A tour of Jim Horan’s tucked-away home off Warriors Trail is like visiting a museum.

Four glass-walled display cases hold about a hundred stunning rock formations, with nature’s mark showing a vivid glimpse into the past: scenes of sandy beach fronts, distant horizons accented by snow-capped mountains and bright orange sunsets.

Step back just a bit, and it’s obvious that this is not an average collection. It’s something straight out of a college-level geology course.

&#8220For collectors like me, it’s like being kids in a candy store,” said 70-year-old Horan, who is retired from the industrial equipment business.

The majority of Horan’s treasures are geodes, formed over thousands of years from mineral crystals collecting themselves around a hollow center in sedimentary rock.

They come from digs at places near and far to find rocks formed during the glacial melts of the Ice Age, from northern Mexico to neighboring Hinds County.

&#8220I’ve dug up some Arkansas crystal, some Mississippi agate,” Horan said.

Agates occur in cavities of volcanic rock and are formed when gas bubbles trapped in solidifying lava become filled with alkali and silica-bearing waters, which coagulate into a gel.

Collecting these dazzling rocks that started out as open spaces deep within the Earth has been the passion of this Texas native for more than 30 years, about as long as he has lived in Warren County.

&#8220My old friend Lee Miller would pick up a jug of milk and some things for sandwiches and just hunt for rocks in LaGrange,” Horan said.

Horan’s collection has grown largely through relationships built through the years with fellow rock enthusiasts who attend a two-week series of gem, mineral and fossil shows annually in Tucson, Ariz.

After going to exotic overseas places like Madagascar and Brazil, such collectors cut and slice portions of rock and trade them with others, Horan said.

One such rock, a Brazilian agate sitting among other less-lustrous stones, reveals water trapped in its center.

Others have stories within them, ones reflective of the areas from which they were mined.

&#8220No one could find the source of the jasper, not even the natives,” Horan said, holding one of several egg-shaped rocks from Madagascar that decorates one of his shelves.

&#8220At extremely low tide, rock hunters found it. At the bottom of the ocean,” he said.

Atop a desk in another corner of the room is a formation that falls in the fossil category.

&#8220Here’s the dinosaur dung,” he said, struggling to pick up a 12-pound chunk of agate mined in Nebraska that was cut from a larger piece that likely weighed 50 pounds.

Upkeep of his stash of Earth’s wondrous creations means dusting each rock about four times a year, said Horan.

His love of collecting has even spread to his grandchildren, he said, looking at the small pebbles that form his driveway.

&#8220When they visit, they’ll get down there and say, ‘Ooh, look at this one. This is a nice one!”