Customer Reviews

Midwest Gem Fossil and Mineral Trails: Prairie States

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I tried to make use of this book over the summer. It seems like its a collection of peoples descriptions rather than a collection of trails that the author has taken. At first glance it seemed like it would be very useful but when you actually try to make use of the directions you quickly realize that this is not true.

Directions start off fuzzy and then get worse. For instance, a direction might say drive 8 miles west of Custer South Dakota. Fine, at first glance this useful until you start questioning where in Custer this starting point is. This adds a couple of miles of uncertainty to the starting point. Instead she should have written something such as "Start by going west down US-12 until you reach mile marker 82. This will be about 8 miles."

If this doesn't throw you off you'll then be faced with directions such as follow a forest road to the right. Given the couple miles of uncertainty this is also a useless instruction. Even if you could precisely nail down the starting location its still not useful if there are multiple nearby roads. Roads in general have names. "You are looking for Forest Road B112, also known as Bumpkin Peak Road. It will appear on the right."

The directions become extremely vague after this. No distances are given or even a look to the left or right. I travelled up many interesting forest roads but didn't really get much useful instructions from the book. A couple of trails were accurate, most were hopelessly inaccurate. I had a good time, but may as well have taken forest roads at random.

If you're looking for a book that will pinpoint accurately areas of the State of Nebraska that you will find fossil and mineral "goodies" then you've found the wrong book. Many of the areas pinpointed in here have been exploited badly by amature geologists, and have had their resources exhausted. However, the book does give hints on where to look for minerals and fossils, and it is possible once you have experience in searching for these things that you will find them. You'll have to use your experience and wits.

Books like this are a blessing and a curse. A blessing for those starting out in the hobby and looking for places in the field to find the samples they are looking for. A curse because many people (especially those in the commercial area of our hobby) will exploit these findings for their own pocketbooks, and ruin the resources that the author has pointed out for the weekend hobbiest. It is unfortunate, in the case of this book, that that is exactly what has happened in Nebraska.

The good: The book is very informational; no doubt about that. It has excellent listings of the stones for the regions the book covers. It describes and shows what one should look for when out "hunting".

The bad: The directions leave something to desired. You can tell the author knew what she was talking about, but needed to provide more detail. Another slightly negative is the time frame which written in relation to now. My copy was printed in 1989 - I haven't been out in the field with it yet (I plan to) but I'm sure quite a bit has changed since then.

Buyer beware but for the price of used copies on here, you really can't go wrong.

June Culp Zeitner, who passed away in 2009, was a giant among collectors, and this book is a great help in planning a trip through several states. She combined a dogged field presence with an exhaustive networking attitude and thoroughly inventoried the material that was there at the time.

Some day, someone needs to take her book and completely overhaul the information in the format of modern Gem Trails or Falcon books, with better maps, more pictures, GPS readings, land ownership information, etc. My guess is that there are two, and maybe three books here; one for the Dakotas, one for the lower Great Plains, and maybe one for the Ozarks.

Many of these locales are at least 30 years old, and may have been overtaken by events, the encroachment of private land, etc. Still, it's a classic inventory and worth having.

This book has come in handy. It's a must have. We love it.