Fluorspar Mine (continued)

The interior of the mine was so large that it made photographs difficult to take. I normally use 200 ASA film with external lights and flash. As luck would have it, today when I had something the size of Texas to photograph, I had 100 speed film and my flash had difficulty providing enough light. 

Close-up of ladder support

Here is a close-up of the ladder supports. The large timbers were just wedged into cracks in the rock wall. Several of the supports were only attached to the rock on one end. This was definitely not something to try to climb. The purple coloration in all of the pictures is fluorite. I think that is what they were mining.

Fluorite close-up

The fluorite was in exposed veins that were throughout the rock face. It was in a brittle, easy to break, rock base material. We removed a bucket of samples using a rock hammer.

Fluorite vein in the wall

After sampling and looking around for a couple of hours we packed up all of our rocks and exited the opening. Now the next job was to find some history on the site. When I find it, that will be added at a later time.

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