Rocks So it turned out to be, not a strip mine, and not a coal mine, but a diamond mine! Like in The Little Princess! And when I came back home, it turned out an Indian gentleman had adopted me! (This is a reversal. In the normal state of things, I -- or rather my family -- has adopted an Indian gentleman. Or rather, a very young gentleman. To be precise, my brother.)
If this long-winded digression makes no sense to you, you must not have spent your childhood reading late-Victorian children's novels.
Actually, of course, it is not a diamond mine. I think there are not any diamond mines in Virginia, let alone in Amelia County, Virginia, which turns out to be somewhere to the south of Richmond. It is, though, a mine where they get precious -- or semi-precious -- stones, which is much cheerier than anything I had envisioned.
And which meant that the field trip consisted of the pleasantly eccentric mine-owner (really, I think you would have to be pleasantly eccentric to start up a tiny precious-stone mine in the middle of Virginia. You would have to be someone who passionately loves, well, rocks -- which is pretty much a perfect recipe for pleasant eccentricity) telling us about the stones you can find in that area, and then going out behind the tiny gift shop to dig around in the dirt for bits and pieces of them. You got to use trowels, or even shovels if you wanted, and then wash off the rocks you found in those pans, like gold miners use. Or you could just scrabble around with your hands, which is basically what I did.
Several kids showed a strong preference for just digging Really Big Holes, rather than particularly looking for stones, occasionally calling out to their classmates to come see how deep the hole had gotten, or what a large rock they'd run up against. One tried to enlist my help to move a rock that must have been larger than she was, if we had fully un-buried it. When I asked her why she wanted to move it, she shrugged and said, "Oh, I guess to see what's there." The mentality of the hole-digger, apparently, is simply to uncover for uncovering's sake, laying bare the earth only to see what it's made of.
Other kids opted for mass over quality, taking their time extracting enormous chunks of granite and shale from the ground and proclaiming their superiority merely by size. Several ended up taking home brightly polished slabs that were obviously quarry-waste, already processed and probably not even native to the area. I pointed this out to one, and he grinned and said "But it's big! And it's mine!" and continued to struggle up the hill with it hoisted over his shoulder, triumphantly displaying it like, I suppose, a pirate might hoist a sack of gold, or a hunter a ten-point buck, or a businessman a really big account.
Still others spent their time poring over tiny bits of ground, like miserly magpies, searching for the minute, bright bits of the really precious stuff lurking beneath the roots of trees and in unexplored corners. (This ground has been picked over so much, serving as it does for an educational experience, that only the tiniest beryls and garnets remain unclaimed, and they hide themselves away very carefully.) When they found a fertile spot, like any good hunting animal, they guarded it carefully, telling other children there was nothing to be found there, and admitting only other true treasure-seekers after they had proven their worth. They were the ones who repeatedly turned over their jewels in their hands, displaying them carefully, holding them up only briefly to the cold sunlight and then pocketing them again with haste.
I ended up coming home with a few pretty examples of amazanite, the opaque, moss-green stone that is the mine's primary export, some mottled amethyst (quartz is plentiful here), a single, brilliantly clear amatrine (amethyst and citrine blended to show both their best qualities), and a handful of tiny, blood-beautiful garnets, which I housed in clever plastic aspirin-box. I am, after all, neither a hole-digger nor a rock-carrier, but a treasure-seeker.
If this long-winded digression makes no sense to you, you must not have spent your childhood reading late-Victorian children's novels.
Actually, of course, it is not a diamond mine. I think there are not any diamond mines in Virginia, let alone in Amelia County, Virginia, which turns out to be somewhere to the south of Richmond. It is, though, a mine where they get precious -- or semi-precious -- stones, which is much cheerier than anything I had envisioned.
And which meant that the field trip consisted of the pleasantly eccentric mine-owner (really, I think you would have to be pleasantly eccentric to start up a tiny precious-stone mine in the middle of Virginia. You would have to be someone who passionately loves, well, rocks -- which is pretty much a perfect recipe for pleasant eccentricity) telling us about the stones you can find in that area, and then going out behind the tiny gift shop to dig around in the dirt for bits and pieces of them. You got to use trowels, or even shovels if you wanted, and then wash off the rocks you found in those pans, like gold miners use. Or you could just scrabble around with your hands, which is basically what I did.
Several kids showed a strong preference for just digging Really Big Holes, rather than particularly looking for stones, occasionally calling out to their classmates to come see how deep the hole had gotten, or what a large rock they'd run up against. One tried to enlist my help to move a rock that must have been larger than she was, if we had fully un-buried it. When I asked her why she wanted to move it, she shrugged and said, "Oh, I guess to see what's there." The mentality of the hole-digger, apparently, is simply to uncover for uncovering's sake, laying bare the earth only to see what it's made of.
Other kids opted for mass over quality, taking their time extracting enormous chunks of granite and shale from the ground and proclaiming their superiority merely by size. Several ended up taking home brightly polished slabs that were obviously quarry-waste, already processed and probably not even native to the area. I pointed this out to one, and he grinned and said "But it's big! And it's mine!" and continued to struggle up the hill with it hoisted over his shoulder, triumphantly displaying it like, I suppose, a pirate might hoist a sack of gold, or a hunter a ten-point buck, or a businessman a really big account.
Still others spent their time poring over tiny bits of ground, like miserly magpies, searching for the minute, bright bits of the really precious stuff lurking beneath the roots of trees and in unexplored corners. (This ground has been picked over so much, serving as it does for an educational experience, that only the tiniest beryls and garnets remain unclaimed, and they hide themselves away very carefully.) When they found a fertile spot, like any good hunting animal, they guarded it carefully, telling other children there was nothing to be found there, and admitting only other true treasure-seekers after they had proven their worth. They were the ones who repeatedly turned over their jewels in their hands, displaying them carefully, holding them up only briefly to the cold sunlight and then pocketing them again with haste.
I ended up coming home with a few pretty examples of amazanite, the opaque, moss-green stone that is the mine's primary export, some mottled amethyst (quartz is plentiful here), a single, brilliantly clear amatrine (amethyst and citrine blended to show both their best qualities), and a handful of tiny, blood-beautiful garnets, which I housed in clever plastic aspirin-box. I am, after all, neither a hole-digger nor a rock-carrier, but a treasure-seeker.
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