Out of the Attic: Agates brought to Burlington from Colorado by Perkins family
These objects are not actually native to the area, but can be commonly found here.
As stated before, our agates are not actually native to Des Moines County. Most of the agates actually originated in the Lake Superior region and were brought here by glaciers between 2.5 million years and 10,000 years ago.
Agates form in bubbles in rock, usually volcanic. The bubbles usually are formed by gas, but not always.
The material that makes the agate forms a solution, which is slowly deposited in the bubble, and eventually hardens.
They occasionally can be found in local sedimentary rock as well, alongside their cousins; chert, jasper, and calcedony. In sedimentary rock, the pocket can be cavities where organic material has rotted away, and left a bubble, or from water, wearing away the rock and leaving a hole.
They can also be formed when microcrystalline silicates take over existing materials, like quartz crystals or fossils. The colors of an agate are determined by the minerals present during deposition.
In the case of our agates, they were collected by the Perkins family. Charles Perkins was the head of the CB&Q Railroad (now BNSF), among other ventures, and is responsible for the Gardens of the Gods in Colorado, as well as Perkins Park in Burlington.
The Perkins’ were very much a product of their time, with the entire family collecting various rocks and minerals, as well as amassing a large collection of cultural and ethnographic objects.
We are not sure who exactly collected our agates, or where most where found. We do know that the largest agate in the Perkins collection was probably collected in Colorado, with experts differ on what type of agate it is.
The others are thought to be either Cold Water or Lake Superior agates and probably were collected from around the area.
Did you know that it is possible to collect agates locally? They are usually found in landscaping rock and along moving bodies of water, (try looking in sandbanks and rocky areas near running water).
However, if you do decide to go hunting for agates, please be sure to have landowner permission first. And, some agates can be found here naturally. Usually, they are in the form of agatized chert, although agatized fossils can also be found on occasion.
There are at least two examples in the Collection at the Heritage Museum, including an agatized Hexagonaria, a type of colonial coral that can be found in the area. They also occasionally can be found in Keokuk geodes and in banded chert formations
This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Out of the Attic: Agates brought to Burlington from Colorado by Perkins family
