For MSSC's 750th meeting we are pleased to feature noted author, lecturer and collector Peter Bancroft who has agreed to come out of retirement for the evening and share with us some of his "Mineral Collecting Adventures Around the World." In addition, he will bring a few specimens from his collection, including one pictured in one of his books.
by Bob Housley
Margarita Peak Those of you who have been regular readers of the column may remember that last Fall Garth Bricker and I made several trips to a remote region of San Diego County in the vicinity of Margarita Peak in search of the original source of nice scheelite and molydenite crystals Garth has in the Fallbrook museum, labeled as coming from Margarita Peak. The relief is subdued and the area is very brushy. The one small mine dump visible from the road is devoid of interesting minerals. Nonetheless Garth and I persevered and on the second trip a few hundred yards up a barely discernible old road found a cabin site and abandoned bulldozer with a trench nearby. Another few hundred yards up this road were a 10 foot adit and above it a 30 foot inclined adit. All of this also seemed to be devoid of interesting minerals.
On a third trip we went out about a mile and a half on another overgrown old road and found a large bulldozer cut with very interesting rocks located in a small dump area. We think there is a buried adit in the bank behind the dump, but it will require digging to find out for sure. The dump rocks contain much arsenopyrite and some ferberite in a matrix rich in fine grained tourmaline and dumortierite. There is also a lot of bismuth present. Interesting microminerals include dumortierite, scorodite, pharmacosiderite, mixite, and the rare bismuth tungstate russellite. Someday we will go back there and try to dig out the adit. However, last Fall we still had not found the source for the scheelite and molybdenite.
Last week we went back and tried again. In the meantime Garth had been able to contact one of the miners who had worked up there during the 1950’s. We found the names of two mine owners during that period from an old CDMG publication on the mineral resources of San Diego County. Assuming that they still might live in the area Garth tracked one of them down using the telephone directory. He is 78 and was unable to go out to the mines with us, but remembered the area well. He said his main mine was down in the gully below the cabin site and rusted out bulldozer we had seen previously and that the molybdenite crystals had come from the 30 foot inclined adit.
Last week the late blooming flowers were beautiful. but the day was hot and the flies were thick. We got to the cabin site then made our way through the brush down into the gully. Sure enough we found ore car rails coming out of the side of the bank. The entrance to the adit was completely caved, but it had been where he said it was. To make matters worse since the dump had been right in the gully it was almost completely washed away. We spent several hours breaking rocks first in the gully, then by the trench and in piles that looked like they might have been ore piles and found almost nothing of interest.
Finally we decided to give the 30 foot adit above another try before leaving. First we broke rocks on the dump there for about an hour with no success. Then out of desperation I went inside and picked up some rocks from the floor and brought them out to break. One had a tiny molybdenite crystal. We spent another hour or so and each got a couple of molybdenite specimens we are really happy with, so it turned out to be a good day after all. It will require another trip to see whether there are any more molybdenite crystals there, and we still have not found the source of the scheelite.
Clear Creek As we resumed our normal field trip activities this Spring I asked for suggestions concerning possible destinations and leaders. John Kennedy suggested that we go to the Clear Creek area and possibly have a fee dig at the Junnila Claim if it was available. That is one area I had never been to before and did not know much about. I e-mailed Scott Kliene about the Junnila Claim, but have had no response. Since my interest was awakened I decided to take advantage of the Gem and Mineral Council trip to the Benitoite Gem Mine on June 3 to learn more about the area.
That proved to be a very interesting and enjoyable trip. As we had to go it took three hours from where we left the Freeway near Coalinga to the Gem Mine, all the way through rural country with no stores or service stations. The last fifteen miles was dirt road, but would have been passable with a passenger car. The location is in the Coast Range Mountains and the scenery is spectacularly desolate. The main rock type in the whole region is serpentine with localized bodies of other rock types.
The three hours we had at the Gem Mine was very productive. I collected about fifty pounds of natrolite, with neptunite or benitoite showing on edges, that I want to etch out. I also got some nice natrolite specimens that I plan to keep as they are and even a couple of artinite specimens. In the material I have etched so far I have some nice micros of benitoite and neptunite and one killer thumbnail of neptunite that more than pays for the trip. Unfortunately we will not be able to get access for MSSC there this year, but may be able to soon.
I have maps to a dozen other interesting mineral localities within a mile of the Gem Mine, so when we left it at 4 pm Dan McHugh, Jack Neiburger, and I decided to check one of then out. We went to the Perovskite Knob and found very nice micros of melenite and topazalite garnet, clinochlore, magnetite, and ilmenite.
With my interest now aroused I suggest we have a field trip to the area in the Fall even though we will not be able to have a fee dig at an active mine. I would suggest that some of us who can get away from work go up on about a Thursday and do a little exploring. Then we could be joined by the rest of the group on the weekend. Other minerals in the same region include artinite, natrolite, cinnabar, and other rare mercury minerals. Those of us who can go early could have good spots lined up for the rest.
The meeting was called to order by Bob Housley at 7:45 p.m., June 9, 2000. The speaker for the evening, Dr. George
Rossman, gave a talk on Tourmalines.
Bob White moved that the minutes of the 747th and 748th meetings be accepted as published. The motion was seconded by Gus Meister and passed unanimously.
Several announcements were made of upcoming events.
The meeting adjourned at 9:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by,
Ronald J. Pellar
Acting Secretary
The meeting was called to order by Bob Housley at 10:10 a.m in the restaurant at the Holiday Inn during the Costa Mesa Gem & Mineral Show.
Rock Currier offered cabinet space at his warehouse. Jim Schlegel will get with Rock to assess needs and availability of space. Historical documents will be stored separately.
Ron Pellar proposed that if the bulletin can not be mailed before the first of month that the Treasurer print and mail a postcard announcing the meeting and speaker (if available) on the first of the month. Motion to accept was made by Jim Schlegel and seconded by Bill Besse. Motion carried unanimously.
The Board approved a sub-committee of Ron Pellar, Bill Besse, and Daniel J. McHugh to plan something extra for the July (750th) meeting of the MSSC.
The Board authorized Jim Schlegel to seek a checking account for the Show Committee.
The Board approved the payment for the Directors’ breakfast just concluded by the Treasurer.
Meeting adjourned at 11:15 a.m.
Respectfully submitted by,
Ronald J. Pellar
Acting Secretary
As most of you probably know John Clinkenbeard is in the process of updating CDMG Bulletin 189 Minerals of California. In order to try to contribute to this effort the program committee for the 36th annual Pacific Micromount Conference decided to make our theme this year “New California Minerals”. In addition our meeting format will be changed. Rather than inviting speakers we are making an open request for contributed talks on new California mineral finds. We have no idea how many to expect!
Anybody who knows of an important California mineral
locality that is not described in Bulletin 189 is invited to submit an abstract describing it to this Conference. Abstracts should be clear and concise, but there is no prescribed format or length limitation. However, abstracts will be reviewed for accuracy and consistent terminology and will then be published in an appropriate forum, to be decided, where they will be available and can be used for reference. The site will be documented in a publication!
The 36th annual Pacific Micromount Conference will be held on January 26, 27, and 28, 2001 at the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands. Abstracts should be either mailed or e-mailed by December 15, 2000 to
Robert M. Housley/Program Chair
rhousley@its.caltech.edu.
Assuming you also plan to talk at the Conference, although it is not required, please indicate how much time you would like. The program committee will do its best to make sure all important new localities get to be presented. However we anticipate that it may not be possible to give everybody as much time as they would like. It also might be necessary to combine overlapping presentations. We will do our best to be fair and reasonable.
E. V. Van Amringe
Although never noted as a mining district, the Pasadena territory has been prospected for minerals since early days. The writer, in geological rambles in the foothill region between the Arroyo Seco and Eaton Canyon, has often noticed old pits and ditches in the washes, and holes in the mountainsides. What follows is the result of a few day's search of early books and files in an attempt to learn a little of their history.
It was only a scant eight years after the discovery of gold in Placerita Canyon by Francisco Lopez in 1842, that Carlos Hanewald and John Pine signed a contract with Manuel Garfias, owner of Rancho San Pasqual, to purchase a square mile of land in the Arroyo bottom, vaguely described as "commencing where the Arroyo turns upward on the tillable lands there", for the purpose of washing gold from its sands. The deal was far from our conception of the easy business methods of the time, when land was worth "two-bits" an acre and the shrewd Yankee always has his way. The purchase price was $2,000; $600 down, the balance to be paid in a year with interest at 4% per month. Failure meant forfeiture of all payments and improvements. Who came out ahead on this arrangement may be inferred from the ruins of an old adobe near the present location of Brookside Park, and water ditches there and at other places in the Arroyo, objects of much mystery to founders of the Indiana Colony. Similar diggings have often been noted in Eaton and Rubio Canyon washes. However, there must have been some successful operations, for from 1853 to 1871, there were taken from the placers of San Gabriel, Santa Anita and Eaton Canyons $2,000,000 worth of gold dust.
The first location of lode claims seem to have been in 1886, when a number were staked by Konstian, Hearn and others on the south flank of Mt. Wilson. The newspapers reported 300 men prospecting, and 38 at work on a new trail to the diggings, and assays from $50 to $370 a ton. In this same year assays from $40 to $100 were reported from the hills west of Linda Vista where in 1887, J. W. Wilson and son worked a vein of free milling gold quartz running from $5 to $26 dollars. As the mineral rights in this area were owned by J. De Barth Shorb, and the royalties demanded by him were prohibitive, operations soon ceased.
In 1892 Carson and Dickey began operations on the "Carrie" mine in the west wall of Pine Canyon, between Eaton and Rubio Canyons, at an elevation of about 3,000 feet above sea-level. A tunnel about 100 feet long was dug, passing through two veins, the first of which was worked by side drifts. They also staked out the "Pine Tree", the "Edith", the "Summit" and the "Surprise" claims, in the same canyon. Ore from these mines assayed from $75 to $250 per ton in gold and from $2 to $12 in silver. These mines were incorporated into the "Loris Gold Mining Company" on June 22, 1894, the name being that of the daughter of Ed. Kennedy, the president and principal stockholder. A pack trail was constructed, to the wagon road, burros purchased, a mill erected and a steam engine and other machinery installed. The winter of 1894 was dry and the mill was unable to operate, although 50 tons of ore, averaging $40 a ton, was ready to be worked. The next year the mines were abandoned, and the mill moved away.
Starting at about the same time as the operations in Pine Canyon, Wm. Twaddell located a number of claims in Las Flores Canyon, where Wood and Redway had discovered ore in 1881. The claims were called the "Golden Star", the "Altadena", the "Bald Eagle", the "Jessie Marie", the "Monitor", and the "Pasadena". Although the primary purpose of the tunneling was for irrigation water, one large well-timbered shaft was sunk on the "Golden Star" a hundred feet along the dip of the vein. A road was built to the shaft and a mill site surveyed, as the ore obtained averaged $10 per ton in gold. But - as seems to be their habit in this region, the veins pinched out, and the values ran too low, and another of Pasadena's mines gave up the ghost.
The last picture in the story of gold is most incomplete and details would be much appreciated. Apparently the only recent operation was at the "Dawn" mine in the bottom of Millard Canyon on the Southwest slope of Mt. Lowe. Here the vein strikes nearly east and west, and dip is almost vertical. There was considerable development by adits in the first decade of the present century, but no large body of ore opened up. The mineral is auriferous pyrite, and many still believe there is much wealth hidden in the granite - but for the last fifteen years only gaping and abandoned caverns intrigue the visitor.
Of other minerals there is little to relate. A deposit of bog-iron ore on an abandoned Santa Fe right-of-way was never worked; a few projected oil-wells were never drilled.; and a two-hundred foot tunnel dug by Samuel Carson, son of Kit Carson, at the expense of Prudent Beaudry, in 1876, into the west bank of the Arroyo at Columbia Street, netted them just one ton of coal.
From the Bulletin of the Mineralogical
Society of
Southern California, Vol. 1, No. 3, January, 1932
JULY 14: 750th MSSC monthly meeting, 7:30 p.m., Geology Building, Pasadena City College
JULY 8-9: Culver City, CA
Culver City Rock & Mineral Club
Culver City Veterans Memorial Complex
4117 Overland Avenue
Hours: Sat 10 – 6, Sun 10 – 5
Brad Smith 310-472-6490
AUG 4-6: CFMS GOLD & GEM SHOW
Riverside Convention Center
3443 Orange Street, Riverside, CA
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19: MSSC ANNUAL PICNIC & SWAP MEET AT PASADENA CITY COLLEGE
Now till Sept 10: An interesting exhibition is available at the Huntington Library in San Marino through September 10. Titled “Land of Golden Dreams – California in the Gold Rush Decade 1848 – 1858” after Peter Blodgett’s book of the same name, the exhibit presents firsthand accounts of the dreams and aspirations of newcomers and original inhabitants alike from the “days of ‘49.” Peter Blodgett has been the curator of Western American history at the Huntington since 1985, and drawing on the unparalleled resources of the Huntington Library, he uses letters, journals, newspapers and previously unpublished images to bring to life the times which had a huge impact on the development of California as a state. Information can be obtained at 626-405-2141.
We are heading toward another national election, and since it seems we have too much money in the bank, we are going to see a number of “land preservation initiatives.” Regardless of your politics or how you feel about trees, we all share concerns about public access to public lands. So if you haven’t met your American Lands Access Association, it is high time you did. Become informed. Visit their web site at http://www.amerlands.org. Learn about RS 2477 and why perfectly good roads are suddenly up and disappearing from maps. Following is an edited introduction from the site.
In 1991, the President of the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies (AFMS) appointed a select committee to recommend ways to make the Federation more effectively responsive to the political challenges of increasing regulation and decreasing access to public lands that State and Federal Land Management agencies were imposing on amateur fossil and mineral collectors. The AFMS directors voted to establish the American Lands Access Association (ALAA) in July 1992 at their convention in Brunswick, Ohio. The Association is a 501 (c)(4) (non-profit) organization which means that all moneys raised by the association can go toward lobbying activity. Donations and memberships to ALAA are not tax deductible.
The purpose of the Association is to promote and ensure the rights of amateur fossil and mineral collecting, recreational prospecting and mining, and the use of public and private lands for educational and recreational purposes ; and to carry the voice of all amateur collectors and hobbyists to our elected officials, government regulators and public land managers. Their work began immediately! Within days of the July meeting, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) introduced the Vertebrate Paleontological Resources Protection Act of 1992 into the U.S. Senate. If enacted, the legislation would have ended amateur fossil collecting on all public lands managed by the Federal government except under supervision of certain degreed paleontologists in "acceptable institutions." ALAA has become an organization that is present wherever there are hobbyist and recreational users of our public lands whose interests and concerns are not being heard or are being jeopardized by proposed policy, regulation or legislation at the local, state and federal level. From defeating the Baucus Bill in 1992 to coordinating massive public protest to the proposed US Forest Service rules (withdrawn) and the Bureau of Land Management's RS (Revised Statutes) 2477 Rights-of-Way (rewritten), the ALAA has earned the respect of public officials from Washington, DC to state capitols across the country as the voice of the amateur and recreational user of public lands. The Association has also formed working relationships with many other organizations fighting for private property rights and multiple use of public lands including the Blue Ribbon Coalition, the Alliance for America as well as treasure hunters, metal detectorists, fishing and hunting enthusiasts, and mining and timber interests. With this network of contacts, the Association reaches into every State and into every Congressional District in the country on a national level. That network provides a swift and effective response to issues brought to our attention.
What’s going on in the Mojave? Bill Haigh is the Project Manager for the West Mojave Interagency Planning Team. There is a Supergroup overseeing task groups which will write the West Mojave Plan. Presently the Task Groups are (1) Wildlife and Plant Conservation Strategies, (2) BLM Vehicle Access Network, (3) Government Policy and Regulatory Issues, and (4) Implementation. The agency is located at 2601 Barstow Road, Barstow, CA 92311 or www.ca.blm.gov/cdd/wemo.html.
Ed.