LOCATION: Masters' Kiln is located off the end of Gilbert Road, off Poplar Springs Road (S-30-64) southeast of SC 252. (Fig. 17, Ware Shoals East quadrangle)
Masters' kiln lies hidden about 0.2 mi downhill from the house along an azimuth direction S5deg.W. A path through the thick brush will be marked. The kiln site comprises less than an acre and now lies in ruin. Although largely overgrown, this site is being preserved by the owner. Do not collect samples from the kiln or building. Samples may be taken from the loose material at the site or judiciously sampled from the quarry walls.
DESCRIPTION: This stop is divided into several parts: the remains of the kilns, a building foundation with partially standing walls, and the overgrown pit. Mineral collecting from scattered float in the pit is good and permitted. Please do not remove stone from the kilns or building! Further discussion of this site and other central Piedmont kilns is found in Garihan and others (1995).
Building foundation: For safety, please stay out of the building. Mortar for blocks in the walls, now crumbling, was made from quarry materials. The northwest-facing (back) wall remains standing because it is supported by two cedars. Interestingly, the walls contain some of the best remaining mineralogic specimens on the site, produced by metamorphism at the granite-marble contact: for example, 1) conspicuous purple scapolite (2 ft to the right of the left-hand cedar and 2 ft above the ground); and 2) coarse, idioblastic actinolite in a gray-purple calcite matrix (left of the right-hand cedar and 4 ft above the ground). Elsewhere, numerous blocks display the texture of the biotite granite, locally porphyritic, which is well foliated and compositionally layered near the marble contact.
On the northeast-facing wall (near the corner and 4 ft above the ground) one can see a block with boudinaged, dark green, calc-silicate layers; extensional space between the boudins has been filled with coarse calcite and/or wollastonite(?).
Boulders: Several 1-3 ft boulders with interesting textures and mineralogy (green quartz, actinolite, scapolite, and wollastonite(?)) lie on the pit floor approximately 100 feet from the building (S10deg.W). The following contact metamorphic mineralogical zonation can be demonstrated: foliated granite -- scapolite (1-3 in wide) -- calc-silicate rock (4-6 in wide) -- fine-grained dolomitic marble.
One block contains a fine- to medium-grained, brown-black, biotite-amphibole gneiss, probably xenolithic country rock to the granitic intrusion. Several out of place boulders across the small creek display an unusual brecciated texture, with veins of calcite-wollastonite(?) filling between displaced, angular fragments of green calc-silicate rock; purple scapolite lies adjacent to the breccia at the granite contact.
Southeast pit face: The 10 ft high, southeast face of the pit shows in place, finely-bedded, manganese oxide stained, phlogopite-bearing dolomitic marble oriented N40deg.E, 32deg.SE. It lies beneath a resistant, sill-like, foliated granite and aplite. Marble is coarsely recrystallized below the igneous contact. A discordant granite pegmatite dike (9 in wide) truncates the sill and relict bedding in the marble. There is little obvious contact metamorphic affect other than minor actinolite along the dike walls. It is interesting to speculate whether quarrying operations mined completely through the entire thickness of the marble, which is unknown but probably less than 20 ft.
Upper pit: To the west of the southeast pit face in a higher cut a 12 ft ledge of granite and pegmatite overlies less resistant, locally solutioned, coarse marble. The contact here is distinctly undulating and sharp, and most contact mineralogy has been removed by collectors. A 20 ft cave existed along this contact in past years, but the entrance is now covered.