Pegmatite to Perhamite

Elijah Hamlin
Scott Vlaun
Mica
George Howe c. 1900
6_THE OXFORD HILLS MAGAZINE
1820, late fall, Paris Hill. Elijah
Hamlin and Ezekiel Holmes, friends
since their college days, are exploring the
ridges east of the village. Elijah grew up here
and has recently become a lawyer; Ezekiel, a
Watermelon
medical student about to graduate, is visiting. Like
tourmaline
many well-educated young men of the day they are interested in
the natural world, especially geology and mineralogy.
As they head home at dusk, Elijah sees a glimmer of green in the roots of
a fallen tree. He picks up a transparent green crystal. It is too dark to search for
more, and the next day it snows. They return in the spring. The winter weather
has cleared the area, revealing a smorgasbord of brightly colored minerals. They
collect 30 specimens, and return home to report their find.
2005, August, Mount Mica.
“Each day for more than 6 weeks the pocket yielded up at least one
specimen of either beryl or tourmaline that stood out from the rest. The
pocket was producing quartz crystals in sizes from micro to mammoth....
Within the side cavities we found...multiple layers. One side of the plate
would have a fine fabric-like pattern of tourmaline. The other would
be almost coral-like in that hundreds of small tourmalines stood up
like seaweed floating in the water.... When dug these plates looked like
nothing more than rusty mud. Cleaned, many were strikingly beautiful
and almost surreal.”
This quote is from the Mount Mica web page (coromotominerals.com) where there is a daily journal. To Elijah Hamlin, the internet
would be almost incomprehensible; but the wonder and delight of the miners at lifting these richly colored, brightly faceted crystals into the daylight
would be a familiar shared experience, a common bond that stretches 185
years through generations of Oxford Hills mineral explorers.
It has also been true since Hamlin’s time that discoveries are only the
beginning of the story. Hamlin and Holmes knew what to do with their
specimens. They sent samples to half a dozen well-known scientists, including Thomas Nuttall at Harvard and Benjamin Silliman at Yale. Nuttall and
others recognized the green crystals as tourmaline, then a rare find, thereby
beginning another thread of the Oxford Hills mineral story, the connections with the scientific community that continue today. Soon other institutions began acquiring Oxford Hills specimens, and the area began to be
recognized as one of the richest mineral localities known.
It was not planned. Our settlers came to farm, interested in ridding their
land of rocks, not finding more. Most of what they found was the familiar, finegrained granite we see in our endless miles of stone walls. Elijah Hamlin discovered something else. Mount Mica is part of a rough crescent running from
Stoneham through Greenwood and West Paris to Minot where there are large
deposits of pegmatite, bedrock that is basically a kind of granite, but with much
(Above left) Blue beryl (aquamarine), Francis Andrews Collection, Norway Historical Society
Scott Vlaun
Mineral Treasures in the Oxford Hills
(Top to bottom)
Black tourmaline crystal,
forest of small
quartz crystals
attached to a
pocket wall,
rubellite granite
shining with
flecks of mica,
pegmatite showing
how different minerals have been melted
together, spray of green
tourmaline crystals embedded in elbite, pocket
wall studded with crystals
of clear quartz.
Scott Vlaun
Pegmatite to Perhamite
larger crystals. Formed
under immense heat
and pressure, cooled
slowly, in pegmatites
minerals have concentrated, condensed, and
crystallized into distinct chemical comMount Mica, before 1900. Mineral collectors searching for
specimens.
pounds.
It is a sort of fruitcake, unpredictably filled with crystals, lumps and bubbles. It is the bubbles­—pockets, they are called—that hold the prizes, cavities in
the rock lined with a wealth of crystals—tourmaline, amethyst, beryl, quartz,
and so on down a list that includes perhaps thirty percent of all known minerals. New minerals have been discovered, and named for Maine mineralogists:
hamlinite, for Augustus C. Hamlin, Elijah’s son; perhamite, for Frank Perham;
mccrillisite, for the McCrillis family who owned and worked Mount
Mica for many years. The value of the minerals mined in the Oxford
Hills over the years totals many millions of dollars in gems and other
products. Thousands of tons of feldspar have also been mined, for making fine china; and in the 1930s the Bumpus Mine in Albany was said
to be the world’s largest source of beryllium ore.
Still, as Elijah Hamlin could tell us, this mineral exploration is very much a matter of luck and instinct. Prospects, the sites
are called, and it is the prospect of discoveries that attracts wouldbe miners. Valuable finds happen, but they are rare enough that it
is hard to make a living at mining for very long. The history of the
mines is an interrupted one, periods of work mixed with years of inactivity. Often a prospect is leased for a few years and then abandoned,
creating a fascinating history of the succession of people who have
worked a site, some with remarkable results, others with almost nothing to show for their effort. The people who persist are people who enjoy the
challenge as much as the results, and have
a taste for a gamble that bets hard work
against ever-uncertain results.
Oxford Hills mineral folklore includes famous names and stories: Augustus Hamlin, who worked for many years
at Mount Mica and designed the famous
Hamlin Necklace; George Howe, whose
1894 amethyst find on Pleasant Mountain
began the career of a man who became the
best-known mineralogist and naturalist in
the Oxford Hills; George “Shavey” Noyes,
who began mining on Noyes Mountain
in Greenwood about 1892, at a site later
leased to Harvard for pegmatite research;
Loren Merrill, one of the first local men
to learn gem cutting, on equipment he
built himself, now on display at the Paris Hill Historical Society; and Stanley
Loren Merrill in early photo with
Perham, who started a mineral store in
sledge hammer.
West Paris that became world-famous.
HEAD FOR THE HILLS... THE HILLS OF WESTERN MAINE_7
Mount Mica c. 1905-1910
Shavey Noyes (left) and George Howe with some of the
Norway Boy Scientists around 1900.
The basic tools of the gem miner haven’t changed much through the decades since precious gems were discovered in the Oxford Hills in the early 1800s.
Dennis was kind enough to take us out to a promising spot to search for gems and it wasn’t long before he opened a small pocket and soon released a
handful of treasure. Of all the amethyst crystals he unearthed that day, close examination revealed at least one that looked “gemny.”
Dig this!
The Journey of a Maine Gemstone
with Dennis Creaser, Creaser Jewelers
Back at Dennis’s studio above his jewelry store in South Paris, he further examined the stones for gem potential. He began preforming a gemstone for faceting
but for the sake of expediency, (creating a finished gemstone is a time-consuming process) he chose a previously preformed tourmaline and calibrated it to the
proper dimensions before carefully faceting it on his precision faceting machine, inspecting it numerous times along the way.
“The idea of uncovering the ultimate beauty
that nature can produce... of discovering hidden
troves of sparkling gems and freeing them from
their 300,000,000 year old prisons is so incredibly
magical, wondrous, unparalleled in anything else
in the world. We owe it to the very crystals themselves to treat them with respect, to refrain from
tainting their loveliness with our own human
flaws of greed and arrogance.” n
Watermelon
tourmaline
Scott Vlaun
Jane Perham in front of the display of local mineral specimens at Perham’s, 2006.
Scott Vlaun
Nodules of
Perhamite
Stanley Perham c. 1930,
just after he opened the
famous mineral store.
Scott Vlaun
To understand the irresistible attraction of these chunks
of rock you must go and see
for yourself. Perham’s, on
Route 26 at Trap Corner, is a
good place to start. They have
50,000 visitors a year at a store that
includes mineral exhibits, specimens
Pegmatite
for sale, jewelry, books and equipment. If you wish
to visit local mines, Perham’s can direct you to sites open to the public.
An interesting site on public land is the Deer Hill amethyst location,
in the White Mountain National Forest in Stow. Specimens are found in
the soil itself, small amethyst crystals that can be sifted out. The U.S. Forest
Service regulations require a $3 per day permit.
One exciting way to explore is offered by Poland Mining Camps, on
Route 26 in Poland, where the Groves family’s mineral hobby became a fulltime business, a family camp dedicated “to the pursuit of knowledge and education within the field of geology, concentrating upon pegmatology and mineralogy.” Their activities feature trips to mineral sites, led by experienced guides.
The Mollyocket Motel, on Route 26 in Bryant Pond, is run by the Buck
family, also mineral enthusiasts. They arrange guided field trips with the itinerary planned according to the interests of the participants. Their new restaurant
and conference center will feature two fireplaces, one faced with local mineral
specimens, the other displaying rocks and minerals from all over the world.
Fine specimens make fine gems—the desire to turn these bits of rock
into gemstones can be as irresistible as the urge to collect them. There are
many local hobbyists who work for their own pleasure, and some for whom
it has turned into a profession. Stop at Creaser Jewelers in South Paris to
see Dennis Creaser’s artistry. Dennis grew up fascinated with minerals,
then found his vocation in creating jewelry from the stones he mines.
The Oxford Hills is unique in this way—one can love the natural beauty
of the minerals as they are removed from their resting place, then shape the raw
crystals into objects whose art makes them beautiful in yet another way. Dennis started with that taste for a bit of gambling that local miners all share. He
was skillful and lucky; the mine he and his partners lease on Deer Hill in Stow
has produced a steady supply of fine amethyst, including a major discovery in
1993. Creaser Jewelers displays chunks of raw amethyst from the
mine, and the results of the jeweler’s art, cut, polished and set
in gold.
Like his predecessors in these hills, Dennis has
thoughts and feelings about what he does, which he expresses eloquently on the Web page for his mine, at intergalacticmining.com/thoughts_on_respect.html:
8_THE OXFORD HILLS MAGAZINE
With polished gem at the ready, Dennis “burred”, then cleaned to mounting before setting the tourmaline in place. Final shaping of the prongs before
polishing puts the finishing touches on another beautiful piece of jewelry from a Maine-mined gemstone.
HEAD FOR THE HILLS... THE HILLS OF WESTERN MAINE_9