far as is known, there is only one locality for lapis lazuli in all of North America: a site in San Bernardino County, California, located on the north slope of the south fork of Cascade Canyon, a branch of San Antonio Canyon, approximately twelve miles from the city of Upland. Although this occurrence became more widely known around 1912, it must have been discovered earlier, yet it is absent from Henry G. Hanks’s 1884 Fourth Annual Report of the California State Mining Bureau and from George F. Kunz’s Gems and Precious Stones of North America (1890). Mr. F. J. Sperisen of San Francisco pointed out a reference in a work by C. W. King, who noted that lapis lazuli, or “sapphirus,” though found in China and in more recent years in California, was too full of pyrites and white veining for glyptic art and only suitable for calcination. This appears to be the first recorded mention of California lapis lazuli, and it is likely that the Cascade Canyon deposit was the source. Early prospectors initially mistook the material for silver ore, and once its true identity was realized, the “Lapis Lazuli Mining Company” was formed to exploit the find. Although mining operations were not commercially successful, lapis has been periodically extracted and cut from the site. [note: Lapis lazuli has also now been found in Colorado]