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As a full-time rock hound for more than a decade, Major has seen the culture go through something of a crystal craze.

“If you’re looking for crystals, Arkansas is the best in the world,” says Bryan Major, 43, a self-described rock hound from Wilmington, N.C., who spends much of the year traveling the country digging for minerals, gems and crystals.

As a boy, I was a rock hound, and I learned how to identify minerals with the Mohs hardness test, named after the mineralogist who invented it.

“My dad was a bit of a rock hound. He used to let me catalog his specimens. But only if I learnt them properly. I've forgotten most of them now, of course, but my dad's Lytoceras was enormous. It's stuck in my memory.”

“I like to fish; Kathy likes to rock hound,” said Tom, 69, on a recent spring morning in the living room of the ranch house where they still live, surrounded by 250 heads of Black Angus and about 40 cats.