Nature in Camping 15 



Prospecting 



If there is snow on the ground you will not find many specimens unless 

 there happens to be a windswept out-cropping of rock to study. The best 

 time of the year for prospecting is early in the spring, before the vegetation 

 covers the ground and right after the spring thaws have loosened up the 

 ground and created landslides exposing new mineral locations. 



Quarries, mine dumps, road cuts, subway dumps or any place where 

 newly exposed rocks are to be found are good places for the amateur 

 prospector. Rocks and minerals and particularly crystals deteriorate, just 

 as anything else does upon long exposure to the rain and weather; so 

 your best samples will be found in newly exposed surfaces. At some places 

 along our coast the sea washes up many stones of gem-like quality. If you 

 are in the country you can try prospecting the streams, as do professional 

 prospectors. Examine the stagnant backwaters of the stream for likely 

 looking minerals. If you look closely, you will find minute samples of 

 most of the minerals existing in that part of the country. If the samples 

 are large the source is not far away, but if they are small they have probably 

 been washed from much further upstream. Work upstream examining the 

 pools. Your samples should get larger and larger and finally disappear. The 

 source of that mineral is somewhere between your present position and the 

 last pool where you found samples, so look around perhaps the "mother 

 lode" is up a side stream or up on the hill on either side of the main stream 

 where fragments have been washed down by winter storms. 



Collecting 



After you have found a promising looking spot, use your hammer and 

 chisel to break out the best sample you can get. Be very careful not to 

 destroy your specimen by careless blows of the hammer. If there are crystals 

 try prying rather than chopping so as not to dislodge the crystals from their 

 matrix. Give the sample a number immediately and enter into your note- 

 book what you think it is and where you found it. If there are any more 

 materials, collect a few more samples for your exchange supply. Put the 

 specimens in individual wrappers and if they have delicate crystals on the 

 surface wrap them in cotton batting or old rags so that they will not be 

 spoiled on the trip home. 



Preparing a Specimen 



In the evening and on inclement days you can open up the bags that 

 you filled on your field trips and prepare the specimens for cataloguing and 

 mounting. 



