Crack Researcher Discovers Gold

Here is my first box of artifacts - a collection of projectile points.  It's just what you'd expect to find in a museum.

 

You can see the white tag with a mysterious number penciled on it.   This object id is a primary search field in the collections database file and has 4 parts:

• first number:  the year the artifact was acquired by the museum
• second number:  donations are given sequential numbers in a given year
• third number:  items in a donation are given sequential numbers
• fourth number:  if there are multiple parts to an artifact, then a designation of letters or numbers may be made to differentiate the parts...and sometimes not.   Data entry has been done by many hands since the collection began in 1984 and practices varied amongst the staffers and dedicated volunteers.

So, this box of projectile points, 87.23.5-14, was given to the museum in 1978, it was the 23rd donation made that year and the individual arrowheads were designated as numbers 5 thru 14.  

Someone has tucked in a note specifying the arrowheads as being for small game hunting - birds, fish, etc...

Many of the local projectile points from the sources I viewed were made out of the same type of rock.  I guessed that it was white quartz.  I based this guess on a children's educational plastic placemat of rocks and minerals from our kitchen.   Never pass up a chance to impart knowledge.   I tried researching white quartz deposits to find a local source and came up with a jackpot.   It turns out that Sandy Spring sits on the Piedmont Plateau containing gold bearing quartz veins running all the way from New York to South Carolina. Visit the Maryland Geologic Survey webpage for more details.  The webpage write up on gold was attributed to Karen R. Kuff who wrote a book on the subject, "Gold in Maryland" in 1987.    http://www.mgs.md.gov/geology/minerals_energy_resources/gold.html  

Some interesting facts from Ms Kuff were that gold was first found in Maryland in 1849 on Sam Ellicott's farm near Brookville, MD, but no production was recorded.  Also, a Civil War soldier discovered gold in the Potomac River while stationed in Washington, D.C..  He was detailed to wash skillets at the time of the discovery.  If times get tougher, we can all go panning in the Potomac!   I was quite satisfied to have discovered gold.  I mentioned it excitedly to the museum's operations director, Diane.  She laughed and asked if I'd ever passed by GOLD MINE ROAD!   ...well...um...yes...now that you mention it...many times...  I wonder how many other not so subtle clues to the past I've been dismissing.   So, that's me.  Diana Guenther, Crack Researcher!