Thanks for the pics, Mike. (and Scott).  By the way, you're still reversing the o and r in schorl.  (not schrol)

Just let me know when, I'll be there with you.

Mark,

When its closer to the time to go, maybe you can pick up Laurie and meet me there? Laurie and I tried re-finding it once several years ago with no luck. Its crazy because the mine dumps are prominent and the access road to the dumps were visible and had a "bar" type gate across it. The road leading into the digs were covered in shiny quartz and the road sides littered with huge boulders. It was on one of these boulders that I found a nice 6" smoky xl embedded. The dumps produced a good number of small xls and clusters that had odd inclusions such as wispy white balls that looked like cotton as well as purple and black chloritic material. I was fortunate to visit and purchase a large xl from James Cagle back some years ago. He helpes dig the original pit and found hundreds of huge quartz xls to 300/lbs! I've seen them in his basement. Simply amazing. That mine actually produced some micro anatase as well as amethyst and smoky, phantoms, chlorite inclusions and skeletal habit quartz! James had all that stuff. My mouth watered every time I visited him. He's been dead a good while and I hear that every piece of that material was moved out of state by his daughter. I do know his house had been resold and all the contents are gone. James wouldn't let me take pictures in the basement. Its hard to describe crystals, hundreds of them some bigger than a washing machine others slender and as long as 3' doubly terminated lined up on shelves, on the floor, on top of dusted tables. He had them everywhere! The original find at the Tower Road site must have been huge. I heard that back in the 60's when it occurred, that geologist from Raleigh came down to the mine (which was active at that time) photographed and documented the pocket, and that the mine owner was giving the crystals away to people that came by curious! Anyway, there ought to be records in Raleigh of it somewhere as the pocket was a once in a lifetime discovery.

Anytime you'd like I'd love to tag along, explore, and dig at any of the places you mentioned in Richmond County. I want to document all these great sites and take many pictures for posterity.

Mark,

I pretty much know about where the Tower Road mine is and this time, I'll take my time and look for the indicators that I missed the last couple of times. I have a gut feeling that I know where I messed up the last time but need to get up there to find out. I tell you, the dumps have been barely touched in years. I even once suspected that this was the one in same site that the famous "Archies amethyst" was found or at least very close by. The habit of much of the quartz at the site is similar to Archies find and I know for a fact that amethyst is in the area as I have found some about mile from there. As far as literature in Raleigh as to the big pocket hit in the 60's, good luck, I've never seen any but James Cagle and others have all said that state geologist documented the discovery.