Our last day of filming for the “Pegmatites of Maine” was set to be another action packed day. Tom (Tom Klinepeter, starkhillgem), Justin and I were planning on visiting 3 locations; The Bumpus Mine, Songo Pond Mine, and the Peru Garnet collecting locality.
The Bumpus Mine is known for outstanding Beryl crystals, the largest of which is displayed in the New York Museum of Natural History.
Maine Mineralogy Expeditions offers visitors tours of the mine tunnels and a chance to collect from some nearby tailing piles. They give tours Wednesdays, and invited us to come film. First everyone meets at the Bethel Outdoor Adventure & Camp Ground before caravaning over to the actual mine site.
Before entering the mine site, guides give a very thorough presentation on geology and mining before handing out hard hats and flashlights.
One man had a propane powered lantern, which I thought was extremely interesting.
The actual site is pretty overgrown, on the way back to the tunnels.
The area was quite a moist, humid enviroment. There was even a nice waterfall at the opening of the 1st tunnel.
After which, we all were led to the 2nd tunnel. Tom said that he had never actually been to that tunnel either, so it was new for all of us. We walked back through the trails to a marshy area, and the opening to the tunnel.
Once again, we filed inside.
Look at this worthless piece of schorl!
The entire tour and collecting package takes 4 hours, but we only stayed for 2. Not only did we have all the foootage we needed, we had plans to meet Jan Brownstein (207-824-3898) over at the Songo Pond Mine. We caught up with him at the parking area, and hitched a ride up to the mine in the back of his truck.
Jan has a table of sample specimens set up for visitors to look at. We looked at the specimens as he told us about the mine and what could be found there. Songo Pond Mine is a highly mineralized area. Collectors commonly find Beryl, Quartz, Feldspar, Garnet, Schorl, Mica, and Apatite, along with several others that are less common.
After chatting we headed down to the pit and tailing piles to film.
However I was very distracted by the frogs
and the primative benches.
However our 3rd location was in Peru, (Maine) so we needed to head out before calling it a day.
Tom had a publication with directions to a place to collect garnets back in the woods. It didn’t look like anyone had been back the trails in a while, except for maybe snowmobilers in the winter.
We walked down the overgrown trails and into the woods.
The whole area was on a slope that was covered in trees and moss.
You can either collect from the what is scattered on the ground or by trying to work garnets out fo the veins.
However the matrix is hard, and the garnets often shatter.
I saw this nice garnet in the wall, and thought I would never remove it without shattering it.
But much to my surprise it was already loose, and came right out using only my fingers. This was my best find of the day.
On the way back home we saw a Paul Bunyan (often refered to as a Muffler Man), and stopped to take a picture. We have a fondness for them, and even lived up the street from one exactly like this in Tucson, AZ.
