Hartley Neita, Contributor

During a previous phase of my life, I persuaded the Heart Trust, in association with the Geological Survey Department, to finance a project to train about one dozen youngsters to identify and cut and polish the semi-precious stones found in our rivers.

The trainers were three geologists, Margaret Aratram, and Noel Waldren, and it was coordinated by Michael Campbell in my organisation. The project lasted about two or three months. They were lectured on the geology of Jamaica, and then taken to likely sites in river beds and sea fronts. There, they were taught what to look for in rocks or pebbles, and how to slab - that is, cut - and tumble with abrasives.

I had planned to try to get these youngsters attached to the jewellery section of the Edna Manley College on Arthur Wint Drive, where they could be shown how to incorporate these semi-precious stones with gold and silver to create bracelets, earrings, rings and chains. However, I left the organisation and this aspect of the programme was not pursued.

When I saw the initial results at the time I was fascinated. So much so, that I even bought a tumbler for my own use, and experimented with the polishing of stones. I even thought of entering the gemstone industry in my retirement years.

Gems

During the 1960s and 1970s, there was an American who operated a factory and outlet in St Ann's Bay. He came to Kingston from time to time, went into the Blue Mountains, where he 'reaped' the stones from various rivers, and returned to his factory to process them. They were marketed as "Blue Mountain Gems". It even became a shopping stop for cruise ship visitors.

Sometime in the mid-1970s the workers discovered that he planned to dismantle the equipment in the factory, pack the stones not yet processed and those that were, and ship them out of Jamaica during a weekend when the factory was closed. My memory is that he was locked inside the factory and his plan was aborted.

Jamaica now imports thousands of dollars worth of gemstones from Brazil and other countries. Recently, I visited the Geological Division of the Ministry of Mines, where I saw samples of these stones. They have milky quartz, chalcedony, carnelian, rock crystal, smoky quartz, agate, jasper, amethyst and chert in colours ranging through grey, maroon red, amber, turquoise, and purple. These should have been better displayed, placed on velvet, to make them more attractive.

I am told that gemstones can be found in most of our rivers. I have found chert, for example, in the Martha Brae in Trelawny. The production of gemstones jewellery could be a fairly profitable small-scale enterprise. Government's role could be increasing the complement of geologists in the Ministry to identify more varieties of these semi-precious stones and other minerals which lie underground.

Bauxite will not be forever.

P.S. The production of Odyssey, which was presented at the Sculpture Park of the University of Technology, on Tuesday night, was excellent. Monika Lawrence's choreography was brilliant. High marks too, for the costume designers, Denise Robinson and Monika Lawrence, and the drumming director, Ouida Lewis. Space limits me to mentioning only these few. I hope it will be repeated.

However, I must ask Sydney Bartley to be not so effusive in the length of his opening remarks. I also must ask those speakers who felt obliged to repeat the names and titles of the long list of VIPs present after they had been named by the chairman.

It was unnecessary and time-wasting. Three words could have sufficed - "Distinguished guests all".