Almanac: Looking For Lead

While researching last week’s column about the Sunderland caves I came across a book about local geology written in 1942 that included a list of “Interesting Places” in the Connecticut river valley. The Sunderland caves were there, as well as Titan’s Piazza, Mt. Sugarloaf, and something that piqued my curiosity: “The Old Lead Mines.” Lead? Here? 

The book explained that prior to the American revolution the colonists got lead, which was used for all sorts of applications beyond bullets, from Europe. With the commencement of hostilities and the pressing need for ammunition, the colonists sought the mineral locally. They found veins of lead in four spots on the west side of the Connecticut river and one on the east side, at a location in Leverett. The book included a map purporting to show the location of the lead vein in Leverett, although, as you can see from the image above, the arrow points to a suspiciously straight line leading from what is now Long Hill Road on the east across a hilly area toward the railroad line and power line cuts to the west off of Route 63.

A friend and I spent a pleasant afternoon exploring this surprisingly rugged, forested area last weekend, both on trails and off. Neither of us being geologists we emerged from our meanderings with more questions than answers.  For starters, we found three obviously-human-made trenches in the vicinity of the area indicated on the map. 

The trenches were roughly 10-15 feet deep and about 25-50 feet long with steep sides. They were clearly old, with sizeable trees in some and bottoms filled in with leaves and debris. But somebody, at some point, was obviously exerting no small amount of effort to find something in the ground, and, given the evidence of the map, it’s likely these were part of the local lead-mining operation. 

There is, in fact, a “Lead Mine Road” about a mile south of where we were, although it’s a relatively new road so I suspect the name is just a historical reference, not an indication that the road was actually used to access a mine. But a database of mines in North America identifies, with two adjacent dots, “Lead mines” on the northern side of the area we were exploring. There is nothing, now, to suggest the mines were where the dots are, but it’s possible that the dots just indicate old entrances to roads that used to lead up the hill to the area where we found the trenches. (Linguistic aside: “lead” is one of those diabolical words in English that have two meanings and two pronunciations that can only be inferred by the context in which they occur. How people learn this crazy language is beyond me.)

Interestingly, adjacent to one of the trenches we found a pile of split rocks and rock shards that looked very fresh. Somebody had recently been smashing large rocks apart, looking for something…but what? Possibly some of the minerals often found in the vicinity of lead veins, such as galena, which is a crystallized form of lead ore that can be quite pretty. I’ve come across similar signs of active rockhounding in the vicinity of Mt. Orient and I’ve been told by friends who indulge this pastime that those sites were made by people looking for amethyst crystals (which is where Amethyst Brook gets its name).  

In exploring further we found no other obvious signs of an old mine, but we did find some pretty minerals, including a piece of quartz studded with large flakes of mica, and a vein of what seemed to be faceted marble, although it was probably some kind of quartz (any geologists in the house? Help!).

This little adventure in search of old lead has rekindled an interest in learning more about the minerals and crystals to be found in this area. I associate New England with granite and other boring rocks like schist and gneiss and shale. But evidently there are not only beautiful crystals and minerals to be found around here, but also gold in them thar hills. Just goes to show you that almost always there’s more to nature than meets the eye! 

Almanac is a regular Indy column of observations, musings, and occasional harangues related to the woods, waters, mountains, and skies of the Pioneer Valley. Please feel free to comment on posts and add your own experiences or observations.