Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Greetings,

This will be short since little of note took place today. It was a cool, rainy and gray day in the Dale. Not bad if you are a duck. Kerith and Jonina made a grocery run to Consett about 18 miles north or here and I went up to the mine about 10:30 a.m.

The face is continuing to be mucked out - same for the North West Crosscut. Byron had to spend some time on getting his battery light to work correctly then spent the rest of the day on the little explored south side of the South West Crosscut. He produced a pile of specimens and perhaps one noteworthy plate. I spent the morning on a small pocket near the junction of the east and west tunnels and got perhaps three specimens of very good wholesale quality - maybe. They are covered in aragonite but one had a 1" twin on it.

At lunch time Kerith and Jonina showed up with several gals from the Killhope Lead Mining Museum. They were desperate for some galena and came to glean what we had, fortunately Byron had two sacks with about 40 pounds worth in them and they were able to fine another twenty or so wandering around the tunnels and crosscuts. After lunch all continued to do be as before but I moved over to the North West Crosscut and produced little but half a bag of thumbnails. Everything of note will have to be sawn but there are several fine pieces in place and more than a few question marks.

I came home about a half hour early to soak in the long English bathtub and warm up a bit -- wonderful. That's all from this place way north of Lake Woebegone.

Best Regards,

Cal & Kerith

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