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Blue (Ballew) or Shuler Mica Mine Union County, GA |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2023) |
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Blue (Ballew) or Shuler Mica Mine Union County, GA |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2023) |
| This is either the Joe Blue (Ballew) Mine or the B. F. Shuler Mine. The locations in the old Geological report are imprecise. The description fits the Joe Blue Mine a little better, but the land was sold to the Forest Service by Frank Shuler in 1964. A different tract to the east was purchased by the FS from B. F. Shuler in 1929. My friend Sheldon had come across this mine during his USFS days. He joined me on my first visit, along with his friend Bobby who was visiting from Maryland. |
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| Partially slumped mouth of the mine adit / drift. (While I often call these horizontal mine passages "tunnels", that is technically incorrect, as a tunnel must be open at each end.) |
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| View down into the adit entrance |
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| From the front, it appeared that the adit ended at a collapsed area. |
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| But going back a little further, one can see that the passage turns left and upward. Look at all the cave crickets on the ceiling! |
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| Bird nest on the wall of the adit. |
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| Me shooting the previous image (photo by Sheldon) |
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| It's difficult to discern the slope here, but it goes up at about a 40 degree angle to a larger chamber. |
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| View up toward the chamber. I wasn't expecting to explore underground today, so didn't have my usual lights or proper clothes. I decided that further exploration required a return visit. |
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| Sheldon and Bobby peering into the passage, as I returned. Two days later, I returned to check out the upper chamber... |
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| Crawling up the steep slope, it was kind of a letdown as I crested the rise. The chamber wasn't very large, with a depression in the floor about 5 ft x 6 ft x 2 ft deep. There were hundreds more cave crickets on the ceiling up here! |
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| A hole extends downward from the far side of the depression. At only about a foot in diameter, there was no way to enter it. |
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| Off to the right of the upper chamber, another hole about a foot wide headed off somewhere... I also spotted a family of mice over here. Between the mice and the crickets jumping all over me, I decided I had seen enough, and descended back to the main level. |
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| There were a number of these tiny fungi growing on the adit walls and ceiling. At first I thought they were tiny speleothems or other cave formations. |
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| Heading back to the entrance. |
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| Mica from the scrap pile. |
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| Collapsed pit or shaft on the slope above the adit. |