by John Pawloski

During the summer of 1965 I packed up my collecting and camping gear and headed to the Ace of Diamonds in Middleville, NY to look for Herkimer Diamonds. It proved to be a very interesting weekend to say the least. 

I arrived late on Friday afternoon, and all I could find for dinner locally was birch beer and Hostess donuts at a gas station. Not only was this dinner, but was breakfast as well. This delectable meal almost ruined my weekend, for when I awoke, I was hit by a series of rapid trips to the outhouse. Montezuma had visited my tent.

Once the intestinal system calmed down I began to work in earnest on the rock face hoping like all other collectors to hit the big pocket. Saturday went by with a few nice, but very small discoveries. I would not complain, for a bad day at rock collecting is better than a good day doing anything else.

After a better dinner I bedded down to rest my exhausted body. Yeah, right. I was awakened by a fierce thunder storm that threatened to blow or wash away my tent and me.

But dawn broke clear, sunny, and very hot. I attacked the pocket level with a vengeance since I had only a few more hours to collect. My work area was in flood, but since my dad always said that I would never dissolve since I was not that sweet, the hammer slowly pounded the chisel into a good sized pocket. The hole was quickly plugged with wet newspaper to gradually let the crystals warm up. Too quick a temperature change and the crystals will fracture.

 

After a modicum of time I removed the paper, anxious to learn of what treasures were hidden inside the dark void. Since the opening was just above the water lever, the only way my greedy hand could be plunged inside was for me to lie on my belly in the water and wiggle the arm into the hole. Inside the pocket my hand grasped a crystal bigger than my palm. But the attempt to pull the crystal (and my arm) out of the hole was impossible. I was trapped!!!!! All that wiggling scratched my arm and caused it to swell trapping me like a kid with his hand in a cookie jar.

So there I lay in a tepid puddle of water in 90+ degree full sun. After awhile, of course, I freed my arm and then widened the hole. After breaking two more chisels on the rock, I was able to remove my treasure. After all my suffering I was rewarded a beautiful 4x5 inch flattened smoky Herkimer plus a quart of smaller gems.

The moral of the story is … You figure it out. The crystal is still in my collection.

 

John Pawloski