Princess Sodalite Mine (previously the Princess Sodalite Quarry) is a sodalite quarry and retail shop, located near Bancroft, Ontario. The sodalite deposit was first discovered in 1892.
The mineral deposit was first found by Frank Dawson Adams in 1892. [1] Sodalite from the quarry was displayed at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. [1] The Princess of Wales was given a gift of sodalite from the quarry in 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. [1] She liked it so much that she ordered a shipment to decorate Marlborough House, in London, England. [1] Thomas Morrison, the quarry's owner at the time, named the quarry the Princess Sodalite Quarry after her visit. [2] The Quarry name continued through the 20th century [3] [4] until at least 2002. [5]
In 1999, the owners of the quarry donated a sodalite boulder to the Earth Sciences Museum at the
University of Waterloo in Ontario.
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The quarry was owned by Paul Rasmussen and Carl Bosiac, the 8th owners, who sold it to the ninth owner Andy Christie.
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The quarry is located four kilometres east of Bancroft, Ontario [1] on Ontario Highway 28. [8] It is on rock with calcite vein-dikes that intruded into nepheline gneiss rock, with nepheline prismatic crystals attached to the walls of the dikes. [9]
The quarry is the only source of sodalite in Ontario, where it was once nominated (but ultimately rejected) to be the official provincial mineral. [1]