Published in the July WCGMC Newsletter
Admittedly, some of the Wayne County Gem and Mineral Club collecting trips are out of this world. However, that’s figurative speech as we have not yet actually figured out how to visit any true planetary bodies. No, Cobalt, Ontario does not count, not even Sudbury. But suppose we could travel to another planet to collect. What might we find? Let’s consider Mercury for starters.
When I ventured to New Hampshire and Maine with three other intrepid collectors in search of aquamarine, topaz, smoky quartz, and other pegmatite riches, we did not pass by the planet Mercury (see posting of June 30, 2016). However, we did find an interesting spot to collect a little graphite. The site is in extreme eastern New York between the northern end of Lake George and the southern end of Lake Champlain. Along Pulpit Road, one half mile east of Route 22 in Putnam, NY, a large pile of boulders lay just 50 feet off the roadside. Bob, Linda, and Gary provide scale to the boulders in the cover photo.
Published in the July WCGMC newsletter
Rubies are red, very red. Rubies are hard, very hard. In fact with a hardness of 9 on the Moh’s scale, they fall just below diamonds as the hardest natural mineral on earth. Ruby is also the birthstone for July, the seventh month in the Gregorian calendar.
