ATM Re: Bklack Beauty Blasting Grit

[mjc5 <mjc5@psu.edu>]

        Obsidian! I can believe that now. It has a shininess that does look
like smaller versions of the chunks of obsidian I've seen. After using
the stuff, It isn't quite as good as Carborundum, but for machine
grinding, it is fairly cost effective.

        - Mike -

"Stanley A. Schultz" wrote:

> 
> Without actually examining the product in hand it is difficult to make a
> definitive ID of what Black Beauty really is. However, *DECADES* ago, when
> my wife and I owned a pet shop in E. Lansing, Michigan, we sold a product
> called "Black Beauty Blasting Grit" as a type of aquarium gravel. And,
> yes, it's absolutely beautiful in an aquarium.
> 
> This product was in reality ground, sifted obsidian: volcanic glass!
> In larger lumps and polished it sells in roadside tourist traps in
> the American southwest as "Apache Tears" and there's some myth
> associated with it.