Soldiers Delight Serpentine Barrens is located in the Soldiers Delight Natural Environmental Area (NEA) in western Baltimore County. The barrens are underlain by serpentinite (a rock that contains very little quartz and aluminum-bearing minerals and consists mainly of serpentine.) When serpentinite weathers most of the rock dissolves leaving behind a thin, sand- and clay-poor soil which is easily eroded.
Chromium Always occurs in serpitine hense mining here was started. The commercial source of the element chromium is exclusively in the mineral chromite, which when pure, is an iron chromate of the formula FeO.Cr2O3. It is a heavy, opaque, iron- to brown-black mineral, with a pitchy luster, uneven fracture and hardness nearly that of steel. Geologically it is almost entirely restricted in occurrence to the dark ultrabasic rocks and their serpentinous derivatives. In Maryland chromite is found only in serpentine – a rock which is readily recognized by the barren country it produces. These “barrens,” as they are locally called, are stretches of uncultivated country which support only a sparse growth of grass, scrub oak, and pine. It is believed that this condition is due to the chemical composition of serpentine (a hydrous magnesium silicate), which prevents a vigorous growth of vegetation, thus allowing the soil to be rapidly eroded, leaving the dull, fractured, greenish-yellow serpentine rock exposed at the surface. The principal use of chromium is in the manufacture of ferrochrome, which, in turn, is used in making high-grade steel. The second most important use is as a refractory substance – chiefly as a lining in the basic open-hearth steel process, which produces three-quarters of the steel of the United States. Considerable amounts are used in the chemical industries – in tanning, dyeing cloth, and for pigments. The history of chrome mining in Baltimore County is of particular interest, in that it was due to the activities of Isaac Tyson, Jr., of Baltimore, that Maryland came to be the chrome producing center of the world for a considerable time*. It was on Tyson’s farm at Bare Hills, just north of Baltimore, that chromite was first discovered and mined. This date is variously placed between 1808 and 1827, but from the fact that most of the workings at Bare Hills had been abandoned some time previous to 1833 a time nearer to 1808 is probably correct. The occurrences at Soldiers Delight, the barren stretch of country 12 miles northwest of Baltimore, were discovered in 1827, and the discovery of other regions in Maryland followed soon after. These were all the result of the superior acumen of Tyson, who recognized that the chromite always occurs in the serpentine and was able to follow this rock by the barren areas to which it gives rise.
BEFORE "you" log this cache (the log will be deleted without question otherwise):
1. What years did the mine operate according to the sign?
2. How much of the worlds chromium was produced here?
2. Post a photo of the mine entrance (without crossing the fence).
Handicap alternative: Visitor center (March-October only)
1. Who was William Bose Marye?
2. What is the sign referring to when it talks about "Stones with a history"?