Famous Mineral Localities: The Erupcion/Ahumada Mine: Los Lamentos District Chihuahua, Mexico

While we were eating lunch Earl questioned Gomez as to where they had worked on a former visit. Gomez replied, "Right here." So Earl got up and started working between an immense rock and the wall. I went over to help him but as there was not room for the two of us I moved around the rock in order to give him the benefit of my light. Earl was lying on his stomach, head down at a steep angle working at a crack in the rock at the base of the wall. His position was quite uncomfortable as the loose rock he was lying on had sharp edges which gouged unmercifully. After prying several slabs of rock off without seeing any indications, he was becoming discouraged. I happened to move my light a bit and the beam fell upon a narrow crack. As Earl worked it opened up a little and I could see good crystals there. I kept encouraging him and finally, being unable to see what I saw, he said: "How about you coming in and giving it a try?" So he backed out and I crawled in.

I had worked perhaps 5 minutes when I moved a big slab, and what a sight was there. I let out a whoop, shouting: "Earl, we have hit the jackpot." he crawled in beside me, took a look, and said: "I believe you are right, but what are you leaving this here for?" Whereupon he reached in and picked up a superb specimen about 10 X 10 inches and thickly coated with large wulfenite of good color.

We sat looking into a cavity a yard wide by a yard high and almost as deep. Everything we could see was thickly coated by large yellow wulfenite crystals. The cavity was apparently part of an ancient solution channel which had become filled with rubble and then wulfenite had crystallized over everything. It was just a matter of reaching in and picking up good specimens with a minimum of work. Occasionally we had to pry a little where wulfenite had cemented two pieces together. We soon had all we could hope to carry so knocked off and rested prior to the killing climb to the surface.

While Earl and I were working here, Gregorio had disappeared for a while. He returned with four large specimens of excellently crystallized descloizite. We were so enamored of the beautiful wulfenite that we gave anything less spectacular scant attention. In looking back I wish we had taken a few minutes to investigate because the descloizite was very good.

The climb to the surface was even worse than before due to our heavier loads and we reached our quarters practically exhausted.

Our third day was spent working the same pocket until we were warned to either quit or do some timbering, so we had to quit. We did find another small seam nearby where we found some pyramidal wulfenite. The smaller crystals are needlesharp but as they increase in size they become more blunt until the larger ones are the usual cubic type. The cubes look like pieces of caramel candy sitting on the rock.

As this was our last day and we had far more than we could carry we sorted the specimens carefully, taking only the very best. So about 3 p.m. we started out. (I have not yet found any way to keep a Mexican miner below ground after 3 o'clock, their usual quitting time.)