Thread: Found something that'll interest the natural stone junkies

I actually found an old map in another article and that points to a different area altogether. Pickard mill area which isn't even on McCauley mountain. That's what is confusing about the whole thing. All of the information is misleading, not just Roy Underhill. The bad part is satellite view of both areas didn't really show anything that looked out of the ordinary either.

To make it even worse.

Yea that's basically the same map I saw. Here's some google maps screen shots of the area

The first pic shows McCauley Mt. If you look at the map in the upper left it shows McCauley whetstone north of the two churches. In my other screen shots you can see hickory grove church and from what I can tell, Cane Creek road is now Dairyland Rd. That puts the quarry near Pickard Mill, not even close to the mountain.

Edit: actually, your map is a little different. Still the same area though. By Morgan creek.

Originally Posted by bluesman7

I've often wondered if there is anything worth going after in the flint hills.

Why the Flint Hills? That's interesting!!

It gets kind of confusing because everything has moved so the old map and new don't match up well at all. I will have to look again. I thought I had narrowed it down to a property and a house on a farm. You would have to ask them if you could search the hills and woods, but they may know and if they let you might point you in the right direction. I looked into this awhile back, but never got over there and forgot about it.http://tradingpath.org/pickard.pdf

Originally Posted by earcutter

I love these threads! I can't imagine anything more fun than "mining" your own stone and actually using it as well!

I'd base a holiday around it... but then, I have more time off than most. Either way, I'd love to mine and use one.

I am planning a vacation in the Ouachita mountains of Arkansas. In my research the places I find are private or part of the National park. To find a place that you can legally pick a piece of novaculite off the ground sounds hard to find.

Originally Posted by bluesman7

I've often wondered if there is anything worth going after in the flint hills.

Sounds like there is a fair amount of Chert and Shale.

I'm 90% certain it was on McCauley mountain, but it was 10 years ago. There are small quarries all over the mountains, some dating back to before European settlement, so Pickard Mill area may be yet another quarry.
I emailed my friend that took me in there. I know that he knows where at least one of those quarries is at.

I did some research on the Chapel Hill site some time ago. As best I remember, the stream was maybe re-routed when a road was put through in the early 20th century, so later maps are probably better. You can also look at Google Earth and see quite a bit, and the satellite images are undoubtedly more accurate.

As far as the Ouachitas go, I think that it is a National Forest, not a National Park so you could I believe, go rockhounding with no issues, but it's always a safe thing to check. There's also novaculite in Georgia apparently.

Cheers, Steve

I also wonder what the quality of the slate we have around here is like. I'm a lot closer to the slate belt than I am to the Raleigh area. Maybe half an hour as opposed to 3 hours.