Big Sky Fishing Gallery - Kelley Mine Audit & Headframe

That was the first time I heard the term "vug hole." The ground in the Butte mining camp, especially in the Kelley mine, was just full of vug holes . . . the holes, some football-size, were full of crystals, many as large as a man's fist. As soon as the rest of us found out that the damned place was full of "diamonds," we hammered and chipped at the walls with whatever we could find. Jim had lost us, and even though he yelled menacingly, he couldn't regain control. Finally he just threw up his hands and declared an early lunch.
. . . So wrote a trainee miner, Jerry Dolph, concerning his first trip into an underground stope at Butte, Montana's Kelley mine in the early 1970's (Dolph, 1994). Mineralogical Record, Jan/Feb 2002 by Jenkins, Robert E, Lorengo, Jerry A
Butte, MT