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The Eifel volcanic district of Germany is home to a variety of fantastically beautiful and, in many cases, very rare and well crystallized microminerals. Their attractiveness is made very evident by a cursory inspection of the many color and black and white photos in Gerhard Hentschel's book, Die Mineralien der Eifelvulkane. His index of species lists such less-than-common minerals as barytolamprophyllite, brownmillerite, cuprorivaite, hannebachite, jasmundite, tangeite, and (ahem) willhendersonite. I highly recommend the book.
Without much trouble and over several years, I have accumulated 97 species from the Eifel district, mostly by exchange. Recently, I have purchased a number of very fine Eifel micromineral specimens at very reasonable prices from Bernd Ternes (Bahnhofstrasse 45, 56727 Mayen-Hausen 14, Germany). Bernd is a very active collector, specializing in the Eifel, and has a list of species available, with prices and descriptions. A few of the specimens obtained are shown here. The first (Fig. 2) shows golden brown cordierite crystals with associated pale violet mullite, crystobalite and sanidine. The sanidine crystals are superb as well. (Figure 2 omitted) In Figure 3 are shown red-brown melilite crystals with euhedral crystals of nepheline, leucite, apatite and pyroxene. (Figure 3 omitted) The very nice zircon specimen shown in Figure 4 also shows excellent, twinned nosean crystals plus a jet-black, very sharp allanite crystal on the reverse side. (Figure 4 omitted) My namesake mineral, willhendersonite, is now known from at least two localities besides the type one in Italy. They are Steiermark in Austria and Bellerberg in the Eifel district. Willhendersonites found by...