CompuServe Messages

Doug, Tick Canyon. There's a wide shoulder on Davenport Road, from which there is a path north to the remains of the Sterling Mine. The foundation of the mill is about 400 meters north of the road. As soon as you get out of your car, you will see borates lying about. The whole site is strewn with tailings, which are rich in specimens of howlite. Further back, there is a water fall, more like a water chute, where the canyon creek has cut a small gouge in the bed rock. In the stream bed, on the east side of the creek, at this point, there is a particularly rich deposit of ulexite. The banks are a greyish clay, but the ulexite is obvious here. There is another borate here, perhaps colemanite. It was less plentiful, but mixed in on the dumps. Rod tells me that some of the howlite is vuggy with nice micro crystals of colemanite in the vugs. I haven't found any yet. The basalt flow is north of the old mill foundation, perhaps another 400 meters north. The whole site is open and easily negotiated. The minerals are just lying about. No sledges, just a small hammer. The minerals here are nicely fluorescent. One of the borates fluoresces a fairly bright yellow with patches of yellow-orange. Another fluoresces a blue white. The ulexite fluoresces patchily white. This site was a short distance off Rt 14, several miles northeast of where it leaves I-5. It was probably less than an hour from downtown LA. Nathan