Benallt manganese mine on the Lleyn Peninsula in Gwynedd, Wales, is an amazing locality but one not that well-known to collectors unfamiliar with the British Isles. The mine initially operated for eight years between 1886 and 1894 but it was then later reworked on two separate occasions which produced a suite of rare and interesting species, some new to science. It was the first reopening, in 1911, that produced Paracelsian and the second, during the Second World War, that produced the Type Locality species. Visiting the site today, the mine dumps appear to offer only waste rock, but to the trained eye, a whole wealth of rare minerals can be found, including four for which this mine is the Type Locality. Remarkably Paracelsian, a rare barium aluminium silicate, is not one of them, but Benallt mine should perhaps lay claim to this title, having produced magnificent specimens when the official Type Locality in Italy produced only a single, poorly formed crystal and nowhere else on Earth has produced any more. This present small cabinet display piece is a splendid example. It was collected by Sir Arthur Russell in 1911 and is accompanied with his handwritten label. The specimen is composed almost entirely of Paracelsian, with crystals of up to 1.5 cm long richly covering a more massive matrix of anhedral Paracelsian intermixed with black manganese oxides. This is a magnificent, world-class example of this exceedingly rare mineral from Benallt mine. As with all Paracelsian from Benallt mine, the specimen fluoresces an intense red colour under SW UV light.
