“A man in debt is so far a slave.”
--
Ralph Waldo Emerson--
Editorial
I was reading an interesting story about precious opals being found in Wyoming lately.
A local rock hound discovered a small site containing precious opal specimens on some BLM land, west of Casper. Evidently, the discoverer notified the Wyoming State Geological Survey of his find, and as you can imagine, the craziness began.
The Wyoming folks didn’t let anyone know the exact location until a public announcement was made March 4 th. (Including the BLM.) Their rational was not to let any prospectors gain an unfair advantage staking claims.
When the announcement was finally made, people went nuts.
W. Dan Hausel, state geologist in charge of metals and precious stones is credited with this great quote in The Olympian, a newspaper in Olympia, Washington:
"It was quite a rush, and 99 percent of the people I talked to had no idea what they were doing, so it was pretty entertaining,"
Some would-be prospectors were so keyed-up they ended up miles from the site because "they didn't know how to read a map," he said.
Here’s the rub, and the interesting part of the story to me. People were driving everywhere looking for opals… some were driving off-road. (Advanced students will see this coming.) And all this activity had the effect of endangering the Desert Yellowhead, a flower listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Next thing you know, the BLM is restricting vehicles on 360 acres in the area, and environmentalists have more ammo to fire against wild-eyed treasure hunters who can’t even read a map. Makes us look pretty bad.
Are we our own worst enemy? Should the prospector who found the deposit just kept quiet? Would any of this happen if he didn’t say a thing?
Here’s a link to the story as reported by The Olympian:
http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050527/BUSINESS/50527004/1003
Just a quick reminder, if you still haven’t ordered your 2005 edition of Treasure Cache/Treasure Facts, time is running out! This series gets more popular every year, and we have only a limited number of copies left. Don’t wait!
You can order your copy here:
2005 Treasure Cache/Treasure Facts
The next LT newsletter hits the web June 21.
Until then,
Thadd Coates
Editor, Lost Treasure
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