The wine red variety of Garnet was designated the State gem of New York in 1969. Garnets have been considered precious for thousands of years and are found in early Egyptian, Greek and Roman jewelry. Red is considered the Garnet's principal color, but Garnets actually come in several hues, including various shades of green, a light to intense yellow, a fiery orange, and several earth-colored hues.
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The Barton Garnet Mine contains the world's largest Garnet deposit. The mine is located at the on top of Gore Mountain near North River, New York. Crystals of Garnet have been found here that are as big as 20" across. Collecting facet grade material is very easy, requiring little more than a hammer to break open the crystals and a watchful eye. Specimen collectors need to take more time to collect crystals intact. The mine is about four hours from New York City and offers a guided tour of their facilities. Mineral clubs must make arrangements in advance for mineral collecting at the mine. .
Deposits of industrial grade Garnet are found at two locations in New York. In the Gore Mountain area, industrial garnet is mined as the primary product; and near the town of Willsboro, byproduct of it is recovered as wollastonite mining. The deposit near Gore Mountain is an almandite-bearing diorite of uncertain, igneous or metamorphic origin. The Garnet is present as imperfectly developed crystals surrounded by a rim of coarsely crystalline hornblende. The crystals range from about 1 millimeter to almost 1 meter in diameter but average about 100 millimeters in diameter. The Garnet has a pronounced laminated structure, which enables it to naturally break into thin plates from about 2 to 6 millimeters in thickness. Garnet fragments maintain this platy particle shape even as they are crushed smaller and smaller. These same deposits in Warren County contain good to fine quality facet-grade Garnets. The Garnet is a solid solution of pyrope-almandite-grossularite that results in a pleasant deep brownish-red material which often has an orange cast. Beautiful small stones can be faceted, but larger stones are too dark to be attractive.
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