What a perfect day for collecting! It was early October – the sun was shining, the temperature was in the low 70′s, and the bugs had packed up and headed south for the season. Our day started with the long drive up from Western Massachusetts to Ossipee, NH, which is about halfway up the eastern side of the state. The fall foliage was at its peak, which unfortunately was none too glorious due to 6 weeks of heavy rain and the lack of a killing frost. We arrived in Ossipee at about 10:30 AM.

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For decades, New England mineral collectors have been drawn to Diamond Ledge in north central Connecticut in search of the excellent quality milky quartz crystal plates and clusters for which it is famous. Those who have worked the site with grit, determination, and back-breaking labor have regularly been rewarded with significant specimens. And, those lucky enough to find pockets have sometimes brought home several 5-gallon buckets filled with these highly aesthetic and desirable plates of large-size milky quartz crystals. This well-known, prolific locality is in Shenipsit State Forest, in West Stafford, Tolland Co., Connecticut. It is a wooded area, giving plenty of shade even on a hot summer day, and at the bottom of the steep slope where collectors dig for crystals is a stream with a waterfall and ample pools of water for rinsing mud off of specimens or taking a quick bath.

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Iceland spar is a clear, transparent, colorless crystallized variety of calcite (calcium carbonate, CaCO3). Large pieces are split along natural cleavage planes to form natural rhombs. Iceland spar is probably best known for exhibiting the optical property of double refraction – so, anything viewed through the crystal appears double. It has many uses, in everything from precision optical instruments to LCD screens, and was even used during WWII to make bombsights. The perfect, flawless, colorless Iceland spar that is used in optical instruments sells for more than $1000 per kg. Historically, the first, best quality, and most abundant source of this clear calcite was in Iceland, which is where it got its name. Recently, Iceland spar has been in the news because of new research that shows that this mineral was almost certainly used by the Vikings for navigation.

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Newry Hill, a spur off Plumbago Mountain, is the most prolific tourmaline producer in Maine. Since its discovery in 1898, production from the mine has exceeded thousands of kilograms of high-quality tourmaline. Then, in August 1972, three amateur mineral collectors traveled to Newry, Maine for a weekend of digging to see if they could find any tourmaline. They hit a series of small pockets containing gem crystals that were so promising that they leased the property, and in October opened some major pockets. This was to become the largest discovery of gem tourmaline in the world, producing one metric ton of fine-quality tourmaline, consisting of many variations of colors never seen before. Overnight, the lives of the collectors who made this legendary find were changed forever.

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