While I had been back in Florida at the end of April, Richard, with the help of Mike Robbins, another miner, drilled the remaining schist in preparation for removal. While doing so, they discovered that ,although the schist was consistently 8-10 feet thick, near the center of the overburden the schist suddenly thinned to only 4'. This meant the pegmatite swelled beneath. Our experience had taught us that these swellings portended a sizable pocket. In the image above, the area that had thinned out was immediately behind the bucket laying on its side. Adding credence to the idea was the rusty area below the bucket. I did not dare to believe, though,  that such a pocket might exist. Mining requires near blind optimism. It is best managed with a prophylactic dose of doubt and skepticism. 

In addition to mining in May, we where on tap to describe our finds found last year in a talk at the Maine  Mineral Symposium that ran from May 5-7. Richard and I spent a full day mining on the 5th. That day we encountered pocket number 4 of the season. Cleaning this pocket out took us into the late afternoon and cut into the time I had set aside to prepare for my talk and arrange our exhibit case. We did find our first gem green tourmaline though. This became our 'pocket piece' at the symposium and was soon to pale in comparison to later finds. 

Returning  on May 8th a little battle scarred but nonetheless relieved to have the symposium behind us, we again set to work mining the pegmatite. We decided just to blast a couple of holes drilled into the prepared schist overburden. There was opinion that our 'swelling' may have just been a stringer in the schist. This was a possibility, but I did not think so.  Shooting just these holes peeled off some of the schist and little of the pegmatite below. It was now clear this was no stringer. In our operation Richard operates the excavator and I drive the dump truck and operate the bulldozer. So while Richard was  loading the schist muck into the truck, I climbed down onto the pegmatite and started cleaning off some of the loose material. There were several small vugs in albite very near the contact. Working these a little exposed some small green tourmalines very similar to the ones we found above pocket 3 (MM3-04). As we worked these vugs, they began to enlarge and merge into two sizable chambers. Pocket number 7 was beginning to take shape. The tourmaline was now becoming increasingly abundant. Many of the deep green crystals coming out had nice rhombohedral  terminations. This differed from the mostly basal terminations we had been finding. (In this view of the working face one can clearly see the pegmatite rising into schist by comparing  to the picture above. The beginning of  pocket 7 is the dark triangular patch near the center of the image.)  While working the pocket, Mary could feel a large pointy mass in the mud. Clearing off enough to loosen it, she pulled out a very large opaque green tourmaline but exceedingly well formed. This pocket was getting interesting. We were now taking out tourmaline after tourmaline. (Mary's tourmaline is the large one on the left in the image below) 
 
 

A group of tourmalines from the upper portion of pocket 7

Go to Page 2: