old pics 068, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

This is where old meets new somewhere under Yorkshire road. Its one of those unusual things that people do in Guelph. As for this odd fellow, he tells me that he wants to remain anonymous, but if you know him ask about the pneumungaphone - a supersized industrial sound machine that he used to give recitals accompanied by a grinder and sledgehammer. Needless to say the neighbours were not impressed.

Other things to do in Guelph;

1)There are some beautiful hikes.
2)Visit the butterfly pavillion.
3)Sunday night drinks at the Albion. They have done a wonderful job with the renovation.
4) Shop at the farmer's market on Saturday morning.
5) Go see a non-hollywood movie at the bookshelf.

What else?

6) Oh yes, went up inside the steeple of the church along the Eramosa River, it was really old and very loud - an amazing experience, I will see if I can find a couple of pictures of that. Watched the bell beater hammer out a tune across the city - yes, I will find some pictures, there is a lot to tell. I had been up there with a story idea but nothing ever materialized.

IMG_1286, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

On my hunt for zircon in the Bancroft area I managed to find this old mine that had reputedly unearthed some pretty interesting mineral specimens - many of which were said to be radioactive - some of which are reported to have been zircon. Being a gemmologist I was interested to see the crystals, by my experience zircon crystals are generally box shaped with 4 sided pyramids at either end. "A doubly terminated tetragonal prism," as the lingo describes it.

From my book that is still as of yet unpublished I provide the following extract ...

"In 1955 a pit known as the “Blue Rock Cerium Shaft” was sunk in the bush to the south of Tory Hill. It dropped down to 440 feet, with three levels at 100, 250 and 400 feet.

There is apparently an adit somewhere nearby that leads down to the 100-foot level but I was unable to find it. The No. 1 shaft is about a kilometer and a half to the north, it was 657 feet deep with 4 different levels. “Lead Ura Mines” which later became the “Rare Earth Mining Company” initially explored the No. 1 pit in 1948. No commercial production was ever drawn from either of the “Rare Earth” sites but the legacy of that unsuccessful enterprise still haunts the bush making for an exciting day of discovery.

James and I wandered around the hillside wondering how the mine had appeared and where the head frame was situated. Eastern Hemlock and cedar had shrouded the already decaying concrete abutments and we trod carefully through the waist-high bush not wanting to find ourselves plunging down a hidden pit into the bowels of the earth.

As it turned out a huge concrete slab capped the shaft. James pointed to the cast iron hoops set within. It suggested the option of future removal if the company so desired. There was a small opening at one edge of the concrete slab and I tossed a rock through it. The stone bounced and boomed for six seconds before I heard a great hollow splash".

IMG_0828, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

I have a book in with a publisher right now on rockhounding in Ontario. This is an extract from one of its chapters on Ontario's lost Eldorado Gold Mine.

"My guide gestured toward the hole where we stood, “Over 3000 ounces come out of there. Then they stopped. Guess they figured they had run out.” I ventured that there must be more. Why would it all be concentrated in such a tiny area? Grant was of the same opinion. “Where there is some, there is more, they’re mining near Bannockburn right now. All you need is the money and the guys to dig.”

This thought of the endless quest for gold brought to mind the old adage spoken by a bitter fortune hunter of a failed gold rush whereby a gold mine can be thought of as, “no more than a hole with a fool at the bottom, a liar up top and a crook in the office”.

Seldom one to forgo an opportunity, the fabled Richardson Mine of which I had read was something that was too exciting not to explore.

We dropped down over the entry lip into the steeply sloping passage beyond. I was not able to reconcile the details of the story with the outlay of the cavern within. It was cold and wet and absolutely filled with porcupine droppings. Grant pointed up to the different layers of rock and the crumbly yellow seam that he said the gold had likely come from.

In the cool air steam rose from our clothing and shivering in the dampness we headed back out. Grant emerged in front of me, climbing from the crevice into the fragrant cedar canopy above. From beneath the light cast a filmy halo around him and with his gaunt figure and long flowing hair he looked like a mist-cloaked wraith. Sitting alone in the gloom I reflected on the tenacity of those old fellows who had worked here".

IMG_6100, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

This is jeff; his glasses all fogged up from the steam. This is what there was behind the waterfall. It is an old industrial undertaking whereby the water up top was at one time diverted though a sluice down through a tunnel into turbines. This particular spot was one of the first places in Ontario where the power was produced for electric light bulbs. Its pretty historical in my opinion and especially scenic on a winter's night.

IMG_6094, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

This is quite interesting - it shows the junction of the Whirlpool Sandstone and the Queenstone shale layer. My good friend SNAFU and I had visited this place on a cold winter night. As we approached falls the noise was totally deafening and the spray and wind was phenomenal. We had to climb up slippery ice slicked rocks in the dark but what an amazing place to visit under those circumstances.

IMG_6086, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Not so flattering a picture of yours truly but it is indicative of when a long cold winter gets to be too much. I end up going out in desperation and doing strange things. I would be quite impressed if anyone could tell me where and what this is.

IMG_6301, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

There we go - "Bad Old Chester". Chester - the new "Rockhound".

Sadly Shaka passed away in October. He had a tumor on his spleen - virtually unsaveable as the ensuing operation revealed. You may remember him from the post "Cave Police" (July 2006) and also "Bubbles at the Bear Lake Apatite Mine"(July 2006). Of course you can never replace so loved a member of your family but you can move on. I went through a slump that lasted several months during which time I found it hard to write or enjoy anything for that matter, but Maggie and I finally decided to get another golden. Chester came from a Mennonite farm up near Palmerston - his father an absolutely beautiful creature - pure white and of amazing temperament.

Chester has one white claw and it is this - according to Maggie - that makes him evil. I say it is his blue eye - the evil eye - try sleeping when he wants to play - you will understand the true meaning of evil. Joshua, my son also appears with Chester. Some suggest that it was from Joshua that the dog got his wicked nature.

IMG_1821, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Though Doug Shier tells me that all roads in the area lead back to Cobalt, I am warned by an older gent in the Silver Load Hotel’s restaurant to be careful out there if I am exploring the ore piles. It was a little cryptic; you might say kind of creepy. I thanked him for the advice, finished pouring my coffee and headed out. I wondered what he might be alluding to. Maybe he was talking about getting lost or falling down a shaft like the Chinese laundering family-hmmmm (They all disappeared one night leaving the food still cooking on the stove - never to be seen again - see one of my earlier posts on Cobalt).

Once out there it really began to play on my mind. I had followed an old tramline down a narrow valley between towering white pines. I was in a hidden valley that for some reason had escaped the miners axe. There was supposedly an abandoned mill a few kilometres up the path. My source told me that it was on the left hand side just before the tailings swamp.

From the impressive “Little silver Vein Mine” I had followed a short incline up to the tramline. I soon found myself pushing along a tree-lined tunnel of soft, feathery-limbed tamarack and cedar. It was a wonderfully “organic experience” that started off in a relatively wholesome way but eventually began to feel quite creepy.

The further I went the more subdued the forest became. Eventually there was only deathly silence. I found myself dwelling on the oddly disturbing feeling of being watched. I thought back to something that I had recently read of. It was the appearance of “Old Yellow Mane”. He is Ontario’s northern Sasquatch. Yellow Mane had first been seen in 1906 by miners at the nearby Violet Mine. He was seen again in 1923 by two prospectors who surprised him while he was picking blueberries. They supposedly threw rocks at the poor fellow and he ran away. As was reported in the North Bay Nugget, Yellow Mane was seen for a third time in 1946. A woman and her son saw him ambling along beside some rail tracks. I never found the mill or “Old Yellow Mane” but the walk was quite surreal.

27, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

From amid the leafy screen I wandered into a field of heaped lumber, greying with age and collapsed in piles. I looked for a head structure that might indicate the location of the old shafts I could not see one. Somewhere within the debris two shafts lie hidden. Sealed I would imagine, but beneath, they will lead down to a system of underground passages.

Numerous concrete pilings surveyed from afar suggested a Greek amphitheatre. The shattered stumps were lined up like soldiers boots. The roof and walls were gone. The floor was now open to the sky. A massive concrete platform at the far end of one room was topped by high octagonal platforms.

What I found most intriguing was a rusting metal silo. It lay on its side, a hatchway leading into blackness through its rusting skin. Rivets lined the hole. It was like a submarine or an old battleship washed up on a reef. Curiosity lured me forward to take a peek. Inside the murk hung like a polluted cloud. I could discern a shaft with some sort of propeller at its end. Henry D. later explained that the canister was probably one of the vessels in which the yellow fudge was mixed. The liquid had to be continually stirred or it would gel. I wondered what would happen if this toxic-brew solidified. Would someone have to scoop it out?

In Aimsley’s kitchen the kettle had been boiling for some time, none of us had noticed, I was absorbed in the story of his amazing life around the mine. Henry finally switched the stove off and filled the pot. With trembling hands Aimsley poured the tea. To my surprise not a drop was spilled. He had an especially wicked sense of humour and it punctuated most of what he said. Humour aside, he went on to explain the meaning of “Yellow Fudge.”

The yellow cake or fudge is the uranium concentrate typically containing 70 to 90% uranium oxide (U3 08) by weight. The cake is derived from the crushed and separated ore after it had been mixed with acid and leached. Technically speaking, the yellow cake is no longer yellow. Higher calcining temperatures in new mills produce a substance that is a drab, blackish-green colour. This is the base material from which fuel rods for reactors and nuclear weaponry is made. I asked Aimsley if he had any idea of where I could see some uranite ore. Fatefully, he jerked his head, like a hanged man back toward the front door and said in a matter of fact sort of way that if it interested me I could see some yellow fudge that was seeping from the beams in their barn! The wood had come from the mines and according to him, in one of the many spills it had been penetrated by the radioactive sludge. I wondered whether he was having me on.

With some small amount of trepidation I followed my hosts “out back.” It was exactly as they said. In the barn’s roof above there were yellowing planks where some sort of granular encrustation had collected. This I was assured was “yellow fudge.” Henry discussed the toxic horror in a matter of fact sort of way, tracing the powdery smear along the grain with his finger. I wondered if my curiosity would kill me. My mind was racing as I frantically tried to comprehend the absurdity of the situation. Was I absorbing a lifetime’s radiation in that little jaunt? Teetering at the door, Aimsley smiled serenely, oblivious to my concern. Should I even have been concerned? They weren’t. I backed out of there as fast and politely as possible.

I suppose the whole area is hot. Aimsley says that the unused uranium was poured back down the shafts when the mine closed and the whole thing was entombed beneath thousands of tons of rubble. According to him, all the acidic tailings were piped up to a nearby lake and that is where they were dumped, though, as Aimsley pointed out, it has done him no harm! He relates the story of “Bruce Evans”; who recently died in his 80’s, “and not of radiation poisoning”, he states, his index finger raised to emphasize the point. His job had been to pack the yellow fudge into barrels. “Lived a good long time that fellow did, and he had plenty of exposure to the stuff”.

IMG_6794, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Well - not quite but the strange stoppage at the end of the tunnel kind of reminds me of pictures that I have seen of Castleguard Cave's terminus beneath a glacier.

Here Jeff poses at the end of the tunnel - just a short walk and the odd amplification of the sound of roaring water, again that rather suferous stench and this bulging - apparently plastic cap that barred progress further along the tunnel. You might notice the pointed metal thing above Jeff's shoulder - it is certainly a valve of some kind that would shut off the water flow from behind. I wondered if this tunnel might have had something to do with the construction of the nearby dam and lake Gibson. I was suspecting that maybe water was diverted from its present course down the side of the escarpment during the construction process via this passage.

The nearby power station was built in the 1930's in part to boost up the processing of raw materials during the war. It has a head of 265 feet and sucks in over 8000 cu feet of water a second.

Anybody know anything about this place - I would be interested to learn of its purpose - also soon, my suspicions of the other tunnel and its possible cave-like appearance at its sink point.

Oh, BTW, if anyone has an interesting pictures of Ontario's underground - be it caves or tunnels, and a paragraph or two explaining the picture, I would be happy to post it.

IMG_6799, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Jeff examines the roof within and brings to my attention the oddly stained speleothems. We wondered as to whether the rock was this color due to natural iron pigments in the rock or was it some kind of pollutant leaching from the surface? I recall hearing of strange colored stalactites and curtains forming in a passage running under a cemetary in Toronto - in that case polluted by a century of formaldahyde and decay. I know that when we made an exploration of the "Stairway to Paradise" in Hamilton we saw similarly tinted formations and some really impressive orange soda straws hanging from the roof.

IMG_6798, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Following in along the tunnel we negotiated a sloppy stream. The water was quite cold and a little smelly. It looks like there was once a narrow gague rail line that had run along the passage, the rails are clearly visible at the tunnel entrance. I cannot remember whether it was the Decew Formation that the tunnel cut along but I think it was - notice the smooth layer above - the rock is perfectly cleaved away from it thus leaving a ceiling that appeared to be cast in concrete (Though it is natural).

We were at this point totally perplexed as to the purpose of the shafts - the second one running parallel some 100 meters off to the side. There was quite a flow of water coming from the second tunnel but its mouth was blocked by a perforated wall - we hoped that this tunnel might have a connecting passage.

IMG_6782, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

To our great surprise we found two shafts that ran into the side of the gorge - needless to say, we were equiped with lighting as we had come to find caves and so we followed in to investigate.

IMG_1905, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Miro, a former Polish Mine worker got quite excited when he saw my photo. “We used to call those “gornicza tadowarka” (mine dumpers)”. They were powered from compressed air that fed from the surface. Apparently the pressure could vary quite considerably depending on how far you were from the main line and how many other people were using dumpers at the same time as you. Midnight shift was the best time for optimum power.

Gently rotating his wrist Miro demonstrated how to operate the controls. The operator stood on a platform to the side of the engine and the scooper would lift rocks into the ore carts behind. “Dont turn your hand like this, (a jerking twist to which he howls with laughter)too much air, the machine jumps like a horse. The rock falls out of the spoon and everyone breaks their leg”.

This photo is of one of the mine dumpers used in Cobalt. The air power came from a condenser at the nearby Ragged Chutes. This kind of equipment is scattered all over the town of Cobalt. It is on the surface above, hidden in the bush and moonscape of the mine dumps. A great many old relics are also said to lie untended in the tunnels beneath the town.

IMG_1861, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

About two years ago I went up to the town of Cobalt in Northern Ontario - what a fantastic place, I keep meaning to return - it has a kind of time warp quality - a bit eerie - plenty of character - as a rockhound, the kind of place I would like to visit more often. You can read more about Cobalt in an article I did for the magazine "Rock and Gem". But for now here is a little taste of the old relics that lie scattered through the woods - what is it you ask?

Those of you who are long of tooth might remember Dr. Who’s Tardis (his Time and Relative Dimention In Space machine T-A-R-D-I-S). It was supposedly far larger inside than it was on the outside and in the common vernacular has come to indicate those exact properties. A person would be correct in refering to a small car as “Quite tardis-like if he considered it to be deceptively roomy inside.

In the 1970’s shows the premise was that the tardis had the chamelon ability to camoflague itself to its surroundings. Unfortunatly, as the Doctor was piloting an obsolete “Type 40″ it was stuck in the shape of a 1950’s “London police box”. (The truth was that once its appearance was stabilized it was a monetary saving for the film crew.)

You might wonder why the doctor eventually vanished from the TV screen. Well here’s your answer. Damn thing got marooned out in the bush. The poor doctor is still wandering around looking for replacement parts.

On a serious note, this is an old elevator from one of Cobalt’s many silver mines. The shaft sits behind capped with a slab of concrete. From beneath the polished lake surface over twenty million ounces of silver had been extracted. The tunnels dropped down 1600 feet. Several miners would crowd into the tiny enclosure and perched upon an ore skip that shared the space they would plummet down into the darkness. Over half of the accidents that occured in 1906 were a result of miners falling from the elevators.

IMG_1219, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Much of what was once a flourishing mining industry is now forgotten. The remains are buried under development or overgrown by forest. On this particular day my father and I headed up to Moira Lake to see if we could find some fluorite crystals - remnants left behind and of interest to the rockhound.

Fluorite is typically deposited in veins that have been subjected to the actions of very hot water from deep within the earth. Madoc is bound by two great plutons. They are granite batholiths that have welled up from far below - cooling under the surface some 1.2 billion years ago.

It is thought that those cooling stresses or possibly the endless seismic tremors from the area’s proximity to the ever-widening rift of the Ottawa Valley may have cleaved open the faults in which the fluorite had been deposited. Magnitude 2 earthquakes occur around Madoc on a yearly basis at depths between 5 and 18 kilometres. Bob Bredburg, a well known writer on all manner of local geological phenomena suspects that the Moira lake is situated above one such fault and he says that it extends onward for over seven miles in length. Almost all of the region’s fluorite is found in that fault or some other closely associated parallel crevice.

Of the old fluorite mining boom it is still possible to see the wooden trestle bridge as it crosses the lake on highway 62. Fluorite ore was moved out along that route, southwards to Hamilton and their booming steel industry.

To the historian, explorer, and rockhound the clinical directions offered in various guide-books are somewhat deceiving. These old mine sites are far from obvious. The roads that are talked of are all but non-existent. Locals are often unaware of what lies in the next field and as is the nature of the local vegetation, the thorn bushes humble those that had grown up around sleeping beauty’s castle. James and I were absolutely torn to shreds while searching through the scrub (see the blood on his arms). Landowners are also very protective of their land. It is essential that you obtain permission before crossing any ones property. As one local put it, “Neighbours don’t take kind to strangers, shoot em on sight”, he winked.

Because of the fractured nature of the rock and their proximity to Moira Lake many of the fluorite pits are inundated with water. There are unlikely to be any significant underground explorations in this area.

During one of our explorations, when thoroughly lost and confused we came across an old barn that was overgrown by Virginia creeper. It was mid way into collapsing into a termite-ridden heap of planks. Two great cast iron wheels sat in an open doorway and beyond lay a treasure trove of rusty mining equipment.

“By gum”(one of James’s favourite exclamations) He staggered out onto the rotting floorboards, “Looks like a four stage deep well pump.” I tried to coax him back to safer ground but he was oblivious. James used to sell pumps to the Western oil fields and also irrigation equipment in Africa. He has an undying fascination with such machinery. He explained that a four stage deep well pump is an old type of mining pump. “I was familiar with that sort of thing in Rhodesia you know, it would have been driven from the surface but now days you would have the motor down below.”

James is teetering on the brink of a hole that has been torn through the one inch thick barn boards. Ten feet beneath, protruding from the gloom of the basement I can see the upper edge of a huge coil of wire. It is several hundred pounds in weight. All around the machinery is stacked. It is a decaying warehouse of obsolete technology. By the old generators and insulators it would appear that the mines provided their own electricity. The lonely hydro poles, cracking and greying in the bush are the last markers that point the way to those once flourishing enterprises.

19, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

After crawling for half an hour up Pond Creek you pass beneath a shaft that leads up to a manhole cover. There are several flat shelves around this intersection that are piled high in molding fecal matter. I suspect that this is the central hub for the neighbourhood's raccoon traffic.

Ten minutes further along will put you at a passage that opens out from a claustrophobic slot into an arched dolostone tube. The floor is of wet, musty smelling gravel and it dips into a pool at the bottom of a natural, stone lip.

Old maps of the area led me to believe that somewhere up ahead the tunnel will fork. In a back garden near exhibition park I am told that there is a well where the property owner drops a bucket down to a pool of water. This surface portal might be just beyond the beam of my headlamp but I have only pushed the passage a little further. The stoop walking and crawling is a killer on the knees and thighs.

Check out the speleothems growing on the roof. The explorer must be careful so as not to damage them as these growths are easily snapped.

This was undoubtably one of the more unusual urban explorations that I have made. A future trip that I am considering is up a tunnel from which echoes this most incredible roar. An upstream wade in neoprene should prove quite interesting as I suspect that it leads to an under-city waterfall.

 In an abandoned barn at the edge of a road overgrown by thorns and discernable only by its row of greying telephone poles we found this exciting piece of equipment. It had somehow been used in the operation of a nearby fluorospar mine. The land owner told me that the shafts were now filled to the top with water but in one you could see a ladder leading off into blackness.

This area around Moira Lake is rich in fluorite deposits, though most were "flux grade", (that is, best suited to use in the iron furnaces in Hamilton). I had been hoping to find gem fluorite which is found in all sorts of vivid colours and amazing striped patterns.

Many beautiful crystals have been found in the area. In 1905 the first local mine (Bailey Mine) burrowed into the rock exposing a cavern hung with fluorite stalactites. Barite was intermixed and the room was a riot of green yellow and pink. The Keene Mine was best known for its large colourless crystals and Perry Lake Fluorospar was known to have beautiful pale green crystals. Being a mineral of the isometric crystal system the specimens are generally found as cubes or octahedron.

In the early to mid 1900's many old mines operated around here but the eventual depletion of the mineral, repeated cave in's and a high water table finally drove the extractive process to more economical, southerly deposits. When blasting at depth it was not so unusual to rupture a fissure from which the nearby lake water blew under extreme pressure.

As the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines relates in their book, "Geology and Scenery; Peterborough, Bancroft and the Madoc Area", local mining began in 1905 and 150 thousand tons of ore was extracted from 20 of the 50 deposits known to exist there. There are still some impressive head frames in the area though sadly to the disadvantage of casual viewing, most are on private land.