== 2 of 5 ==
Date: Tues, Mar 25 2008 11:07 am
From: "Edward Frank"

Bob,

When I first visited the Black Hills it was part of my Summer Geology Field Camp toward my bachelors degree in geology. One lace we visited was called the "White Elephant Mine." (White Elephant Mine, Cicero Peak, Pringle, Custer District, Custer Co., South Dakota, USA. Ref.: Rocks & Minerals: 75(3): 156-169.) It was a large pegmatite deposit open to the public for mineral collection. A pegmatite is simply an igneous rock with very large crystals. I collected some really nice green beryl crystals, rose quartz, and some nice muscovite mica "books" from the site. Most are still in my rock collection set. Another day we visited a different site a couple miles from the main road. Here were slots cut back into the hillside into what basically were quartz deposits, much of it was nice pink rose quartz. A friend of mine and I were prying out a great chunk that contained a series of black tourmaline crystals, maybe a half inch in diameter and 6 inches or so long embedded in the quarts at he top of one of the slots. They bar I was using to pry slipped and hit my arm on the quartz right by the elbow. As you know it is sharp like glass (both have concoidal fracture) I sliced my arm pretty badly. After finishing prying out my sample I went to find one of the two Professors leading the trip I told him cut my arm, and he pointed me to the first ad kit. I told him I cut my arm pretty badly. When he saw my cut he freaked out. He ran back to the road and somehow managed to get the van down the overgrown road back to where we were working. In the meantime, I was feeling fine, then all of a sudden I was sick at my stomach. Almost intellectually I was thinking so this is what "shock" is really like. I had studied it in first aid for the Boy Scouts, but ever had experienced it. I was dizzy, sick at my stomach, etc... It was strange. It didn't hurt bad, ad I cold see that there was a deep cut, but no serious injury.

Soon he was back with the van and I was taken to the hospital. It was awkward to sew up and I was annoyed that could not see what the doctors were doing to my arm better. But after a number of stiches I was ready to go. It was a struggle for the rest of the trip for me, not because I had any trouble with my arm, but because the one professor wanted to keep from doing anything that might affect my arm. I still have the scar near my left elbow.

Ed

== 4 of 5 ==
Date: Tues, Mar 25 2008 12:04 pm
From: dbhguru@comcast.net

Ed,

That was quite an experience. When you were in the Black Hills, did you travel the Needles Highway? I took a number of visitors there who wanted to see the most spectacular sites of the Black Hills and none were ever disappointed.

Bob

== 5 of 5 ==
Date: Tues, Mar 25 2008 12:24 pm
From: "Edward Frank"


Bob,

I don't really remember from the first trip. I was there for a month doing various mapping projects. I have not visited the needles highway since that I know of. I did take an interesting divided paved road one lane each way between Rushmore to Custer State Park which included a series of pigtail bridges or ramps that changed your direction and elevation as you worked through the hills.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial - two different views

Pigtail Bridges

Galena Fire Site, Custer State Park


Antelope ant Wind Cave National Park


Scene from Custer State Park, SD