2 West Main St., Franklin, NC 28734. Wear old clothes and tennis shoes or boots and bring a plastic bag to put your muddy shoes in and an extra pair to wear in the car. And you will need to bring the camera for those pictures to show friends you played in the mud in North Carolina and found beautiful gem stones. The dirt goes in the screen, the screen goes in the water and the mud is washed away. Gemstones come in every color from white to black.
Garnets are glassy red , pink or reddish brown.
Rubies are silky red, sapphires are every other color, and both have a crystal formation with 6 sides. Moonstones are pearly white to gray and peach to chocolate brown with a flat box-like shape. Quartz comes in many forms, sometimes clear colors like Amethyst and Citrine, sometimes opaque colors with mica flecks like Aventurine and of course clear with sides - quartz crystals. That's just a few of the many gemstones found at local mines. In Macon County Mining for ruby and sapphire began in Macon County in 1870.