Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 24, 2025
The method of taking gold from the rock is first by blasting, and afterward grinding the rock in a stamp mill, which reduces it to powder, after which the gold is separated by refining processes. The gold which occurs in the sand, gravel, or clay soil, is washed out. When done on a small scale this is called "panning." The larger operations of this kind are called "placer" and "dredge" mining.
"There's nothing to tell, or nothing much," replied the local secretary, bitterly. "The business he's been giving us has been dropping off, we haven't got a new risk out of him in a month and we've been losing a lot of our renewals, and yesterday Charlie saw his placer going into the Salamander office with a bundle of binders." "The Salamander? O'Connor!" "Yes, sir, O'Connor.
Quartz mining differs much from placer mining. For the former, more capital, more experience, more complicated machinery and richer material are required than for the latter. The placer miner throws the dirt into the water, which then does the work; whereas the pulverizing of rock is a nice operation, requiring constant attention.
According to the mining laws of the Northwest, the words "mine," "placer mine," and "diggings" mean the same thing, and refer to any natural stratum or bed of earth, gravel, or cement mined for gold or other precious mineral. There is very little quartz mining, or crushing of rocks, as is practised in many sections of California.
Now had the younger man been an experienced placer miner he might have noted with suspicion that whenever Bill panned he chewed tobacco a new habit he had acquired and not infrequently he spat into the tub of muddy water. But Thomas was not experienced in the wiles and artifices of mine-salters, and the residue of yellow particles left in the pan was proof positive that the claim was making good.
Gold there was and is yet, but in small quantities only. The "cities" are mere collections of tumble-down huts amongst which the moose roam at will. Interior Alaska has many such abandoned "cities." The few men now in the district have placer claims that yield a "grub-stake" as a sure thing every summer, and spend their winters chiefly in prospecting for quartz.
Miners came in on snowshoes from their placer claims twenty miles away to buy fresh bread from her, and paid for it in gold. That winter Tiny kept in her hotel a Swede whose legs had been frozen one night in a storm when he was trying to find his way back to his cabin. The poor fellow thought it great good fortune to be cared for by a woman, and a woman who spoke his own tongue.
They had lured thousands to the Basin, but the yellow metal could not be found in anything like paying quantities. Mr. McKensey told the Captain that I was quite an expert in placer mining and had been in the Black Hills, Virginia City, and Old Alder Gulch. This was enough and I had to agree to stay over a day and see a wonderful clean-up, which would be tomorrow.
We soon learned that the rich gravel, instead of being spread over an area of three by seven miles, and rich from the grass roots down, was spread over a space of about twenty-five acres, and that even this did not average more than ten cents to the cubic yard. The whole placer would not give more than one and one-quarter cents per cubic yard.
This is the most rapid method of washing dirt, but also the most dangerous. The pan must always be used in cleaning up the dirt which collects in the cradle, in prospecting, and frequently in washing small quantities of dirt collected in other kinds of placer mining. Amalgam can be separated from dirt by washing, almost as well as gold.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking