Digging Herkimer Diamonds

A collage of baby brother and his handsome son mining for diamonds. Click for detail.

A vug, an opening in the limestone that they were mining, stuffed with lovely crystals on matrix.

My brother, his lovely wife and their family treated me to a mining expedition yesterday at Crystal Grove Campsite.


My usual method of digging for Herkimers is to take a garden trowel or even a spoon and scratch around in the tailings. However, they bring a pickup truck full of tools and indulge in hard rock mining. (Trust me their way is better albeit a lot harder too.) Although pickings were a little slim yesterday, they found some incredible clear crystals (not pictured, but I'll bet Lisa will have pics later) that seemed to roll right out of the ground as bright as shining ice cubes. It is a real ooh ah moment when a nice vug opens up and spills its treasure I'll tell you.



Matt dug for hours, processed probably about a dump truck load of rock, which started out as blocks about the size of an old-fashioned TV and ended up smaller than a bread box...some much smaller. I'll bet he is hurting today, but he found some nice stuff. And thanks guys for sharing such a great day with me.


We didn't find these, but the people who did kindly let me photograph them when they brought them over to show off. They are the size of a fist, but don't have the usual amazing clarity of gems from this site, as they are much cracked by winter frosts.