Many of the beaches in Cape May are made up of ocean polished quartz pebbles of various sizes and quality. Many of the best pieces are water clear, or have the translucent look of moonstone. These quartz pebbles are actually prismatic quartz washed out of veins along side the riverbed of the Delaware River. They are refered to as “Cape May Diamonds”, and have been used for jewely by local artisians for years.

We drove past the touristy down=town area, and out to Sunset Beach. We parked the car in the public parking lot, and followed the trail out to the water.

Right away we saw the water polished pebbles on the beach.

So we walked along the water looking for gravel bars washed in by the tide.

A little further down the beach, and we found a large gravel bar, so we looked through it for awhile.

With minimal effort we both found quite a few nice “Cape May Diamonds”, and then headed back to the parking lot.

At the edge of the parking lot was a RockShop on the beach.

As we were leaving, the sun was setting over the Atlantic Ocean.

After driving several hours, we were happy to finally be at the Franklin Mineral Museum. Apparently the museum is housed in what used to be the old electric generator building.

Before going around back to see the collecting feild, we decided to tour the museum first.

Doesn’t Leah look chic?

Old microscopes.

This is a case of products made from minerals mined here

Here is a model of the mining operations.

The museum has a room that filled with fluorescnet minerals.

See how different everything looks in regular light.

After looking at all the exhibits inside the museum, we went out to the collecting area behind the museum.

We had a good time at the Franklin Mineral Museum, but the day was getting late, and we still needed to get to Sterling Hill. The Sterling Hill Mining Museum is known for the “Rainbow Room” inside the mine. This room is actually an old mine shaft created by the miners as they extracted the zinc ore. Visitors can see the bands of the fluorescent minerals running over the top of the ceiling.

The Sterling Hill Mining Museum is owned by brother’s Richard and Robert Hauck. Both are old school miners whose goal is to preserve the mine for future generations.

Since we arrived after the public tour had already finished, we were treated to a special, private tour.

First we visited the main Exhibit Hall. This was a locker room for the miners when it was still active. Now it has been turned into a musuem of mining memorabilia and ephemeria.

After looking at all the displays in the Exhibit Hall, it was time for us to enter the rooms with the fluorescent minerals.

There are over 340 minerals found at the Sterling Hill Mine, but the most common are Franklinite, Willemite, and Zincite. This locality hosts 80 species of fluorescent minerals; more than over other single location worldwide.

But no tour would be complete without entering the mine.

Also on the property is one of Thomas Edison’s many test areas,

and sculptures depicting very buff, shirtless miners.

On a side note, on the way back to Philadelphia, near Cherry Hill, we spotted our first real life Uni-Royal Girl.

Leah and Katie are students at Moore College of Art & Design. They were excited to go collecting almandine garnets from Fairmount Park to use in different projects. Back when we first started dating Justin and I went collecting at thist location with some friends, so we knew that the garnets would be plentiful.

We walked over the bridge and then off the path and down to the creek.

Once in the water, we began to search the creek bed for the pieces of mica schist with the garnets imbedded in them.

Leah finds some garnets, and shows them to Katie so that she knows what to look for.

In no time she is collecting like a pro.

But of course Justin finds the best one of the day.

After garnet collecting, is was then off to Prospect Park to collect Kyanite.

We had been to the this location a couple times before. The last time we were here, we found a a hole full of bright blue kyanite right as we were leaving, so we were curious to see if it was still there. So we walked down the hill and over the spillway, and then followed along the side of the stream.

It was raining and getting late, so we were happy when we found the spot.

So we took turns collecting blue kyanite blades, and then headed back to Philadelphia.