As a kid growing up in rural 1940s-50s Kansas “the
boys” essentially had the run of the town and created their own “fun.” No electronic games, no TV, and not much
money in the families. But virtually
everyone in town was on the same level and my brothers and I really did not
notice much of a socio-economic difference in the population of maybe 396 (that
is a stretch), plus numerous dogs, only a few cats (no dog was a “house pet”
and they all loved to chase cats), and one yellow canary who laid eggs and
pined for a mate. We knew the local bankers had more monetary resources than
most, but on the other hand, my family was able to borrow money to keep my
father’s business above water. Well, not always above water since the town
usually flooded about every five years (and still does). I always thought the village was a Ford and
Chevy (always used vehicles) town with a scattered Mercury or Plymouth and an
occasional Hudson, Packard or Studebaker thrown in the mix. In other words, a non-wealthy small town much
like the others in rural farm/ranch Kansas.
Most families had provided a father and/or a brother to World War II and
Gold Star mothers proudly hung the medallion in the front window (and grieved
for the remainder of their lives). Korea sort of came and went (for a kid) but
I do remember the WWII vets talking about the “commie reds” trying to take over
the world. At 10 years old I was too
busy climbing trees, swimming in the local ponds, fishing, and trying to blow
things up with firecracker powder to think much about the “commies.”
I think if you question persons of my age and ask what
changed their life as they lost their carefree “kidhood” and moved to
adulthood, they will answer “Vietnam.” I
have prefaced numerous other Blog postings about my childhood and college days
and will not repeat them. However, my
change was almost immediate—the day they moved the giant Atlas Missile down the
highway to a large hole in the ground about a mile from town (Operational Base
#10 assigned to 550th Strategic Missile Squadron). I thought, wow, maybe those “commie reds”
really want to “kill us.” I dreamed
about some guy in the Kremlin with a map and a red pin stuck into Tescott,
Kansas, noting a hole in the ground there housed a really big missile. I feared that if those Kremlin boys pushed a
button the people in Tescott did not have much of a chance. I also wondered where our big Atlas was pointed. Was it aimed at Moscow, or perhaps at a
podunk small, rural town in Siberia? Dad didn’t know the answer; however, he
was also worried. And then it all hit,
Cuba, eastern Europe, and some unknown jungle in southeast Asia called Vietnam
or French Indochina. Our country is
still suffering the effects of that jungle today. Will it ever go away? By the way, that ole hole in the ground is
still in the pasture covered with some big steel doors—at least that is the
rumor. I think there were 12 of these
missile silos surrounding a Strategic Air Command (SAC) base at Salina.
Yesterday
is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. Lyndon Johnson
Now, how do all these rattling words connect to
geology? It has been a long story, but I
am getting there. As I noted, kids in my small town did not have electronic
gizmos to play with and our games were pretty simple—dominos, board games like
Monopoly (not my favorite), building “things” with Tinkertoys or Lincoln Logs,
and something called Pick-up-sticks or Jackstraws. If you can imagine a number, 50 or so, of ~9-inch-long
colored toothpicks that are held in a “bunch” with one end touching the floor,
and then gently released to form a “pile” of sticks, you have the basics of the
game!!! Participants tried to remove a single stick without disturbing the
others. Big clumsy hands like mine were
not overly successful and my final count was usually low.
I suppose that today’s children would be quite bored
with the game—I was! Jackstraws takes
its name from the straws in a scarecrow or child’s doll—individual straws going
in many different directions.
In rockhounding and mineralogy the name jackstraw is
now applied to long prismatic crystals of several different minerals that
appear in sprays or masses in which individual crystals are haphazardly
arranged in “every which direction”—a jackstraw aggregate of crystals. Among the best-known Jackstraw Crystals are
orange-red crocoite from the Adelaide Mine, Tasmania, millerite from Halls Gap,
Kentucky, stibnite and tourmaline group minerals from a variety of locations, and
epidote from the Green Monster Mine, Alaska. However, to most rockhounds the
descriptor jackstraw brings up connotations of cerussite from the Flux Mine,
Santa Cruz County, Arizona.
Interestingly the Mine is very near Alum Gulch in the Patagonia Mountains, the area that produced halotrichite described in the Posting July 24, 2020. The Flux, at one time, produced copper, lead, zinc silver, manganese, and minor gold from a complex of Paleozoic rocks intruded by Mesozoic igneous rocks, and a Tertiary rhyolite. I believe most of the mineralization is associated with intrusive dikes and sills connected with both the granite and the rhyolite. Small scale mining was present in the middle 1800s while larger production centered on 1884-1993. Claims and ownership have been sort of haphazard since the end of large-scale mining in 1963 and active claims are still present.
The major mineral commodities from the Flux were zinc
and lead with the latter entering into the jackstraw picture. Cerussite is a secondary lead carbonate [PbCO3]
most often associated with primary galena [lead sulfide] and anglesite [lead
sulfate]. In most instances the galena
[PbS] oxidizes to anglesite [PbSO4] and then to cerussite [PbCO3]
with exposure to carbonated water.
Cerussite, or white lead ore, has a variety of crystal habits including massive, reticulate, tabular, thin plates, equant, fibrous, prismatic, and others. The colors are also varied but are mostly colorless and pale pastels and all leave a white streak. The hardness is ~3.5 while crystals have a greasy to adamantine luster, a conchoidal fracture, and are translucent to transparent. Because of the lead content the mineral is “heavy” with a high specific gravity (~6.5). As a carbonate, cerussite will “fizz” in weak hydrochloric acid
The Jackstraw crystals from the Flux Mind are snow
white in color and form spiky brittle crystals or very tight parallel bundles
in a limonite/goethite matrix. Why do these jackstraw crystals form? I don’t
have the slightest idea why. That is one of life’s persistent questions that
always are better described than easy answers.
Jackstraw cerussite or the game of Jackstraws is not
to be confused with the song Jack Straw by the Grateful Dead!!!
Leavin'
Texas, fourth day of July,
Sun so hot, the clouds so low, the eagles filled the sky.
Catch the Detroit Lightnin' out of Sante Fe,
The Great Northern out of Cheyenne, from sea to shining sea.