There are a few others in the area, however they are much smaller, and they don’t have a large celestite deposit like we do. Now we came across the geode in 1897. Some of the workmen from the winery were out to look for a clean drinking source because they had been using the lake and it was making people sick. No surprise. Now when the workmen broke into the cavern they thought they’d hit the jackpot. Unfortunately though, the dollar value of a celestite is almost nothing because it is too soft to be cut and polished for jewelry. For example; If you do try, the celestite just crushes into a fine powder. However there was a time period when they came into the geode and harvested the celestite for that powder because it does burn bright red. And they would use it to make distress flares and firework. Now before I came down, we always ask that nobody touches the crystal. The reason being that the crystal and the geode isn’t actively forming or growing; this is all that we have. So any damage to it is irreversible. You’ll see this piece here next to me has some black oil on the face of it. That’s actually oxidation from fingertips from oils from touching over time. Now one of our largest pieces of celestite in the cave is here. This is about 18 by 20 inches in diameter. But this piece was lost and would weigh over 200 lbs if I were to pull it out. There’s also an area of crystal behind me that’s missing that was actually donated to the Smithsonian and is on display in Washington DC. Now each piece of the crystal seems to look different, but they are actually almost identical. Each piece of the celestite has 14 facets that is roughly 140 degree angles, though some have been damaged over time. We also actually took about ten years to make this castle for tours. They just went ahead and elongated on the path that was here from the time period when they harvested the celestite. And then made a pass wall to make the whole circle that we walk in. Income from cape Tours is how we kept our doors open during Prohibition. 18 other wineries on the island closed, but we sold our grape juice, we gave our tours, and we looked the other way if somebody was doing something else with that grape juice. I am actually tired of typing, so hopefully you can hear the rest of this video…