Land o' Goshen!: Finding Hidden Explosions and 'Sunlight on the Garden' in Southern Illinois ('Egypt')

A "pebble pup" pores over a pile of mostly purple fluorite for sale that was extracted from a mine in Hardin County

Weekend before last, we traveled with a group of ardent rock hounds, members of the Southern Illinois Earth Science Club, to Hardin County. We were on a quest to find ancient, cryptoexplosive breccia and associated treasure, hiding for untold centuries under Hicks Dome and elsewhere nearby, that miners would eventually discover: Fluorite...

and chunks of iron. We raked and picked through a section of the leaf-littered forest for the tailings of a long-abandoned iron mine. An old iron furnace nearby that dates back to Civil War days helped to fire up my imagination and make me wax poetic in this land called Egypt...

The Sunlight on the Garden

The sunlight on the garden

Hardens and grows cold

We cannot cage the minute

Within its nets of gold,

When all is told

We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances

Advances towards its end;

The earth compels, upon it

Sonnets and birds descend;

And soon, my friend,

We shall have no time for dances.

  

The sky was good for flying

Defying the church bells

And every evil iron

Siren and what it tells:

The earth compels,

We are dying, Egypt, dying!...

(from the poem by Louis MacNeice, c.1937, 1938)

I found Mr. MacNeice's poem in my Norton Anthology of English Literature and was struck by the editors' comment that "in love with life's irreducible multiplicity, he [MacNeice] strives to embrace life's flux, despite an underlying sense of sadness and, sometimes, tragedy: 'All our games are funeral games.' " The editors note that he traveled to the United States at the beginning of World War II. I can't help but wonder if he ventured into Southern Illinois during his travels? The words of his poem certainly have an eerie sense of belonging here. 

The book club at our local library is at present reading Murder in Little Egypt by Darcy O'Brien. It's a true story of filicide, but I consider that it's also a story of community culpability. Mr. O'Brien's in-depth study of the history of this place called Egypt at the beginning of the book supplies the reader with building blocks for constructing a pyramid of plausibility: Tyrants/terrorists are, essentially, enabled by their communities. "When all is told, we cannot beg for pardon."

Chronobiotic Nutrition--Just-in-Time Eating from a Gardener's Perspective

Many years ago when I was preparing for a career in food-service management, I ran across a useful concept developed by Japanese manufacturers: Just-in-time production. It's defined by the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge as "a management philosophy and not a technique." Originally referring to the "production of goods to meet customer demand exactly in time, quality and quantity," it's now used by many management professionals as a "means of producing with minimum waste," which is understood to include time, resources, and materials. Does it sound like a win-win scenario? Japan's own Toyota Corporation sure thought so and implemented this philosophy dreamed up by Taiichi Ohno, now known as the Father of JIT.

At that time in my life, it (JIT) was just another acronym--skeleton of a word--to absorb and memorize for a test. Now I understand its full implication for me as a gardener, a consumer, a wife, a mother, a student...
Looking at the picture of SAM and me in my last post gave me an idea. Why not use time to improve the way we consume food and thereby enhance our productivity and, ultimately, appearance? I'm talkin' bloat here, right now.

Over the years, I've noticed that if I eat certain foods at certain times of the day, my digestive system strongly objects. Ahem! I could clear a room in five seconds, if you know what I mean. I didn't understand the correlation between time and food. Now I do.

According to Marcella Vonn Harting's book "Yes, No, Maybe" Chronobiotic Nutrition, instead of dieting, we should be concerned with "being on time in time all the time" and "celebrate eating foods at precise times of day for specific health results." Our body processes, as in every living thing, are governed by circadian rhythms. Light and darkness affect us mentally, physically, and behaviorally. They also affect the things that grow that we consume: plants and animals. The sun and the moon, solar and lunar effects, somehow tell our bodies when to produce certain enzymes, hormones, and proteins that keep us going, strong or not, depending on what and, most importantly, when we ingest.

I'm about a third of the way through the book and just started following the dietary recommendations at the beginning of this week, so it's too early to tell if things are changing for the better. And this week is a strange one in the scheme of things. The last few days' schedule are a little mixed up. Ordinarily, we would eat "Tree" things like tree fruits and nuts first thing in the morning; "Shrub" things like veggies, vine fruits, meat protein, and dairy products for lunch; and "Root" items like carrots, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, seafood, and eggs for dinner. The first few days before the full moon and the first few days after it mix things up. Right now we're supposed to be eating "Roots" in the morning. Okay, eggs and potatoes seem like good breakfast items but shrimp, carrots, and onions? SAM is not entirely on board with this idea. He's a little concerned about the onions I added to the mix this morning. They're somewhat of a deterrent to social interaction, especially at the office. 



Crystallized Ginger

 Before he headed out the door with his lunch of an apple, pear, assorted nuts, and shaved coconut, I handed him a small bag of these homemade goodies: Crystallized ginger slices. Guaranteed to freshen breath and aid digestion but for optimal results probably best consumed before 11:30 a.m. They're in the root category, after all.

SAM's fluorite octahedron

Now if only rocks like this octahedron were part of the plan, SAM the geologist would be grateful for my efforts to improve our nutrition. Nah, they're too pretty and, according to SAM, valuable to eat.

Let Me 'Fluor' You

Well, as promised, this post will include more pictures of my favorite mineral – fluorite (aka fluorspar).

The many colors and hues are tremendous!
Glimmering honey...yummy!



Above is a light purple cube on top of a plate of sphalerite.


This piece of green fluorite is actually from Mexico, but occasionally, specimens of green were found in Illinois and Kentucky. A small region in extreme southeastern Illinois and extreme southwestern Kentucky, known as the Illinois/Kentucky fluorspar district, once supplied the nation with 90% of its need for this strategic mineral. After WWII, the supply chain changed dramatically, as will be discussed below.

This dark brown is actually from a thin coating of petroleum. Maybe one day a big oil discovery will be made in that area of the Midwest.

This specimen of amber-colored fluorite shows different stages of crystal growth. Cubes growing inside cubes are commonly called phantom crystals.

This being my second guest posting, a little background information may be appropriate. Do you wonder why my “handle” is Secret Aging Man? My wife, W2W, gave me this nickname for the blogosphere because of two watershed events -- a short essay I wrote in the fifth grade and a job search I did a couple of months ago. My essay, entitled "What Will I Be?," describes my future occupational aspiration, at the ripe age of 10 years. I ended it by prophetically stating… “I will either be a secret agent man or a geologist, but I think I will probably be a geologist.” Fast-forward 41 years later and I am in the middle of a new employment search. After four months on the hunt, an article on Yahoo! catches my eye. “The CIA and FBI are now hiring all positions! Start your new career, today!” After a few minutes of surfing their respective web-sites, the answer echoed loudly in my head - Dude, you are too old, way too old to even apply. I thought out loud “Hey! What about Sean Connery? If he can shave the world, sho can I!” After this little episode, my wife of great wit proclaimed me the Secret Aging Man.

I can’t talk about fluorspar without mentioning my parents, especially my father. My parents initially visited the Southern Illinois Earth Science Club to appease my curiosity about rocks, but soon their interest and passion for the hobby were just as high, if not more intense than my own. About the same time, my father started having heart problems and had to retire from his profession as a carpenter at SIU. He had lots of time on his hands and devoted most of it to his hobby and his club, serving as President, on more than one occasion. After his death in 1974 due to heart surgery complications, my mother, who had previously served as Secretary/Treasurer, took up the torch and served one term as President. The reason I mention all this is because my father was President of the club when legislation was enacted declaring fluorite as the Illinois State Mineral. This event would not have happened if not for the efforts of my dad and other members of the Southern Illinois Earth Science Club.

This large specimen of purple fluorite and white dogtooth calcite came into our collection in an interesting way.

My father and I were somehow introduced to an Ozark-Mahoning company geologist. Accumulated in his front yard were several large and attractive specimens from the fluorite mines, gifts from various miners trying to make a good impression and perhaps hoping for a little job security. My dad proposed a trade for the piece pictured above and presented several fine, hand-made pieces of jewelry, brought along just for the purpose of barter. The guy picked the tie-tac, and even though we insisted he take more jewelry in trade, he refused. We probably had $5 in that tie-tac. My ultra-antique road show appraisal of the piece pictured above is now $3500.

Monthly trips to visit our primary supplier, a preacher/miner friend in the back country of the Shawnee National Forest, were needed to feed our addiction. I haven’t a clue how to find his place now. I remember traveling for what seemed forever up and down hilly gravel roads, with clouds of dust following and sometimes overtaking our vehicle. We were always graciously welcomed and personally escorted to ‘round back of the old shed, where sheets of tin roofing graced the tops of concrete blocks, creating the entrepreneur’s store shelving. Upon the shelves, a virtual jewelry store of minerals sparkled like candy in the eyes of this young pebble pup. We never asked, but, according to common knowledge, the minerals were daily hoisted up from the mines in the miners’ lunch boxes. The mining company reluctantly went along with this practice until some overzealous miner broke an elevator, attempting to hoist a specimen of several hundred pounds. After that incident, the flow of new mineral specimens came to an abrupt halt. Anyway, we bought all we could afford for 25 cents per pound. W2W did a post a while back about a walk-about we did in the Shawnee Forest. We stopped by the American Fluorite Museum, in Rosiclare, and took a few pictures you may want to check out in her post.

So, is there any value to fluorite, other than as a nice collectible for the mineral enthusiast? Fluorite is comprised of Calcium and Fluoride (CaF2) and the 97%+ pure CaF2 mineral is used in the production of hydrofluoric acid. Ceramic-grade fluorite, containing 85%-95% CaF2, is primarily used for the production of glass and enamel, to make welding rod coatings, and as a flux in the steel industry. Less pure grades of fluorite are also used by the steel industry. And of course, we have all heard of fluoride in our toothpaste and drinking water. For many years, the addition of fluoride to our municipal water supplies has been hailed as a benchmark by public health advocates, who claim that it has drastically reduced the number of cavities in the overall population. However, critics of this policy have emerged, citing potential serious health threats from long-term ingestion of fluoride. Personally, I’m just not sure which side is right or if both have merits, but think the issue should be discussed and appropriate health studies conducted. The Illinois/Kentucky district supplied about 80-90% of the nation’s needs until a slow death spiral of the industry began sometime around 1950. Foreign imports from China and India, priced below our own production costs, eventually wiped out the domestic fluorite industry. The last domestic fluorite mine, located in Southern Illinois, closed in 1995.

SAM's Rock Garden

Hello! This is Secret Aging Man posting as a guest, for the first time on W2W's blog. My dear W2W insists I do something productive and join her blog as a periodic “guest blogger” and share wonderful tidbits of knowledge about rocks. Well, I’m not sure if anyone out there really cares much about pretty rocks and minerals or if joining in a cyber-conversation is really the kind of productivity I need. Given my recent layoff (first time in 29 years), perhaps remembering and recording some of my past hobby experiences will indeed provide a creative release and reduce the stress of living in these troubled times.

Maybe a little background information is appropriate to include here. I am 51, married for the past 29 years to Walk2Write, parent of two grown children and grandparent to one rockin' 2-year old boy (hereafter called "Pebble Pup"). My professional background as a geologist has see-sawed from environmental professional to oil exploration geologist. I used to joke that I could go out and find the oil deposits, then switch hats and charge for cleaning up the mess we made with all the oil contamination! Really – I’m kidding here. Please don’t take everything said too seriously. I am all for being a good steward of the environment, but there are always at least two sides to every story.

My love for rocks all started when I was about six years old and just couldn't stop picking up shiny stones from the family driveway and stuffing them into my pockets. The obsession got so bad and the pile in my bedroom floor so big, that my parents finally found a fellowship of rock-lovers (our regional rock club) to train their young son in proper rock collecting techniques and identification. We found out that the shine and color a lot of the driveway rock was because it contained the minerals fluorite, sphalerite, and galena. Seems our home in Southern Illinois was paved with limestone aggregate from the "spar" mines, located about 60 miles to the southeast, in Rosiclare. My first rock collecting site turned out to be a pretty good one, if only ten feet from the front door!

The photo shows what I have left of the once vast family mineral collection. About 95% to 98% of our collection was sold back in the early ‘90s to pay for a necessary home foundation “prop-up”. Seems my Mom’s house was situated directly over the underground workings of a Southern Illinois coal mine and the surface of the ground slowly sank, or subsided, in response to the sloughing of the old mine pillars. This is a common malady in areas where subsurface coal mining is prevalent and can be compared to “sinkholes”, for those not familiar with mining, but perhaps living in areas of cave topographic expressions. I will discuss fluorite at greater length, in my next post.

Unspoiled Booty

I visited the MD on Thursday per hubby's request, but I thought the exam was a waste of time and money as his assessment of my PITA or booty pain was inconclusive at best. He determined that my symptoms represented classic sciatica and promptly prescribed the following: No more long car trips in the near future (okay, Illinois, I'm a captive audience), twice daily stretching exercises, no heavy lifting (hubby is hereby sentenced to grocery shopping with me for a while), heat pack on the affected area (hmm, sounds good), and drugs (of course; what else are MDs good for?) which include Feldene and Flexeril. I am following the first four instructions faithfully, but in all good conscience, I cannot continue taking the drugs. The Feldene is not as effective as ibuprofen, and it produced some heartburn. The Flexeril (taken at bedtime) promptly knocked me out, but it gave me brain fog the next morning. I'm probably already perilously low on brain cells. I don't need to lose any more. Luckily, I couldn't find a local pharmacy open Thursday evening, so I didn't suffer any ill effects until Saturday. Friday (July 4), we decided to visit some fairly local attractions: Stoneface in the Shawnee National Forest (Saline County) and The American Fluorite Museum in Rosiclare.


We found this site on the way to Rosiclare by consulting a book we purchased about ten years ago, Fifty Nature Walks in Southern Illinois, written by Alan McPherson and published in 1993. Unfortunately, hard economic times and a federal policy of "letting things go" have rendered the trails nearly impassable. There seems to be a Catch-22 mentality operating here. Visitors are welcome but may be discouraged by the roughness of the terrain.

We found the site with some difficulty. Apparently, the local kids must take some perverse pleasure in removing directional signs from the road, and the Forest Service does not regularly inspect or service those signs or the roads leading to the trailhead.

We finally made it up to the top of the trail to view what we think might be the Stoneface. It doesn't look like the picture in the book, but the photo there was taken from an aerial vantage point.

Maybe it's a good thing the trail is difficult to negotiate. Otherwise, this monument to Josh's indiscretion might be situated on the relatively undisturbed rock face. We found this mess in the parking area, probably a favorite haunt for local youngsters. Josh, this is no joke. Clean it up!

Here are some specimens of the booty we discovered in the mining spoils at The American Fluorite Museum.


Hubby got me interested in minerals a long time ago (30 years, to be exact) when we first met. Both of his parents were avid gem and mineral collectors, and they encouraged his interest in geology, his profession for the past 28 years. We seem to have come full circle at this point in our life together. He was recently hired to explore for oil again in the Illinois basin, something he did way back in the early-to-mid-80s, before the price of oil plummeted and the oil industry crashed. Neither of us is happy about the high price of gasoline now, but we are thrilled that he has a chance to finally work again in a field that interests him and potentially will benefit our family finances.

Fluorite, a cubic, crystalline mineral, comes in many colors, including this lovely shade of blue. The color is produced by impurities in the mineral deposition. I rather think this specimen's beauty is enhanced rather than spoiled by its impurities.

Apparently, someone else thought the blue specimen was worthy of photographic depiction.

Per hubby, this is a "geologic map showing faults and folding of the subsurface, and the most prominent feature on the map is Hick's Dome, a large circular upheaval caused by igneous intrusives. The fluorite found here was created by minerals deposited over time in the cracks which opened up during a cataclysmic event precipitated by magma flow upwards through the rock layers."

I insisted on bringing home a few tiny specimens (pictured above) from the spoils pile outside the museum, and hubby obliged me by picking through it. Though the price seemed cheap to me (one dollar per pound), hubby says he remembers a time when his parents purchased museum-quality, fist-size and larger specimens from one of the Rosiclare miners for 25 cents a pound. That practice of profiting on company time would be grounds for dismissal in any business now, but back in the day many miners supplemented their incomes, and the practice was acknowledged but ignored by company officials. The price of fluorite then was high, profits were soaring, and a little moonlighting could be overlooked. Rumor has it that the cheap Chinese fluorite which flooded the market and eventually necessitated the closing of the mine may become too expensive to import because of rising fuel prices. Maybe the wheel has also finally come full circle for the economically depressed town of Rosiclare.