When I first started looking for mineral specimens my first choice of course was an easily
accessible location. I chose the well known and world famous location called Mount Apatite.
As fate would have it, this discovery location is within 3 miles from my home in Auburn, Maine.
It's a short hike to about the 500 foot elevation and a relatively easy daytrip.
Bring water and snack but pack lightly.
Tourmaline, smokey quartz, garnets, morganite and beryl among other highly desirable minerals
have been found here. Of course the purple apatite is the one all are after.
Hence the given name Mount Apatite?
The tourmaline that has been found here in the past ranges from transparent to the vibrant dark
green "pinetree color" to the rare blue and pink variety.
Specimens can be viewed at the Maine State Museum and is highlighted in The Peary Necklace.
Also, The Hamblin Necklace is a great example of the many colored and vibrant
tourmaline gems found in the past here and can be seen at The Harvard Gem and
Mineral Collection display.
History states, that apparently in the early years of mining at Mount Apatite they were after the
feldspar for the use in china manufacturing among other things and a lot of good specimens were
discarded before they became aware.
A fortune certainly awaits you somwhere deep in the dumps and tailings.
Mt Apatite is owned and managed by the city of Auburn, Maine and is open to the
public and collectors alike. This is one of the very few mining areas still open to the
public for no fee so this is where I started my quest.
The highlight of this undertaking was of course the garnets, which to me are a lot like
air bubbles within the rock and must be broken out.
When struck just right, they fall into your hand.
Although most are not of the gem variety, excellent cabinet specimens can be realized with
little effort and expertise.
Actually, the Maine gem garnets are rather small. I would say in the 2-7 mm size if you are lucky
enough to find one, but they are there!
I personally, have found garnet "nodules" within the black tourmaline (schorl) crystals.
This is obviously an interesting intergrowth anomaly in itself but please don't destroy a nice
terminated crystal in the hopes of finding the garnets as they are rare to begin with and it is
difficult to even get a decent black terminated specimen out of matrix without breaking them.
The attrition rate is high as the crystals are very brittle and highly fractured to begin
with. The better specimens will be found within the smokey quarts itself from my experience.
Some say that the fracturing and fracturable condition it is due to the "rebound of the land"
after the glaciers melted and/or past by and others feel it is "burnt" material.
I feel it may be a combination of the two but more than likely associated with the rebound
effect after glaciation.
It is thought by many scientists, "that the land was had been compressed some 200-500' or more
at the time glaciers covered the land." This process has been noted to have occurred at least
3-4 times in the ancient past.
Here is one I hope you will enjoy:
One late fall day, after about a week of rain fall, I was walking up to the Pulsifer/Greenlaw
pits. They are both easily located at the crest of Mount Apatite to the right
and left respectivly. This is the same trail everyone has traveled for over 150 years now and
about half way up the hill, just below a large bolder on the right side of the main path,
(you will find it easily as it is the only big one there) at about 20-50' below this massive
bolder there was a perfectly terminated top of what is believed to be a clear quartz crystal
shining at me! It was a terminated top of an excellent clean clean crystal!
It could be transparent tourmaline which is in fact very rare but I have never had it analytically
tested. My gemcutter has stated clearly that in his opinion, "it is quartz" and he should know
as in the cutting process certain minerals "feel" differently than others and I can understand
that thought process.
I would estimate the crystal specimen to of been about a 200-300 carat stone and about 2-3 inches
in diameter.
Sad to report that no photos exist of the original crystal but still have much of this rough in
my private collection.
I was walking up at a slow and deliberate pace, following a rain runoff crevice and BINGGO!
It was located at about the 8-10" depth.
I still want to know where the rest of that crystal is as I estimate that the remaining crystal
piece should have been about 10-18 inches in length.
At any rate, in the excitement of my first decent find, I didn't take the time to pinpoint the
precise location but as one can imagine and believe you me, I did take a bearing.
I do know the approximate area and can take you there to this day.
It was just off the road to the right a bit.
In hind site, I would bet that in the process of building the road this terminated top of the
crystal was taken from the dumps and the rest of the crystal will simply not be there.
I ended up with my first faceted stones from this material.
One fantastic 19.7 x 28 mm 37.7 CT Pear cut gemstone with an included wisp of smokey running
through the table.
The traces of smokey is only on the surface as described by my
gemcutter, "it wanted to go smokey" and is more than likely associated with a radiation
burning event long ago in our earths history.
It is accompanied by two matching 10 x 15 mm pears at about 4.5 CT each totaling
9.28 carats. These were mounted by Thomas Mann of Bethel, Maine another contributor to the
Maine mineral and gem mining history. They were accented with a Maine garnet and a sapphire
respectively in white and yellow 14 CT gold respectivly.
A third stone was cut as a back up in the event of a lost stone in the future.
It differs slightly by exactly 1 mm and is a 9 x 14, 3.38 CT Pear.
See photographs as I personally never get tired of looking at the simple quartz
examples found on that day.
Note: The key in the dumps here and probably in most cases elsewhere in my humble opinion,
is to stay in the strata/zone/elevation that one locates the decent specimens. Don't go anywhere
until you feel the source has been depleted, be safe, keep breaking rock and always have fun.
