The Stewart Lithia Tourmaline Mine by E. R. Swoboda 2000
Last Updated: 16th Oct 2009By Scott L. Ritchie
See locality: Stewart Mine (MS 6162; Stewart Lithia), Tourmaline Queen Mountain (Pala; Queen), Pala District, San Diego Co., California, USA
Reprinted from an unpublished manuscript by E. R. Swoboda. Used with permission.
© 2000 Swoboda Inc., Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, CA.
THE STEWART LITHIA TOURMALINE MINE
During a period of relative solvency while pursuing a jewelry manufacturing business built upon a process I had discovered by accident and was instrumental in developing, that of low cost tumble polishing and/or grinding of modestly priced gemstones, I considered the purchase of some abandoned tourmaline mines in North County, San Diego that possibly could further produce raw material and specimens. Accordingly I reviewed the data of several of the old mines, properties familiar to all red blooded teenagers up to the age of fifty who lived in the area, lovers of gem minerals who by various artful devices, had great familiarity with the surface and underground of most of the semi-abandoned gem mines in the district.
My first purchase was the Stewart Lithia Mine for the firm and frightening price of five thousand dollars that facilitated me however, through a time payment plan that extended to three years. As my personal solvency permitted, I negotiated within the following two years, to buy the Tourmaline Queen Mine and the Pala Chief.
One must realize that for many years prior to my developing it into a gem mineral producer, the Stewart was considered just an exhausted and abandoned mica mine. Hi-graders with diligence, had found some tourmaline underground, but of a secondary nature, formed in fracture filled areas, that quite often was too dark and heavy in iron to be greatly appreciated.
My interest in the Stewart was alerted upon hearing a tale from one of the hi-graders, who in a lower, more dangerous actively caving portion of the underground, had recovered a nice pocket of bright pink crystals. Prior to my purchase of this property, I did some serious investigative work, talking to Indians at the Pala reservation whose fathers had worked underground at the Stewart when the mine was active, talking to local midnight-by-lantern workers of the properties and reading all of the old reports I could come upon.
Evidence from a couple of sources pointed to the possibility that there still existed in some form of usable condition, an exploratory tunnel, closed off from the principal workings by a cave-in during the time when the mine was active, that had been driven in the pegmatite to the west in search of another ore body of lepidolite. This probe was referred to by one or two locals who had the information passed down to them, as the “old west adit.”
Terrance Szenics came out to the west coast after having just successfully mined some of the transparent green diopsides from the DeKalb property and after having hit another pocket of the non-pareil fabulous purple apatites from the Pulsifer farm in Maine. Having overlapping tastes in the gem/mineral world, we agreed on a plan to mine the Stewart. Roger Bostard, another enthusiast, a walking encyclopedia of minerals and their discovery details, teamed up with “Skippy”, and I plunked them down accordingly, on the bare slope of Pala Mountain, on a long abandoned pad at the Stewart Lithia Mine.
The mining plan that I gradually came to formulate was to first try to reach the old west adit from the outside, which if still in usable condition, could render us a service by leading to hitherto closed off portions of the underground that might produce something of note. On the west side of the old main haulage tunnel, the huge 100 foot plus thick Stewart pegmatite was baldly exposed on the surface for a distance of more than three hundred feet to a gully beyond the western limit of the claim.
The strike of this peg to the north can be traced for over 3000 feet along the eastern flank of Palomar Mountain, with a mean dip to the west of about 22-25 degrees. Enlarging and enriching itself along its outcropping exposure to the south, the Stewart pegmatite, in the near vicinity of the massive lepidolite deposits, executes an unusual and abrupt plunge to the south, delineating by various surface exposures, an expanded southern terminus of bulbous proportions.
Our tunnel, I decided, should begin on the upper slopes of this southern plunging terminus, and to the west of the main tunnel, approximately mid-distance between our western boundary and the old main haulage tunnel.
Mounting a makeshift camp with an antique compressor and using well-worn drilling equipment, we began our operation. Terry knew about drilling and blasting and Roger filled in by helping Terry and attending to camp chores. Looking back and thinking of the forlorn little tent, the makeshift cooking facilities, and the general primitive living conditions these two young men endured, one can only conclude that to subject themselves to such a meager lifestyle, the had to be passionately dedicated to the adventure of exploring for mineral treasure.
After driving nineteen feet of tunnel in the dip direction through the tough quartz/feldspar outer layer of this hundred foot plus thick vein, Terry came up to Los Angeles to visit me. In despair, the weary crystal miner explained to me that they were getting nowhere, blasting through this arid, stark mass that seemed to be changing into even finer grained components, rather than the coarser ones that we were seeking.
It took a lot of convincing on my part to get Terry to accede to the furtherance of this painful and apparently senseless and unproductive mining plan. Shortly upon his return to the Stewart, they were inundated with cold, heavy rain on the slopes that persisted several days. Soaked to the skin, and cold, their abjection was now complete. In need of an infusion of saving grace, I whisked them away from the cold, inhospitable clime of North County San Diego, to the bright and sunny warmth of Santa Rosalia and the Amelia Mine with its history of boleites and cumengeites.
Not to dwell too much on this trip, which was the prelude to a mining program in search of these elusive boleites, another saga of searching underground for mineral specimens, I will recite just one incredible event that transpired:
Arranging for a local beat-up taxi to take us from Santa Rosalia to the Amelia Mine and back, the three of us piled into the cab, where we were driven north along the shore for five kilometers, thence inland on a well traveled dirt road following a dry stream bed up-canyon into the hills. Roger then began directing the cab driver to take this branch and then that branch of the many converging trails the dump trucks had developed through the canyons, when hauling ore from various small mines to the mill. Approaching the summit of a rise, Roger announced to us, that just beyond some turn ahead, we would pass the old shaft frame of this and this mine. Roger, as I mentioned earlier, was a walking encyclopedia of mine details, wherever fine specimens were also encountered.
Driving by this old wooden hoist frame, just as Roger said we would, I suddenly recalled that he had told me once, when we were discussing the boleite mine, that he had never visited this property. I immediately challenged him, asking, “How come you know all about these properties? I thought that you told me you had never been here before.” It came out that he had committed to memory over the years, information he compiled on the boleite property, by pouring over old maps and reports! What an amazing guy!
Back to the Stewart after this brief change of scenery, once again we concentrated on our cross cut tunnel. In a few short days, the drilling, blasting and mucking brought us to twenty-six feet of penetration from the surface. Doing another routine round of drilling, loading and firing, Terry noticed a different sound from that of the normal explosions, something more muffled and subdued. Before the deadly nitrous gases had cleared, he was inside examining the face. What he saw brought a yelp of astonishment. There below him a few feet and stretching in both directions in the gloom, was a well conditioned tunnel complete with mine rail, the fabled old west adit!
Both he and Roger climbed down into the adit, and checking first to the east, soon came to a massive cave-in that blocked off the tunnel at its mouth, as was described to me earlier. To the west the adit extended for a distance of over 150 feet from their break-in, whereupon rounding a bend, they came upon an ore car, still on track, and loaded to the brim with lepidolite ore, the colorful violet lithia mica. Hand tools lay about the ore car, and perched on top in the loose mound of crumbly lithia mica, lay several fine examples of fist sized creamy colored montmorillonite filled with nodules and crystal sections of clear bright pink faceting elbaites.
Terry about faced and made a record descent of the mountain slopes to reach the public telephone that is still in use in front of the Pala Store, telling me of the break-in. I in turn made a trip of some record also, driving down to the mine in all haste from Los Angeles. In a matter of several weeks, we had extended the workings down dip from the end of the old west adit, with short crosscuts cut at intervals into the soft core zone. Probably two hundred pounds of pink tourmaline were recovered from this area alone, unfortunately sparse in crystals of mineral specimen quality, but consistently productive in cutting material.
One specimen from this digging that is a selected piece in my pseudomorph collection, one that I especially like, consists of a five eighths inch by 2 ¾ inch bright pink elbaite flatly terminated attached to the side of a terminated quartz crystal 2 ¼ x 4 inches in size. The upper half of this gem crystal is quite transparent with bright faces well exposed above its quartz matrix. On the lower half of the crystal, the rind had been altered to lepidolite which can be clearly seen occupying the outer diameter of the original elbaite where it was partially surrounded at the base by the growing quartz crystal. A spindly quarter inch core of elbaite, for some reason more resistant to pseudomorphism, continues to occupy its original position, now engulfed with replacement crystals of lepidolite around its perimeter.
Reprinted from an unpublished manuscript by E. R. Swoboda. Used with permission.
© 2000 Swoboda Inc., Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, CA.
THE STEWART LITHIA TOURMALINE MINE
By EDWARD R. SWOBODA
January 1st 2000
During a period of relative solvency while pursuing a jewelry manufacturing business built upon a process I had discovered by accident and was instrumental in developing, that of low cost tumble polishing and/or grinding of modestly priced gemstones, I considered the purchase of some abandoned tourmaline mines in North County, San Diego that possibly could further produce raw material and specimens. Accordingly I reviewed the data of several of the old mines, properties familiar to all red blooded teenagers up to the age of fifty who lived in the area, lovers of gem minerals who by various artful devices, had great familiarity with the surface and underground of most of the semi-abandoned gem mines in the district.
My first purchase was the Stewart Lithia Mine for the firm and frightening price of five thousand dollars that facilitated me however, through a time payment plan that extended to three years. As my personal solvency permitted, I negotiated within the following two years, to buy the Tourmaline Queen Mine and the Pala Chief.
One must realize that for many years prior to my developing it into a gem mineral producer, the Stewart was considered just an exhausted and abandoned mica mine. Hi-graders with diligence, had found some tourmaline underground, but of a secondary nature, formed in fracture filled areas, that quite often was too dark and heavy in iron to be greatly appreciated.
My interest in the Stewart was alerted upon hearing a tale from one of the hi-graders, who in a lower, more dangerous actively caving portion of the underground, had recovered a nice pocket of bright pink crystals. Prior to my purchase of this property, I did some serious investigative work, talking to Indians at the Pala reservation whose fathers had worked underground at the Stewart when the mine was active, talking to local midnight-by-lantern workers of the properties and reading all of the old reports I could come upon.
Evidence from a couple of sources pointed to the possibility that there still existed in some form of usable condition, an exploratory tunnel, closed off from the principal workings by a cave-in during the time when the mine was active, that had been driven in the pegmatite to the west in search of another ore body of lepidolite. This probe was referred to by one or two locals who had the information passed down to them, as the “old west adit.”
Terrance Szenics came out to the west coast after having just successfully mined some of the transparent green diopsides from the DeKalb property and after having hit another pocket of the non-pareil fabulous purple apatites from the Pulsifer farm in Maine. Having overlapping tastes in the gem/mineral world, we agreed on a plan to mine the Stewart. Roger Bostard, another enthusiast, a walking encyclopedia of minerals and their discovery details, teamed up with “Skippy”, and I plunked them down accordingly, on the bare slope of Pala Mountain, on a long abandoned pad at the Stewart Lithia Mine.
The mining plan that I gradually came to formulate was to first try to reach the old west adit from the outside, which if still in usable condition, could render us a service by leading to hitherto closed off portions of the underground that might produce something of note. On the west side of the old main haulage tunnel, the huge 100 foot plus thick Stewart pegmatite was baldly exposed on the surface for a distance of more than three hundred feet to a gully beyond the western limit of the claim.
The strike of this peg to the north can be traced for over 3000 feet along the eastern flank of Palomar Mountain, with a mean dip to the west of about 22-25 degrees. Enlarging and enriching itself along its outcropping exposure to the south, the Stewart pegmatite, in the near vicinity of the massive lepidolite deposits, executes an unusual and abrupt plunge to the south, delineating by various surface exposures, an expanded southern terminus of bulbous proportions.
Our tunnel, I decided, should begin on the upper slopes of this southern plunging terminus, and to the west of the main tunnel, approximately mid-distance between our western boundary and the old main haulage tunnel.
Mounting a makeshift camp with an antique compressor and using well-worn drilling equipment, we began our operation. Terry knew about drilling and blasting and Roger filled in by helping Terry and attending to camp chores. Looking back and thinking of the forlorn little tent, the makeshift cooking facilities, and the general primitive living conditions these two young men endured, one can only conclude that to subject themselves to such a meager lifestyle, the had to be passionately dedicated to the adventure of exploring for mineral treasure.
After driving nineteen feet of tunnel in the dip direction through the tough quartz/feldspar outer layer of this hundred foot plus thick vein, Terry came up to Los Angeles to visit me. In despair, the weary crystal miner explained to me that they were getting nowhere, blasting through this arid, stark mass that seemed to be changing into even finer grained components, rather than the coarser ones that we were seeking.
It took a lot of convincing on my part to get Terry to accede to the furtherance of this painful and apparently senseless and unproductive mining plan. Shortly upon his return to the Stewart, they were inundated with cold, heavy rain on the slopes that persisted several days. Soaked to the skin, and cold, their abjection was now complete. In need of an infusion of saving grace, I whisked them away from the cold, inhospitable clime of North County San Diego, to the bright and sunny warmth of Santa Rosalia and the Amelia Mine with its history of boleites and cumengeites.
Not to dwell too much on this trip, which was the prelude to a mining program in search of these elusive boleites, another saga of searching underground for mineral specimens, I will recite just one incredible event that transpired:
Arranging for a local beat-up taxi to take us from Santa Rosalia to the Amelia Mine and back, the three of us piled into the cab, where we were driven north along the shore for five kilometers, thence inland on a well traveled dirt road following a dry stream bed up-canyon into the hills. Roger then began directing the cab driver to take this branch and then that branch of the many converging trails the dump trucks had developed through the canyons, when hauling ore from various small mines to the mill. Approaching the summit of a rise, Roger announced to us, that just beyond some turn ahead, we would pass the old shaft frame of this and this mine. Roger, as I mentioned earlier, was a walking encyclopedia of mine details, wherever fine specimens were also encountered.
Driving by this old wooden hoist frame, just as Roger said we would, I suddenly recalled that he had told me once, when we were discussing the boleite mine, that he had never visited this property. I immediately challenged him, asking, “How come you know all about these properties? I thought that you told me you had never been here before.” It came out that he had committed to memory over the years, information he compiled on the boleite property, by pouring over old maps and reports! What an amazing guy!
Back to the Stewart after this brief change of scenery, once again we concentrated on our cross cut tunnel. In a few short days, the drilling, blasting and mucking brought us to twenty-six feet of penetration from the surface. Doing another routine round of drilling, loading and firing, Terry noticed a different sound from that of the normal explosions, something more muffled and subdued. Before the deadly nitrous gases had cleared, he was inside examining the face. What he saw brought a yelp of astonishment. There below him a few feet and stretching in both directions in the gloom, was a well conditioned tunnel complete with mine rail, the fabled old west adit!
Both he and Roger climbed down into the adit, and checking first to the east, soon came to a massive cave-in that blocked off the tunnel at its mouth, as was described to me earlier. To the west the adit extended for a distance of over 150 feet from their break-in, whereupon rounding a bend, they came upon an ore car, still on track, and loaded to the brim with lepidolite ore, the colorful violet lithia mica. Hand tools lay about the ore car, and perched on top in the loose mound of crumbly lithia mica, lay several fine examples of fist sized creamy colored montmorillonite filled with nodules and crystal sections of clear bright pink faceting elbaites.
Terry about faced and made a record descent of the mountain slopes to reach the public telephone that is still in use in front of the Pala Store, telling me of the break-in. I in turn made a trip of some record also, driving down to the mine in all haste from Los Angeles. In a matter of several weeks, we had extended the workings down dip from the end of the old west adit, with short crosscuts cut at intervals into the soft core zone. Probably two hundred pounds of pink tourmaline were recovered from this area alone, unfortunately sparse in crystals of mineral specimen quality, but consistently productive in cutting material.
One specimen from this digging that is a selected piece in my pseudomorph collection, one that I especially like, consists of a five eighths inch by 2 ¾ inch bright pink elbaite flatly terminated attached to the side of a terminated quartz crystal 2 ¼ x 4 inches in size. The upper half of this gem crystal is quite transparent with bright faces well exposed above its quartz matrix. On the lower half of the crystal, the rind had been altered to lepidolite which can be clearly seen occupying the outer diameter of the original elbaite where it was partially surrounded at the base by the growing quartz crystal. A spindly quarter inch core of elbaite, for some reason more resistant to pseudomorphism, continues to occupy its original position, now engulfed with replacement crystals of lepidolite around its perimeter.
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