Hide Article Text (OCR)
Large deposits of high quality jade have been discovered in Australia.It is so good and so cheap to mine that a newly-formed company. Jade Australia Pty. Ltd., based in Adelaide, could dominate the market.The stone is nephrite jade (calcium magnesium silicate), the type most sought after by Chinese craftsmen who produce most of the world’s jade objects of art, yet have to import all their raw material at a cost of about AS5,000.000 a year.It should not be confused with jadite, most of which comes from Burma.Although this looks like nephrite jade, it contains more variations in colour from first quality green and black jade.Currently Australia exports ohrysophrase under the name of ‘Australian Jade', an attractive stone in jade colourings more translucent than nephrite jade but not so hard.Nephrite jade registers about 6-1/2 on the Moh's scale for measuring toughness of minerals. (Talc is graduated at 1, diamonds at 10 and sapphires would record about the same hardness as top quality jade).It is easy to cut glass withjade from the newly discovered Australian deposits which are near Cowell, a town on the east coast of Eyre Peninsula, about 200 kilometres (km), north-west of Adelaide.Mr Edwin Robert Burnett-Read, a director oftonnes (about 150 tons) of Cowell jade. 80 per cent of top quality, including rare black jade. Based on the world market price of about AS30 per lb for first rate jade, this particular pile of rocks is worth about A$ 8,000.000.A single rock in Jade Australia's works has been weighed in at 4.5 tonnes (about 4-1/2 tons). Mr Burnett-Read believes that the only other rock of comparable size is the property of an American who is asking about A$300.000Jade Australia, says that while his company could well, dominate the world market for jade, it will make certain it docs not flood the market.Recently dumped in a shed at the company’s Adelaide works was 152Mr Burnett-Read says that geologists' reports have confirmed that his company has proven reserves of ‘many hundreds ofthousands of tonnes of jade and to all intents and purposes is an open cut jade quifrry of unlimited extent’.for it.A 1.5 tonnes(1-1/2 tons) section of the Jade Australia rock has been cut away as part of cutting and polishing experiments. However, the company expects to sell the remaining three tonnes (three tons)section to a museum for about AS40.000.There are only six deposits of top quality jade in the world, all of which are comparatively small. The most significant is in British Columbia, but it is at an altitude where open cut mining can only be carried on for between three and four months of a year. For the rest of the time the quarry is snowbound.The Australian deposits are easy to mine at any time of the year. They were found on his farm by Mr Harry Schiller, 68, who has long been curious about rocks found on his land.Any he cannot recognise he has identified by experts. Many of his finds he has sold as gemstones.Now also a director of Jade Australia, he and Mr Burnett-Read have just completed world tours to assess the markets for the new jade discovery.Prime targets for export will be China — which retains the world’s best jade craftsmen, although its jade deposits were exhausted many years ago — Singapore and western European countries which make high quality jewellery, particularly West Germany.
Newspaper Details
Perth Hamersley News
Perth, Western Australia, AU
Thu, Sep 27, 1973
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Lisa H.
AU 16 Jan 2024
Other Publications Near Perth, Western Australia
Perth Western Mail
Perth West Australian Sunday Times
Perth Swan River Guardian
Perth Sunday Times
Perth Sparks Fortnightly
