Calumet & Hecla #21
Mine was the second mine known to have the agates with
copper inclusions and it was mined on a Kearsage Lobe.
There was a story about a local dealer hiring the football
players to trench the mine dumps in search for the agates
and the trenches are still evident despite so much
diggings.
I had done my share of digging and it's
tricky to find any virgin areas and it can be annoying if
I dig a big hole only to find some recent trash discarded
down there. (LitterBugs!) >_< I found an
virgin area and dug there twice (once a year) and found
many small agate nodules. There were larger agates, but
they readily crumbled away, likely damaged when the miners
used dynamites to blast loose the hard basalt rocks in
search of higher-grade copper sources.
The agates are generally pale pink to
orange, often with contrasting bands and "eye" structures.
Chlorite and copper are present in some agates and one
agate was found with a bit of silver in it. Few large ones
had been found from that mine.