Tuesday, September 11, 2007

 

Mining for Gems




To celebrate the birthday of our friend Connie, we went to Franklin to one of the many gem mines that populate these mountains. For a few dollars, you can buy two buckets of dirt and sitting at the flume (trough with running water)with a screened pan, you can while away a couple of hours, searching for rubies, emeralds and semi precious stones.



To see pictures of the whole operation, click the link below. We had a great time! I came home with rose quartz, jasper, desert rose, etc. A oouple of the gals found little rubies...but nothing Harry Winston would want.



The Sheffield Mines of Franklin, North Carolina

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# posted by bevjackson @ 6:16 AM
Comments:
What fun! When I was a kid we used to go panning for gold on the Salmon and Little Salmon rivers in Idaho.
# posted by Blogger Sharon Hurlbut : 5:32 PM, September 13, 2007
 
oh oh oh do you know how jealous I am? Not only am I dying to go to one of those, but i once owned 125 acres in Franklin (well, Otto) and never went to a gem mine nor even a rock shop. Aaarrrgh!

but glad of course that you had fun. I love rose quartz! put some in your bedroom for peaceful sleep.
# posted by Blogger Maryanne Stahl : 8:51 PM, September 16, 2007
 
Funny how everyone's got some connection to this mining stuff. I'd never known about any of it until now. Just found out that N.C. is huge in gemstones! Who knew? You, likely.

Thanks for ocming by!
# posted by Blogger bevjackson : 8:47 PM, September 17, 2007
 
My four-year-old daughter had a blast last summer when we went to a gem mine. It wasn't as authentic as the ones that actually dig dirt out of the ground to sift through (the place we went to looked like they scraped up gravel from the parking lot and threw some chards of gemstones in there to find), but it didn't matter. She was up to her elbows in the water and grit! I've heard Franklin is the place to go if you want to find some valuable stones.
# posted by Blogger David Wayne Hampton: : 3:22 PM, September 20, 2007
 
Yeah, I think my buckets of semi-precious were all just 'set ups' too, but since I didn't care, it was fine with me. They even said that the "rainbow" buckets were the best for the kids...so I headed right for them. :-)
# posted by Blogger bevjackson : 6:01 PM, September 20, 2007
 
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