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| Glowing sapphire |
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| At the flume |
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| Us with Todd, and our bell ringers |
Over spring break Nate and I did a road trip to Franklin, NC. A gem mining mecca, Franklin and the surrounding aren't short on gem mines. Most are little, pull off the side of the road, tourist traps. They have already dug buckets that you wash in the flume, and magically find gems. We we're on the hunt for a real mine. One where we could dig our own gems. Yes, the work would be harder, but the reward could be greater, and who wants buckets that have already been picked through? We found Mason's Ruby and Sapphire mine. We arrived in the morning and Judie(the host) and Todd(Mr. Miner) got us all set up. After a few hours of digging and buttering up Todd, we finally convinced him to let us dig in the "off limits" area of the mine. We just knew thats where they'd be hiding the big ones. We found some small sapphires, rubies and a whole bunch of rocks. Not the big stuff we were hoping for. On our lunch break, Todd showed us some of the big sapphires he had found at the mine. He has an ultraviolet light that he used at night to look for sapphires. Apparently sapphires glow bright red under a black light. Somehow we got the chance to come back that night and be the first of the public to do ultraviolet mining. We were so in. The stars didn't give much light to the dark night, but the lack of moonlight would help our hunt for glowing sapphires. With nothing more than a headlamps to guide our way, and gloves to protect our hands from the ultraviolet light, we set off for the mine. Todd had the black light and gave us a demo of what the sapphires would look like under the light. They glowed like radioactive strawberries! Glowing bright red, with purple undertones. This should be easy. We walked around the mine slowly with the black light inches above the dirt, a bit back breaking, but the only way to see the coveted glow. A few minutes in and we had already found a couple smalls. Todd told us about a miner who had died at the mine back in the 30's. He said the miner haunts the mine and doesn't like strangers coming and taking his gems. During the night we did hear some strange noises, maybe a deer in the woods, or mad miner ghost, but we didn't see anything. The hunt was slowing down and the gems harder to find, so we moved a little further up the hill towards ghostly territory. Thats when the ground started to glow and Nate found his 10.65 caret sapphire, maybe the ghostly miner liked us after all. That little gem got Nate a spot on the mines website for "Bell Ringers" (any sapphire over 10cts) The total for the night ended up being right at 50 carets of sapphires. Most were small and a couple weighed in just under the 10ct mark. Heres the link to the bell ringer page if you wanna see the proof. www.masonsmine.com/bell-ringers.html
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