Pack Rats

It has been a month of traveling, of comings and goings. Three weeks ago we went back to North Carolina for a week. We had a good time seeing some familiar faces in Asheville, Chapel Hill, Oak Island and Myrtle Beach. Along the way I came across some rocks...

I can barely remember my great-uncle Bernard, the rock hound. I remember visiting him once at his home in Winston-Salem. He had rocks everywhere, especially arranged on shelves in the basement. Rocks filled the living room in curio cabinets and in one particularly nice cabinet with small drawers and mirrors on the sides. I don’t know how his wife put up with it. It was a large collection. My father inherited it, and his wife I suppose was less tolerant. My father was a museum curator and a bit of a pack-rat himself. He had many other collections, driftwood, chestnut, walnut, odd bits of machinery, old magazines. Uncle Bernard’s rock collection was for the most part stashed in buckets in the barn, and many of the larger ones were used in a very colorful rock garden nestled among some purple coneflower, rosemary and bird-feeders.

I have always been fascinated with caves and grottoes and for some time have been planning to build one of my own. I envision not the classical grotto, which you can walk into, but rather a water feature, a pond that, instead of the typical small waterfall, has at one end a cavern out of which the water flows. I have also thought of putting the waterfall inside the cavern, out of sight, where the sound would reverberate. I was reading about Alexander Pope’s garden the other day and learned that he installed minerals and gemstones into the mortar of his grotto. His gardener wrote a description of the garden after Pope died which includes a list of all the stones and minerals. I began thinking about Bernard’s collection and whether it could be incorporated into a similar feature of my future garden.

My father is no longer with us and his wife has moved away from the land and the barns where the rocks reside. I am on spring break with my family and am driving through North Carolina and meeting friends and family along the way. We did not plan to go out to the farm, but my brother encouraged me to go get some rocks if I wanted some, and it was not too far out of the way. I have enough junk in my life, and no need to haul a bunch of rocks around. Still, those things are darned pretty, and it is always interesting, given a spare moment or two in the day, to pick up and examine a specimen. We swung by between appointments. We found the cabinet with the mirror sides and the flat drawers, still holding a lot of rocks. We found some buckets. We only had a few minutes. We just grabbed the prettiest and most compelling ones. I told my kids to pick the ones that they liked, the ones that called out to them. I thought about the legends of elves and dragons how they were attracted to such things. We loaded up the cabinet and as many rocks as we could fit in the bed of the Tacoma and rode on to Chapel Hill. We left hundreds behind. What were we going to do with these rocks? I don’t know. We live in faculty housing right now. We don’t even own a home.

When we got to my in-laws house at the coast I decided to leave the rocks with them. Once again, not to junk up the house but to create an especially colorful and enduring part of the garden. If I ever build my grotto I can come back and get them. I pulled the cabinet off the truck and began to clean it up. Many of the drawers would not open because they were crammed full of rocks and had been tumbled around. I got the drawers out and sorted through the rocks and labels. I had no clue what I was looking at. I can at least appear knowledgeable among other amateur botanists, and can hold my own in a conversation about American popular music (pre 1986), but geology just isn’t my bag.

I have often pondered where the impulse to collect things comes from and whether it is a healthy one. Is it a statement of faith or arrogance? Is it a way of saying, well, no hurricane will strike my house. Is it not the ultimate fate of all collections to be broken up? I remember once on Star Trek an alien creature asking one of the earthlings, “why are humans so fascinated by old things?” I don’t remember the response, but I ask this myself. I watch Antiques Roadshow on PBS with a queer, uneasy fascination. What does it mean to own an ancient, fragile and beautiful object? To have nurtured and protected it from the outrages of rowdy children, frisky house pets, and the restless twin specters of the housefire and the thief in the night?

I once had a small collection of stringed instruments, which was pared down considerably in the last move. I have tried to live my adult life as a man with no collections. I prefer cash.

Arranging the stones in the garden south of Wilmington, I wondered whether the salt spray would be detrimental to the more fragile specimens. Then I wondered what the hell difference that would make. Some little girls from across the street came over and appreciated the beauty of the stones. I told them they could each take from the garden one stone. To our astonishment, one girl chose one of the largest and prettiest ones, a rosy quartz about the size of a grapefruit. We were sad to see that one go. Sad for about five seconds.

Bernard’s tattered and fading labels, all now separated from their referents, make for interesting reading. I thought they might enjoy a moment of fame on the world-wide-web on their way to the garbage can:

Lava

Found near Sunset Crater, Arizona. This is a beautiful spot. Last eruption was a long time ago yet comparatively recent as these things go. We picked this up along the road.

Black Coral

Hawaii. Highly prized for jewelry. Quite deep under the ocean surface. Quite a few lives are lost recovering it.

Emerald

Little Crabtree Mine, N.C. This is some we found ourselves. Would probably cut a small stone in matrix.

Rocks picked up and brought to me by Dr. Ralph Herring from the Haly Land on Mt. Pisgah

Sapphire in Clorite. From famous old Corundum Hill Mine at Franklin, N.C. This piece has been tumbled and oiled. This mine was originally opened for abrasives. You can now mine on a fee basis. It is a fascinating locality for specimen material and once in a while good gem material.

Blue Sapphire

Pressley Mine, Canton, N.C. Unusual to be found in mica. I mined this myself this Fall. Has to be hammered out of solid rock.

Ruby-Sapphire mixture.

From Sheffield mine, Franklin, N.C. Mine owner thinks it is great, but not much of it gem quality at all. Only virtue of this mine is that material is plentiful

Petrified Wood

From the famous Eden Valley location in southern Utah. Perhaps most beautifully petrified wood in the world. Not as colorful as Arizona wood, but keeps appearance of wood more perfectly. Some is velvety smooth black.

Mohawkite

Copper-nickle-arsinide from Mohawk mine in upper Michigan. Has been tarnished by hearting in oven. Mine has been closed for years and this was found 1400 feet down. Not too plentiful anymore.

Apatite crystal in feldspar

Little Hawk Mine

Mitchell County

Bronze sapphire

Mincy mine (now closed) Franklin, N.C. When of good quality cuts a beautiful sapphire. Most of it is pretty frustrating.

Australian opal

From a lot of opal I purchased at Spruce Pine. Some of it was fairly good. This piece is not gem quality, of course, but quite typical and pretty with a “quick” polish on it.

(and written on a faded piece of masking tape)

This cabinet and contents of rocks and minerals to D. Samual Gray III

Hemimorphite. Mapimi, Mexico

Aurichalcite. Mapimi, Mexico

(hand written on crumbling pieces of paper)

Datolite-Michigan

Petrified crinoa-Indiana 1945

Lazulite-Aluminum Staley, N.C.