World of the Rockhound; 15

This right here is a fake step but that's why they come back. The man arose as classic bad white man. The second largest craft in America today is said to be robbed of all of its branches of interest some of which are making jewelry and the collection of gemstones rocks minerals and fossils. This universal hobby has grown to astonishing proportions in the last 25 years and shows signs of even more rapid growth as the need for more people to pursue more leisure time activities. Due to the fact that they are working fewer hours have more days off and get more vacation time. Rocks and minerals are specimens of extreme importance to the rock. Most people do not realize the important role of

rock. The minerals play in everyday life. For example fluorite used in toothpaste and clothing. This series of programs is designed to give an overall picture of the rock on. Offer encouragement to the newcomer in this hobby. And present information of general interest to everyone. All of this will be examined as we explore the world of the rock out. Of. Today's program is entitled. Philanthropy and pebble puppy. The narrator is Len folk rock counting has great appeal to people of all ages from the toddler to the senior citizen and previous programs of this series we've explored many of the aspects of this hobby namely rocks and minerals fossils and library. We discussed technical subjects such as geologic maps

crystallography and the legal side of rock hounding as well as the art of display surveys indicate that one fourth of the known rockhound population is under 20 years of age. So it's only fitting that we devote some time to the pebble puppies and their owner brothers and sisters the teenage rock hands. Many of these children have a problem and the problem is with their parents. Parents who don't understand the importance of a rock or rock collection. That sounds like a very minor issue compared to some of the major perplexities which confront today's youth but some of these difficulties might be avoided if only a parent could know and appreciate the importance of a rock educator and author Frances Brandon found evidence of this in her elementary school classes. A chance remark that the little girl made made me think about how parents don't know that people do like rocks and fossils. This little

girl would not take her her fether brought home she wanted to give to me. A mountain but we could keep it. It's praise You know she said Why Mother Mother would you know what happened oh what he would think of and you know rock she wouldn't making it. That's lacking in an adult if they were to suppress for quite. Some time had to be educated. Do they think that walk with them or you must leave the house. But I've always rock collection. Oh a girl can be attractive and it can be also used around the flatmate if you want to with the rock a lot of it can be kept out of no one because they are threatening not perishable. How do you think a child should be before he should be introduced to this sort of thing. I say that because the other day I talk to a boy who is now 12 years ago and he said he had been a rock and since he was 3. I was going to say a four year low. I would say from then on because they can begin to collect and to observe from for the whole year then I think you.

Want to forget. When to when your people your relatives go on trips to the west. They should bring you a stone. That locality to put with your connection with me. It's not expensive for Turner and his it. I mean I believe this is one of the most inexpensive of all hopping for children that in turn. A large black our exhibit of rocks within our home might all fall the problem of species in South Africa. But actually when you go on picnics and trips you can always find a specimen to bring back and after before mother can put them around. Paul watch all fern. Apps. The larger ones and then two we can teach the students how and the children have to arrange these attractively on their window ledge and maybe have a caption their names and that this is important to me not just a pallet a big bunch of rocks but have a want to two specimens of each and then just keep those two if you

get more. Give them to France and I think it would be a good thing with Gap hoops to do and very good study for Scout leaders and church groups to you know grab when you think God has and you don't have a chemical basis. And if you'd like to learn that the gravel they find in driveways and what is quite what is what is that when you go to library and do some reading there. So one good thing leads to another good thing and we do fill up the atlas with work for food and get away from a lot of the that is negative in our lives. Children and rocks rarely need any introduction. Sometimes the meeting takes place when a little one picks up a rock to throw just for fun. Then he happens to look at it before throwing it. And suddenly he decides he likes it. Instead of throwing it he puts it in his pocket and from that time on he's a rock around our pebble put up. Grab your Elric Taylor began collecting at 3 years of age and he's continued with the encouragement of his

parents and his teachers. Recently on a field trip luck played a large part in his acquiring a very fine trial a bite fossil that it meant a free quarry. And. I was on a trip to the museum and I slipped on a. Rock and failed. And it didn't get her where there was only about four feet up in the air. But I. Now can marks off my leg in a trial about here go off and get my. Knapsack and I just haven't picked it up and looked at it and you don't know if there be for that number and that was that was really lucky wasn't it. Fossils are especially exciting to children with their vivid imaginations they can easily see the animal as it was millions of years ago whereas the adult mind has to work a little harder to visualize all of this. But some fossils are readily seen such as that found by Johnny Hyatt on a field

trip. He knew all about it to be some type of ferns. He told me after that and I started right here and you went up in here and that left the imprint of the fern in the rock. That's a fern that's what you call from fossil fern aim for are you going to take that back or if you broke a few rooms thinking I get some of this down here was it was awful large because some of the leaves when it's run over four inches long. How long do you think that has been there to make a mark like that. Oh out for family in years I guess. That's been a long time isn't it. Oh they're probably older than that I don't know for sure. We thought it was a Pennsylvania. Helen Reddy children learn these facts to supplement what he learned in school. The Cub Scout or older boy scout studies and works with rocks and fossils to earn a merit badge and he gets help from rock club members who come and

speak at Dan or troop meetings. Sometimes some of the boys mothers happen to be rock hands and they come and talk with the groups people like Delores Gurley lecturing to Webelos Scouts at one of their meetings and telling the boys how they can collect rocks without leaving home. Now I am. Only one grandmother going to. Canada going on. There. Thank.

You. We're digging up the road in New York. And they happen to be there with her when we go our last caller is right in there. If you went down with little. If you would you would have to have this one so you could hear it reflecting. Back and you're.

Like Mrs. girl like many other rock around speak at Scout meetings and take part in various school activities at a school carnival along with the Midway type rides and shows in the popcorn candy apples. The children will find a tant. Field with trains and cases of rocks and minerals belonging to rock club member Bill Mangrum. Well they've already took up a collection of dollars up Frank in my box and I suspect I have twice that Mike in it now and we've only been open. Approximately two hours so we're expecting a lot more to come in. And now it costs for each person to come into the can and the money goes to the PTA. This this right here is a big step for the science for the ones that come back each one of the manuals is classified and exactly what metal content is in.

It you can check. Tony you never want to take you back to the man or confidants that thing. Then next would go over to the far right. We have the fossil right from Texas in Oklahoma. They have all the brackets and all the gas and all of the mosque will stay open all day or the shales and each one a classified a night. Down in the lower corner and if you have you burn fat and that leaves in the ferns that grew in Texas. And the middle of it you have a fossil but yet it is all and much OK. It has a thing and if you look very closely you can see the insects look hard in that much. OK. That is turned to stone. Let's see if we can find it in the night doctor. Very nice thanks. Night doctor that you stay on the riverbank today. There is much that has turned this down to a profit. And then we have two small insects that

I can I. Mean we have a little rabbit right in the county. And we have several. That look like little breeders. Are in fact their time and that was hard in this much for. The next year right. Has a history to it. This is the history tray at the top of the tray which is all classified number on the bank that you would Bank today like you have sand dollars you gasify you brak the price off with a hero. Then we come into the next period which is found in Georgia and you head you get a prize in your practice and then you come into the Tennessee area which has all of the gas to the practice and the crown right at the Mississippi and then we come down to the store and each one of these is marked in the flare where you can see how they are down to your trial a

bag which dates back to right a few years ago. You are in the printing business. Yes and I think it's interesting to learn how people make some of these displays I understand one of these displays here is the type. And you use that four year to fly you know. Where did you get the idea of doing that. Well I wanted to have more rocks and minerals in the Somali area to care. Barb one of the tack faces from work that has been broken the tax case is that what program where they're letter A and B what's broken up together and the latter lever which CNA off with broken air. So it could not be used prototype case anymore. But writing staff phone by hand and in the back of my from your rock the phone and I thought well how would you nines after they type and you can get. A hundred specimens to each one of these right. If you wait so this is why you have a real death like death not take up much room

and you have a logic for a smaller piece. I noted the varying sizes I don't know anything about them and maybe even bigger than the other cards you use after bad and a lot more than you would like to have a use. The AFA bad and you hardly ever use quotation marks marks as you will you recollect. So this is the reason for this model. And that's right because you do not use it as much as you do you. A B C and you dig. And that makes it more interesting to write by having different. Letters. Right it is fantastic. If there is a fish it was a one of a right that there are several fish and go fish crazy and it had a quiet crackle a sauna could no longer be used to put oxygen into the fish. So I took the fish and put me out

for about a post hey white and it's like a wonderful day. You can see it from all four sides and from the top. This is one of the laddie if you find anybody his broken fish boat. It's just a regular aquarium that you had. This particular try here is all layman I'm. Best with made in design. Oh coin collection. It has a cracked glass on this phone or here and there. I want collectors we're not even sure any court in a case that is cracked. So I get this from a coin collector. It has a lock on it. It has foam in the bottom and I can place and maybe it will power Mr. Mangan stand was filled with many different types of trainees and specimens which intrigued the children. In school classes the busy take your confront assistants when her class reaches the Iraq Study portion of the science course she can call on rock hounds like

Kathleen Powell mother of four children and he was employed as a secretary but who in addition finds time to come to a school with a station wagon full of rocks and minerals and fossils and keep a 5th grade class absolutely enthralled for more than an hour and a half. She talked about marbles and sparkplugs a book of Micah and something else that kept him guessing for a moment. You thought they were gone. You got a model you know of it. They had the most fun Mabo is one I get when I was growing up. To have one I get was you could you have all thought big like marble but you rarely were a good player. If you go ahead and I get. To you for your best I think it's so nice to know what the mineral are you know they're going to hold up and let you tell me what you say.

Holding up a fart and you know absinthe sparkplug life but never did I realize. That a mineral. Was important in the making of the IT and that it works better than glass are better than any manufactured product. It so happens. That there. Is a book can I. But this is I think this is much much better and will last longer as a result of using a mineral. In that can you tell me what that is. All right. Mark out there right now years ago when we did not have an electric have an electric stove to cook on. Back in my home in South Carolina we had what was called a kerosene stove. And we had an open. On air though it were planned with Mica and I can remember some guy trying to peel a rabbit off because I thought it was a

fun thing to do. But this is what our information. In other words you keep repeating. If they want to keep the heating it will keep the crowd in if they want to keep the code in. Now this can be pretty old and you can pin it to the point that it is completely clear all the way through. Now if this looks like up. Oh I'd say she sort of because we can peel it off but the turn that you start is a book and you determine the mica that the debt fabric batting. At the book so this is a small book. A month ago. Now I think that I am going to book a very carefully and then I'm on pay what it is but you just look at one of them is a very yellow or shiny piece of mint and another one is pink and orange and red and a little bit of yellow. They're both the signs saying. That's how much

they can be different in color. And I bet you could never guess what it is. It's arsenic. They're very deadly poison. In other words some of the prettiest rocks are the most. But some of the ugliest of rock are the most deadly and I want if you can guess what I'm talking about. I dam and. They tell me if you go to a dam and man. And you look around on the Grier and you step on a piece of something that looks like gravel from your grab it could be a detriment because the dam unpolished. Is just as commonplace as any other rock the glass on the ground. Now. How much fun it can be when we were visiting my husband's family in Rhode Island last summer. We we wrote we wrote the geology department at Massachusetts and said we were coming to Massachusetts and with high standards and correcting prices then we

wrote to the state of Rhode Island and said we're coming to Rhode Island would you send us some collecting faces. Well Rhode Island. Geology Department has two rock bands that take care of all of them my own father. So we got a big man half of the slide wrote down with all the collecting prices marked on it and when we got it we realized that we were going to be visiting with in fact mouse of the best collecting place. And on if my up was a man's address and he had written in little letters contact me. So when we got there we caught him and he said well I wondered where you were we thought you were coming two weeks ago so he said to mark our day off man. We'll meet you at a quarry and we'll take you and show you some place. Come on we got in the car the next morning and there they were standing at the quarry waiting for us. One man that took us on the trip in Rhode Island said to me Do you think big this big here to me it wasn't a hill it was a mountain he said Now if you want to climb to the top of the hill there are

some good crystal specimens but I won't go with you. And I said well I don't think I'll go he says. Good are brought you specimen just in case you didn't want to go. So here he brought us a specimen. And the thing that makes this different from anything that we have now has a crystal that was fanned in Tennessee or Kentucky or Illinois that just might be as pretty as this or possibly Arkansas with a pretty quartz crystal. But there's something different about it. It has dug peat crystals. And these three instead of the teeth going straight up and then they go across and if you look in your dog map sometimes you'll see that when he seeth it together sometimes but fit together instead of a sad way so here we have what is Dog Tooth crystals and he wanted to share this with us and we appreciated that because we would not have planned for. Them. You know after when we got to the beach in North Carolina or South Carolina or Florida where you see nice smooth white sunny and. But in

New England the coast is rocky and several plans to get to the water. We would walk almost the length of this room on big rocks to step down into the water so to have a beach day or they haul all the rocks out and then how they don't even from another story. So when we were riding along the rocky coast we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the beach town. Now there are several different cans. They can be black they can be quite right or they can be on an app brought from them that. You. See here is the phone and let me know where they get their this color. They are called obsidian. If they're thankful they're called granite. And then if they're. Not. Right. They told us some of the black reach stone will

contain burn fun. But we have not broken any of ours to see because we can't go out heaven like this. And one day we might break some. Rock. Have something very light. Like. Within of course the most famous is that. Everyone hated one of them. That's the favorite now I have been very lucky on arrowheads but I am trying to learn how to fend them they found me a cheer will always be exposed and you had to dig the rest I have here is a little kid. Here is a piece. Of stone that an Indian has used to make a basket. And this is the Indian disarm. Now this is what the early Indians and I wonder if you can tell me what they do you know what they. Are. Playing and what is going with the fun. That's right because it's a very hard mineral and will make sparks a fire.

Here is a part of an Indian. Arrowhead but not stay on a home one. Now this is obsidian. It's a very black shiny down. The story is told. This happens to be a western film in oh by the way and the stories that when the Indian are you know many many years ago when Indians were very sad because of losing their lion that they cried. And shed tears and the tears were so softly because their grief was so great that where they feared failed the earth turns black. Of course this is not a true star but it's legend and whereby they all. Formed little black. Blot Minho and. These were formed called Apache tears their obsidian. But they were they when they're done on their fans just want beer. So they're called Apache tiers. I've never

met by on in the way it. Is their own rock. And it just like the if in the shape of a raid rode rocks that look like red roses packed to tears and mineral used in industry. All of these were discussed by Mrs Kathleen Powell as she spoke to a class of fifth graders. As we said earlier generally a child in Iraq need no introduction. But sometimes parents have to be reminded of this unexplainable attraction. So when your child comes in with a brown paper bag full of rocks and he takes one out to show you. Look at it carefully and learn about it from him. Break it open with him. Inside. You may find a clue to a better understanding of the child and who knows you may eventually become a rockhound. It's happened to many unsuspecting parents. This is another in the series of programs exploring the world of the rock.

This series is produced by the service of the public library of Nashville and Davidson County and. Next week will discuss the fascinating aspects of this hobby and a program all around us today. And. This is Charles Mitchell. This is the national educational radio network.