The Mineralogical Record
All who are reading this magazine are aware of the flood of Chinese minerals, most of them previously unfamiliar to us in the West, which immediately began tp swell when China became more "open" culturally and economically in the 1980s. Now, twenty years later, the immense country is still in the easrly stages of modernization, gradually becoming more Westernized and capitalistic. We in the mineral world have observed that the Chinese are naturals when it comes to capitalism: organizational skill, energy, eagerness to market new finds, and (yes) enthusiasm for turning profits have marked the endeavors of Chinese mineral-handlers on every level, and we've been loving it, as all those wonderful specimens just keep on coming. The Germans, of course, have their own long-standing reputation of organizational skill, energy, thoroughness, etc., and thus it seems apt that it is a German mineral connoisseur, Berthold Ottens, who has done the enormous legwork required to produce the book here under review, the best reference work we now have on Chinese minerals for the collector. In his introduction to the 552-page volume, Ottens lets us know that he has traveled personally to every one of the 78 Chinese localities covered in the separate chapters- from the Koktokay rare-earth deposit in the far northwest, where China, Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan meet, to the many neighboring, richly mineralized places in Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces in the far southeast. Mineralogical Record readers may recall Ottens as the author who once produced a similar review of the Deccan Plateau region of India (he is the sole author of our "Indian Zeolites" issue, vol.34 no.1), and who has written most of the articles in our two special issues on China (vol.36 no.1 and vol.38. no.1). All of this energy, and the legwork it fuels, were certainly indispensible for the present project. so many new Chinese mineral occurences are being found all the time, and so sparse is the relevant published literature in any Western language, that to produce the best possible "big picture" book on China must necessarily entail personally crisscrossing the country, as Ottens has done, with notebook and camera in hand. Before now, only Guanghua Liu's Fine Minerals of China(2006) attempted to offer an overview of Chinese minerals for collectors. Liu's book was an excellent start, but the Ottens book, which is far more generous with its texts, expands, refines, and updates Lui on every front. For the diversities of their pictures alone there is every good reason to have both books on our shelves- and don't worry too much about the fact that the Ottens book is in German. It is a clearand straightforward German, and with the help of your German- English dictionary you, too, can read it. Nor do you need proficiency in any language to relish another strong feature in both books, namely the hundred of fine photographs. In the Ottens book more than half of the photos are the author's own, the rest being credited to about 35 other people, prominently inculding Jeff Scovil and Dan Weinrich, together with many Chinese and Europeans. The photos, scattered everywhere in the volume, show us not only fine Chinese mineral specimens but also Chinese people and places and things of all kinds, from the snowcapped Shangri-la mountains to misty karst landscapes, to hairpin roads along cliffs, to village bazaars, Buddhist shrines, pink piles of crustaceans around streetside cook pots, panda bears, families at mealtime, outdoor "stone" markets, tourists debarking from buses, the author himself hiking into a town, monks at prayer, children at play, and ultra-mod women busily being beautiful on city streets. You can easily imagine that you've been to China yourself, the author having good-naturedly taken you there and shown you around. The book has enjoyed outstanding support in its creation: financial backers credited include major mineral dealerships (The Arkenstone, Fine Minerals International, Kristalle & Crystal Classics), the Munich Mineral Show, and the Siemens Corporation. Prefatory remarks by the Finance Minister of Saxony and by the Rector of the Technical University of Freiberg Mining Academy emphasize the increasing cultural and academic connections between China and Germany. The book is a joint publishing venture of Christian Weise Verlag (Munich) and the Freiberg Mining Academy, and so there is a beautiful, textless 55-page photo portfolio of Chinese specimens (arranged by province) from the Erika Pohl (now Freiberg Academy) collection currently on view in Freudenstein Castle in Freiberg. The work thus feels anchored in two different worlds, and Old and a New, Freiberg to Fengjiashan; each cultural presence seems to acquire gravitas from the other, and it's a creative and happy marriage. After the various short introductory essays, there is a 70-page stretch of short chapters in which Ottens surveys China's "Land and People, Geology, Ore Deposits, Raw Materials, Mines, Mineral Collecting and Dealing, Traveling in China." Some of this materal we have read before, in the author's writings for the Mineralogical Record. Next comes that photo portfolio of Chinese mineral specimens in the Pohl collection at Freiberg. And then comes the heart of the book: 78 chapters, filling 316 pages. on "Minerals, Localities, and Deposits." The alphabetized chapter headings are sometimes names of large regions or geographical features (Gaoligongshan, Xuebaoding), sometines names of cities of towns near the mines of interest (Malipo, Ximeng), sometimes names of counties or mining districts (Dongchuan, Nandan), somestimes names of individual mines (Shangbao, Shimen, Yaogangxian). I found such heterogenious chapter titles confusing at first, but Ottens does provide a simple sketch map at the head of each chapter, making clear what the heading refers to, and once I learned to consult these maps I had no more problems with orientation. Some of the chapters are just a single page long, others many pages, the record being 18 pages for the Yaogangxian mine. The text of each chapter generalizes a bit at first, then offers detailed geographical and (sometimes) historical backgrounds before getting down to discussing the minerals, with species names shown helpfully in bold type. Of course, much space is given to photos of mineral specimens: many of these are familiar kinds, but Ottens also shows things of which this reader (for one) had not seen the like anywhere, anytime, before opening this book. Having finished learning about the scepter quartz crystals of Zhaotong, we finally leave the locality-chapter behind, and come next upon a short but important chapter on Falschungen- falsifications, fakes- wherein Ottens decribes some commonly observed products of the Chinese fakers' art. This has always been a sore subject with me, and I am ever ready to wax eloquent in my indignation concerning, for instance, the widespread Chinese practice of oiling fluorite to improve its color. We owe Ottens much thanks for his careful descriptions of other, more complex, chicaneries going on in the Chinese mineral market today. Next, 63-pages are filled by "Chinese minerals from A-Z"- for purposes of cross-referencing with the earlier chapters on localities, this section briefly decribes all known specimen-worthy minerals, each species getting and unbroken paragraph punctuated by names of localities in bold type. After that, in the appendix section there is a map key with a large fold-out reference map of China and an index of mineral species names. A crucial localities register keys on "search concepts" for localities ( as in many of the chapter titles) with more precise or alternate terms, coordinates of the localities, and incorrect locality terms as sometimes seen on labels. I call this listing crucial because, like any large mineral-rich country just starting out in Western-style mineral collecting, China brims with potential for incorrect locality attributions. The problem is exacerbated by the profound differences between the Chinese language and all Indo-European languages, not to mention the wide range of Chinese dialects and pronunciations. Many labeling errors produced by inaccurate transcription of information, improvised commercial arrangements, geographical vastness, and rural living conditions, ignorance, rumor-mongering, secretiveness and duplicity may be set right for us if we consult this index. A bibliography listing 95 published works, plus a thumbnail biography of the author, round out the book. Of late I have been using China: Mineralien-Funstellen-Lagerstatten fairly intensively for a special project, and yet the only negative comment I can come up with is that sometimes there are small contradictions between the locality chapters and the later species listings (e.g. the chapter on Xuebaoding Mountain says that the K-Feldspar occuring there is microcline, but in the species listing, it is called orthoclase), and there are small inconsistencies such as are to be expected whereever such great masses of data have been so newly assembled. Just one example will do: under Scorodite in the mineral listing we read of the specimens found in the Pingtouling mine, Guangdong Province, but the photo at hand shows a Scordite from the newer discovery at Hezhou, Guangxi, and is captioned as such, though the text does not mention Hezhou occurance. Such tiny flaws quite aside, this voulme addresses magnificently the long-standing need for and omnibus book on Chinese specimen mineralogy. It is beautiful, authoritative, and fun all at once, and thanks apparently to heavy subsidizing of production costs by the entities mentioned earlier, its price makes it one of the very best deals around.
-Thomas P. Moore
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