Today we inched out a rock / boulder the size of a mini van.  Estimated at around 5-6 tons, the rock was mostly 'dead' and contained only a small amount of crystal.  We broke it down and moved it out of the way so we can get at the rock the will produce crystals.

Steve picked out a new spot for us to rip and tear into the ledge and contains single water clear crystals and clusters.  We started caping early in the morning chiseling out a 1" tall by 6" wide by 6" deep hole in the rock close to the floor.  Once the cape was in place, anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour later the hole would be adequate enough for a piece of steel to be inserted.  Once the steel was in place we could form a steel wedge that would eventually break the rock apart or away from the rest of the rock.  The crack that formed in the rock was a lot bigger than either of use invisioned and soon we had several 3 ton boulders to break up into smaller pieces.  Mining at the Ace of Dimaonds mine is certainly not for everyone I've heard out of several of the regular miners here.  I soon understood why.  Mining here is HARD work, and if you're not careful you could easily injure yourself and those around you.  Then there are the tourists that come here you'll see all kinds of mishandling of tools.  One tourist was swinging a axe with the axe head turned around so the flat side was hitting the rock.  Everytime he swong the axe would bounce back towards his face and he would pull the axe a certain way so it wouldn't split his head open.  We try to minimalize the amount of danger we put ourselves in because hands do get hit with sledge hammers, and fingers do get crushed, but we certainly won't be a contestant on the TV show '1000 ways to die'.  Day 2 we found a sub pocket that contained around 6-8 water clear crystals that are a part of a cluster.  We will reconstruct the crystal cluster tonight after we finish our grilled samon dinner. 

Day One Ace

 Working the mine, one can only dig by nonmechanical means.  That means no cobra drill or anything like neumatic tools (oh how we long for any kind of advantage against the hard dolomite stone).  I learned some basic mining terminology, such as to cape or chiseling out a 4"-6" hole in the rock.  At the Ace I am working along side miner 'steve' learning how to deal with the dolomite stone the old fashioned way.  By making large rocks into small rocks, we occassionally find Herkimer Diamonds.  We were working on part of the ledge where there are spuratic water clear crystals to be found, or possibly even a 'sub pocket' which can have several crystals in a cluster.  Or it can have calcite, or druzy quartz, and if you're just 'getting warmer' it will be filled with a substance called anthrailite which is what the Herkimer Diamonds were composed of several million years ago.   Day 1 we were seemingly working part of the mine that was 'dead' rock or rock that is not crystal bearing.  Two days of working that spot with no reward had use looking to relocate about 30 feet due southwest.

Due to an unrelated knee injury I had to visit an orthopedic doctor in Rochester, NY on May 5th 2009.  I had ripped cartilage in my left knee was the diagnosis from an unknown injury.  I was given one knee brace and told to do some exercises.  Resting for a period of two days I did some exercises and then drove my van directly to the Ace of Diamonds Mine in Middleville, NY.