Diamond Hill Mine
Antreville, South Carolina

Feb. 10^th ,  2007  9:00 A.M.

 “The Diamond Hill Mine has been producing skeletal, amethyst and smoky quartz crystals as well as quartz scepters and an assortment of pegmatite minerals for many years.”

 Antreville is just over 2 hours north of Atlanta, near Greenville.  The instructions said meet at 9 am which means (yuck!) wake up well before dawn on a very cold Saturday when I would like to sleep in, fill the thermos with hot coffee, and hit the road even before our newspaper arrived.

 When we got to the site after 2 hours on the “big road”, 15 miles of smaller and smaller roads ending in a final stretch of one lane dirt road, we were a little worried.  Through the woods, we saw a large yellow back hoe, some piles of dirt, and almost no vehicles.  Was this the right place?  Where was everybody?  Fortunately, George Libby’s van was one of the three vehicles in the lot – it was the right place.  He was happy to take our money and have us sign a release for the landowner, and to point us in direction of the “mine” - which was a series of 10 to 20 foot deep pits in the Piedmont clay.  At least it had not rained in a few days and the ground was dry.

 Jay took off with the big rock busting tools – I starting scratching around the clumps in the loose dirt at the surface.  After 15 minutes, I had found a few so-so specimens of crystalline quartz – just good enough to donate to club for grab bags.  I also found some spectacular clear crystals, which, alas, melted as soon as it warmed up.  (The prettiest crystals I have ever seen rock-hounding are ice crystals growing just below the surface– too bad they do not last).  I went back to the parking area, and surveyed tailgates to see what others had found for inspiration.  Deciding to descend into the pits, I walked by a large rock blanketed in fine dust.  The surface looked a little bumpy, so I brushed the dust off – wow!  The top of the rock was covered with 1 inch skeletal quartz crystals.  Jay was happy (he had not found anything exciting yet) – and I could not help but show my treasure to the rock-hounds who had walked by the same rock several times that morning.  We loaded the rock (conveniently at the surface, just beside the dirt track to the pit) on the hand truck and took it back to the truck.  Later that day, several people (including Charles and Lori Carter) found even better specimens nearby.

 That was enough to get me started.  I scouted around the “pits” and ended up going into the furthest (and deepest) pit.  On the very bottom, I saw some great plates of quartz crystals – all firmly attached to very large rocks, with no way to bring the hand-truck in.  I selected a good plate and went to work with chisel and maul.  After more than an hour, I finally pounded the rock into pieces light enough to carry.  I was disappointed that they were not as pretty when I got them out of the hole as when I first saw them.  As I scrambled out of the pit with my treasures, I looked at the ground close to the surface, which was covered with rocks of all sizes.  Wow!  Many of the rocks were covered with smaller quartz crystals.  And I had walked past these on the way down, convinced that the “mother lode” of good quartz had to be at the bottom of the pit.  I ended up collecting more quartz near the top of the hole – the specimens were as nice as those on the bottom, and much easier to carry to where we could wheel them out.  As the day wore on, we found more and more crystalline quartz – on the dirt track, covered in dirt on the spoil piles, and (of course) at the bottom of the pits.

 Well, the drive was worth it.  It was a beautiful day, even if it started out cold, and everyone went home happy.  Thanks to George for arranging a great field trip.  In addition to the skeletal quartz plates and many clusters of smaller crystals, George found a small, clear smoky quartz specimen.  I also saw another nice cluster, which appeared to have some amethyst in it.  By the end of the day, a few more folks showed up – there were maybe 10 cars there at any one time.  Poor George - every time a new arrival showed up, he had to stop collecting and sign them in.