Nope, that’s not the title of a Nancy Drew novel; that’s what the second graders explored on Monday. The old Mike’s Trail brochure had listed post number 3 as the spot of an early silver mine, probably used during the early 1800’s. The brochure also read, “Where you now see a small bowl-shaped ditch, there were once many underground tunnels and shafts.”
To say that the second graders were excited by this would be an understatement. I had Larry Bingham check to see if it was safe to walk down into the bowl-shaped ditch. We got the okay, so on Monday the class and I headed outdoors to check it out. As we walked along Mike’s Trail the students were trying to decide what they each were going to do with all the money that they were going to find. Maxine Carter-Lome will be pleased to hear that many of the students said that they would donate at least some
of the money to BCD. I’m also pretty sure that I heard someone talking about using a lantern to walk through all the tunnels.
I would have thought that the students, after picturing hidden tunnels and fabulous riches, would have been slightly disappointed by what turned out to be a big ditch covered with leaves. On the contrary, upon arriving at the bowl-shaped ditch, their excitement level increased. They started using their bare hands to move rocks around and sticks were used as levers to see if large rocks could be moved. They were surprisingly efficient. Within a few minutes they had cleared enough rocks away that we could see that we were at an old entrance to the mine. The students found small rocks that had what is either a sort of fungus or pure, raw silver on it. The students are betting that it is pure, raw silver. I’m betting on the fungus. Samples of rocks were carried back to the classroom for further study.