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UPDATE: JANUARY 3, 2002

Death of Tom Warren

This past August Thomas S. Warren, after whom the Warren Museum is named, suffered a severe stroke. During the next two months he appeared to be making progress toward recovery, but later he weakened, and he died on November 4, 2001. He was 98.

The life of Tom Warren, and his meaning to generations of those who collect and study fluorescent minerals, are recounted elsewhere on this web site. A service in his honor, a "Celebration of the Life of Thomas Spencer Warren", was held on Saturday, December 1, 2001, in the Vista Room of Villa Gardens, Pasadena, California, where Tom spent most of his post-retirement years. Members of the Fluorescent Mineral Society provided three cases of fluorescent minerals for the occasion so that those in attendance could see what had captivated Tom for more than six decades of his life.

We at the Warren Museum were fortunate not only to have known Tom for many years, but to have opened a museum in his honor while he was still alive. Tom attended the dedication ceremony in October, 1999, while he was still a vigorous 96, and the museum opened to the public the following year. Though Tom was nearly blind in his later years—he suffered from macular degeneration and had only peripheral vision—he nevertheless kept us informed, through a steady stream of letters, of his ideas to convey the fascination of ultraviolet light and fluorescent minerals to the public.

The Baum Esperite

	Esperite. Franklin, Sussex County, New Jersey. 8" x 6" (20 x 15 cm). Uncommonly large mass of esperite bordered on the base by hardystonite and on the lower right by willemite. This is one of the largest masses of pure esperite known and was donated to the Warren Museum by John L. Baum, geologist for the New Jersey Zinc Company at Franklin.

John ("Jack") L. Baum, former Chief Geologist for the New Jersey Zinc Company at the Franklin mine in Franklin, New Jersey, has donated the "Baum esperite" to the Warren Museum. This is a legendary specimen, possibly the largest single mass of esperite ever recovered from Franklin. Weighing in at 14 pounds and measuring 20 x 15 x 11 cm, it shows an intense greenish-yellow fluorescence over an area larger than that of an automobile headlight.

The Baum esperite was once in the collection of Charles McGovern, driver for the New Jersey Zinc Company at the Franklin mine, and a collector of its minerals. Mr. McGovern died early, at age 38 or so, and about 1942 his widow asked Jack Baum to appraise his collection and locate a buyer. In exchange for his services Jack was allowed to purchase two specimens. The esperite was one. The specimen then remained in Jack's collection for nearly 50 years until its donation to the Warren Museum.

	"Christmas tree rock." Franklin, Sussex County, New Jersey. 9½" x 8½" (24 x 22 cm). Rounded grains of red-fluorescent calcite and green-fluorescent willemite in massive, dark brown, nonfluorescent diopside. Although all three minerals were abundant in the Franklin mine, their textural intergrowth to produce "Christmas tree rock" was of only local extent, and specimens are now becoming scarce.

A week after donating his prize esperite, Jack Baum returned to the museum with another classic—a large (24 x 22 x 8 cm) specimen of "Christmas tree rock". This is something of a local specialty and consists of massive, dark brown, nonfluorescent diopside in which are embedded numerous rounded grains of red-fluorescent calcite and green-fluorescent willemite. Good specimens of this material have always been scarce, and this one ranks near the top for both size and quality.

We are honored to have been given these pieces for the Warren Museum, where they will be seen by some 30,000 visitors a year.

New Roof

The Warren Museum is housed in the basement rooms of what was once a large, multistory ore mill, the upper levels of which have long since been removed. The flat, steel-reinforced concrete ceiling of the Warren Museum, though nearly two feet thick, never was meant to serve as a roof, and the museum had been bothered by intermittent leaks since its beginning. That problem has now been solved, thanks to a new, corrugated sheet-metal roof installed over the mill by R.S. Phillips Steel and Aluminum LLC. By the end of December the last of the leaks had all but dried up, and the humidity had dropped considerably. Materials that we were once hesitant to place on display, such as fluorescent paintings and fabrics, are now being considered for incorporation in future exhibits.

Varian Spectrophotometer

In late November two representatives of Varian, Inc. brought a fluorescence spectrophotometer to the Warren Museum so that we could become familiar with its capabilities and determine if it meets our present research needs. Over the next four weeks Dick Bostwick, Don Halterman, and Dr. Earl Verbeek spent many hours putting the machine through its paces.

For those not familiar with such devices, a spectrophotometer analyses the light given off by fluorescent minerals by spreading that light out into a spectrum and then measuring how much light is being emitted in each wavelength range. The results often provide valuable information leading to the identification of activators—the agents that cause a given mineral to fluoresce.

During our use of this machine we obtained fluorescence spectra of some collector favorites, including hardystonite from Franklin, New Jersey; blue-fluorescent sphalerite from Sterling Hill; red-fluorescent fluorite from Mapimi, Mexico; and diamond from several localities. Selected results of these studies will be submitted to The Picking Table (journal of the Franklin-Ogdensburg Mineralogical Society) for local minerals and to the Journal of the Fluorescent Mineral Society for minerals from worldwide localities.

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