Faye and I left Tennessee mid-July for another Roving Rockhounds trip. This time we were to join the group in Bancroft, Ontario for a series of digs in sites around the Bancroft area beginning July 19th. We chose to spend a couple of days on the way up in New York State trying our hand at finding those Herkimer Diamonds.

At the recommendation of our RR trip leader, David Millis, who is a native of northern Pennsylvania and who authored a book on rockhounding in New York, we went to Crystal Grove Diamond Mine and Campground north of St. Johnsville. Here we could trailer camp and dig for Herkimers both. So, Saturday morning we left the comfort of our trailer (a hot day was promised) and entered one of the three pits available for digging. We had arrived early enough the day before to check out the pits and talked to a father and son from Massachusetts who had been there a couple of days already. We chose to dig in the closest pit along with the son, while the dad continued in the next closest pit. A few other diggers did show up during the day, but, weekend or not, crowding was not the issue. Hard rock was the issue, as we'd been warned. I had my complete arsenal of tools and few were not put to use. During the morning we busted rocks and boulders and found some small vugs with crystals. As we had also been told, most all crystals were well attached in matrix (dolomitic limestone) and the loss rate with the rock busting technique was high. After lunch we took the Arkansas pry bars to some layers of weathered limestone in the pit floor where the son had had some luck earlier. Here the rock was not quite so solid as the wall rock. We were able to pry up slabs of this material and many had crystal-lined vugs. Rock busting and cobbing these pieces wasn't quite so damaging to material in the vugs. No large crystals were seen however, although some might qualify as "Herkimers."

Monday morning we headed on up to Ontario. By 4:30pm we were at the Bancroft Campground about four miles north of the city. It was still hot, no matter that we were in the land of the north. Some locals said that they hadn't seen such heat in fifteen years. Still, it proved out to be much cooler than it was in Tennessee, and we actually were able to sleep a couple of nights without the A/C.

Tuesday morning we met with the group, which consisted of ten people counting us. There was one couple from Pennsylvania, one from Michigan, and one from Alabama. There was a guy from New York as well as Dave Millis, the trip leader. We went to the Beryl Pit, about forty kilometers east of Bancroft, for our first dig. This mine is an open pit with an extensive dump area. The pit was relatively small with tall hard rock walls. From the pit floor various ones of us extracted beryl, schorl tourmaline, amazonite and cleavelandite feldspar. Dick Eckerman, the guy from New York was able to break out a six to eight inch long beryl crystal in its calcite matrix. Most beryls were a dull brown, but some showed some green color. None had any luster and were very fragile. The amazonite was nice, but the difficulty of getting it out meant that the pieces ended up small. The cleavelandite crystals were well defined, but delicate to handle as they were well weathered. From the dumps, we found more amazonite and beryl, peresterite pieces, and some bits of dark purple fluorite in feldspar. We ended up spending the whole day here.

BERYL CRYSTALS (feldspar matrix)...click on photo to enlarge	CLEVELANDITE and SCHROL...click on photo to enlarge

Wednesday we headed west out of the campground toward Wilberforce. We were to go to the Richardson/Fisson mine but when we went to pay our fee at the nearest house, we were told that the mine was now closed. So, we moved on to a road cut not too far away and torn into a hard white calcite trying to extract some black hornblende (flouro-richterite?) crystals. I worked with hammer and chisel long enough to break out some small chunks and pieces of glossy crystals. Other were successful in finding cracks and taking out large chunks with sledges, wedges, truck springs and chisels. One very large boulder was left for those with the energy and tools to slide it out from the overhanging ledge of rock. A couple of us went across the road and worked in a bit more weathered material. I took out a chunk of calcite, biotite and hornblende, which I trimmed down to a 70-pound piece that I could lift in and out of the truck. It was here that the driver of a passing vehicle slowed down, leaned out the window, and yelled out, "Welcome to Ontario." Nice folks up there.

HORNBLENDE CRYSTALS in CALCITE...click on photo to enlarge	70 lb chunk of HORNBLEDE, BIOTITE, and CALCITE...click on photo to enlarge

After lunch, we went on to a site known as the Padwell Mine. This was obviously a little-know location and without Dave we'd never have found it. It's in thick woods about a hundred yards off a dirt road. The dump piles were barely distinguishable beneath the overgrowth. I never saw the pit. We brought out some crumbly calcite chunks with nice areas of salmon pink and spotted with tiny biotite and pyroxene crystals.

PADWELL MINE CALCITE...click on photo to enlarge

Thursday, we again turned west out of the campground and drove to the Bear Lake site about forty kilometers distance. Bear Lake isn't what you might expect. First of all, there's no visible lake. Secondly, if there was, it wouldn't be Bear Lake. Turning off the main highway, you realize you're on Glamour Lake Road. There is no Bear Lake. The Bancroft Chamber of Commerce owns the claim and it's to them you pay the entrance fee. The site is heavily wooded, but pitted with trenches over a large area. This is not a mine, but an "occurrence." The rockhound-dug trenches are apparently reflecting the pattern of dykes lying just beneath the surface. We spotted a large calcite boulder lying in one of these trenches which was laced with green apatite crystals. We took possession of this trench. Dick Eckerman and I worked the boulder and then the trench itself, while Faye and Mikel Sheasley tried to save all the crystals that were evident in the chunks Dick and I were handing out. We soon realized that the floor of the trench was solid calcite and that was likely why the previous workers of this trench had gone no deeper.

We extended the length of the trench and continued to find other manageable calcite boulders, all with apatite crystals of various sizes. Dick found a two-by-two inch crystal chunk in the float. We were told that these free floaters we were finding had been freed from the weathered calcite, typically on the underneath side. While these were a delight to find, those still within the calcite were of much higher quality, some quite gemmy. We took out many crystals, although few complete. We learned to be excited to get one termination on a crystal. Although distribution of the finds involved a three-way split, our shares were most satisfying, particularly when I got the 2x2 piece. Still, Faye and I decided to give that trench another shot before we left the Bancroft area.

MATRIX-FREE APATITE CRYSTALS...click on photo enlarge	APATITE CRYSTAL IN CALCITE MATRIX...click on photo to enlarge

Friday we went to the Silver Crater mine for our morning dig. Here were radioactive betafites, some green apatite, and very large hornblende crystals and biotite books. Mikel Sheasley put his geiger counter to use and collected a number of "hot" betafite crystals. We found some small apatites which had been altered to a red color due to the radioactivity. In the largest of the two pits, I managed to free a seven pound terminal end of a hornblende crystal from most of its calcite matrix. While weathered, all sides were intact. A photo of the wall of this pit is used in the Peterson Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals as the illustration for hornblende. Both Faye and I couldn't resist loading up some very large pieces of biotite from the dumps down the slope even though the haul up was a struggle.

HORNBLENDE CRYSTAL...click on photo to enlarge	70 lb. BIOTITE BOOK...click on photo to enlarge

After lunch, we moved on to a nearby road cut and chiseled and wedged out some chunks and pieces of a fine grained peach-colored calcite. Here we saw some small, white tremolite crystals and what we thought were very small embedded blue apatite crystals.
	PEACHY CALCITE...click on photo to enlarge

Friday was the last day of the Bancroft portion of the Roving Rockhounds trip. They would continue on further west and then travel down the upper peninsula of Michigan. We opted to not continue on with the group, but decided to stay in Bancroft another couple of days.

Dave Millis was also staying on in Bancroft so he went with Faye and me to a couple of sites Saturday morning. The first, known as the Quirk Lake Occurrence, was very near the campground. It was within the roadway right-of way. It was not a road cut, but a level area that had been dug in a series of parallel trenches by others before us. Each trench seemed to be a narrow, elongated pocket lying between feldspar crystal-lined walls of country rock. About four foot down there was a floor of weathered calcite. At this level we found small smoky quartz clusters attached to the calcite. Some of the quartz tended toward amethyst. We collected a lot of feldspar crystal clusters, some brown apatite crystals, a few small hornblende clusters, and the quartz. Faye and I would have stayed here longer, but Dave wanted to show us another location before he left us.

FELDSPAR CRYSTALS...click on photo to enlarge	BROWN APATITE CRSTALS...click on photo to enlarge

We drove on further to the McDonald feldspar mine. This operation was an underground mine consisting of two linear shafts and a large vaulted ceiling room accessible from both sides of the hill it penetrated. The walls and ceilings of the room were decorated with the pink blushes of the remaining feldspar. From the looks of things, rockhounds still attempt to mine these feldspar patches. We chose to enjoy the cool air, and then the protection it provided from a rain shower. We did rake out some nice yellow calcite from the surrounding dumps.

ENTRANCE to McDONALD MINE...click on photo to enlarge	McDONALD MINE FELDSPAR...click on photo to enlarge

Monday morning we left Bancroft to begin our trek back home. We spent one night in a state park outside of Binghamton, NY, and a second in Staunton, VA, where the temperature had reach 103 degrees that day. Welcome back to the South.

We're considering this trip as our prospecting trip into the northlands. We hope to go back and concentrate our efforts in a few spots. We certainly want to spend more time at Bear Lake. We saw some beautiful glossy black Titanite crystal clusters found there a couple of years ago. The trick will be to find all these desirable sites still accessible when we return. The Bancroft Chamber of Commerce seems to be the place to check with before assuming all is as it used to be. Geologist Chris Fouts leads tours through the chamber. He should be able to answer questions of site accessibilty. We missed all of the Black Flies and most of the mosquitoes by going as late in the Summer as we did. Still, repellents containing a high percentage of DEET is a must. The Deer Flies were still around and attacked any moving target. To beat that, find your digging spot quickly and stay heads down. But, then that's how you find those treasures isn't it?