Allah Cooper, Ray, and Redmond

All too short on knowledge about any of the above named collecting meccas and with minimal available time, I simply located and quickly crawled over the dumps of all three during a motor trip to New Orleans the last week of April. The pleasure of being there meant as much as the few minerals that made it home. The Allah Cooper (Valzinco) Mine dumps came first, about five miles northeast of the town of Mineral in Louisa County, Virginia. Awareness of this locality in mineralogical circles has increased recently after significant pyromorphite finds and the more recent identifcation of five species never before reported thereabouts as covered by Lance E.

Recent Tips on New England Collecting

The above pictured site is NOT one of the localities that Nancy Millard mentioned during her talk on August 7, 2009, at the East Coast Gem and Mineral Show in West Springfield, MA. Rather it’s the accessible dumps of the Manhan Lead Mines in Loudville, MA. The image is simply posted as an example of a New England locality

Carrollite and the Cobalt Sulphides of Carroll County, Maryland

Pictured from left to right: Carrollite from the Patapsco Mines near Finksburg, siegenite-carrollite from the Mineral Hill Mine in Louisville, and linnaeite from the dumps of the Springfield Mine near Sykesville. So state the labels in my personal collection. While the information to back up these identifications have sustenance, only the Mineral Hill siegenite-carrollite identification bears total certainty. For that matter, identification uncertainties plague even the origninal carrollite that derived its name from Carroll County, Maryland, where the Patapsco Mines are credited as the type locality. Carrollite, siegenite, and linnaeite belong to the linnaeite mineral group—or series