The mine is located in Franklin, North Carolina, which is in the southwestern part of the state. It is only ten miles from the Appalachian Trail.

What one does upon arriving at the mine is to, of course, pay at the counter; but then one procedes to the "panning area" which consists of a long trough with running water, long benches on which to sit, and a huge pile of dirt from which one fills his/her pails.

Christopher was kind enough to fill Stephannie's and my buckets with dirt which we sifted through in hopes of finding "treasures".

We are almost ready to begin at this point in time. We've staked out where we want to spend the day with our pails, food, water and camera bags!

The sun gets intense during the day, so everyone greased up!

We are finally ready to begin! Three happy campers sharing in some family fun: grand-daughter, Stephannie; son, Christopher; and yours truly.

Stephannie caught on quickly. I can't believe this little girl could maneuver the heavy wooden strainer--Grandma couldn't! She used a colander.

After a lot of shaking and dipping into the water, Stephannie found a couple of treasures.

A couple of hours later and finding nothing, Dad slipped a huge piece of quartz into her bucket!

Part of the uniform is a pair of gloves because, not only is the water cold, but the clay-rich soil is very drying.

Finally it was Grandma's turn to find something other than dirt. It's a good thing because I was getting a little disappointed!

Christopher proclaims, "Hey guys, take a look at this!" To me, it looked like a bunch of clay-coated rocks, but, as it turned out, it definitely was a keeper! It might have been the one of which the final photo was taken.

You are able to tell from the smile, there's something special in one of the hands, but which hand?

Stephannie shows off her three sapphires and a garnet. KEEP IN MIND, THESE STONES ARE UNCUT AND UNPOLISHED--THIS IS HOW SAPPHIRES AND OTHER GEMS LOOK IN THEIR RAW STATE.

When we got to the parking lot at the end of the 2nd day, this is what was waiting for us! After all, this is backwoods country!

Chris, Stephannie and I sorted out our gems with the use of a black light and Dad's guidance.

Among the kinds of stones we found were garnets, sapphires and rubies, along with many other semi-precious types. Black lights help to identify rubies which glow a brilliant reddish- pink, as contrasted with the ones adjacent to the ruby.

This is a picture of one of Christopher's best finds! This 10 Karat ruby and two smaller rubies were all cut and polished from one stone!

Harv