|
Placer Gold Mining Equipment 101*The Gold Pan: The gold pan is the first tool of a placer gold miner.
Once a miner learns to pan gold, he or she can pan about one-cubic yard of dirt per-day. The gold pan is considered a sampling
and finishing tool. If
you find “pay dirt” or, a rich deposit of gold as you sample with your gold pan, you would then use a tool that
can process much more material in a day – like a “sluice,” or “dry washer.” A gold pan is
inexpensive and a lot of fun for the entire family. You will also need a gold pan to “finish” your “black sand” or “concentrates,”
from other gold separating machines like a gold dredge, sluice box, high banker or dry washer. It is important to
learn and use efficient gold panning techniques. The Sluice: This prospecting tool and can process up to one-cubic yard of dirt per-hour! That’s eight-times
what a pan can do. The sluice is powered by water, with flows down a flat, narrow surface divided by “riffles.”
When the water flows over these riffles, it creates turbulence at the edge of the riffle where all the gold – because
of its weight, drops out. Where a flowing stream is available you can put your pay dirt into buckets, and haul them over to the stream/river
where you have set up the sluice. When water is not available – such as in the Arizona desert, you can use a “re-circulating sluice,” placed over a tub of
water. A small electric pump connected to a motorcycle battery will circulate water through the sluice for eight-hours or
more. You start by feeding
your pay dirt into the front of the sluice. The heavy black sands and gold will be caught in the riffles and fall into the
“miner’s moss,” that carpets the bottom of the sluice. Miner’s moss, is a course material that simulates
the wild moss that grows along streams and is known to trap gold during floods and high water runoffs. While the lighter dirt
and sand will wash out the end of the sluice, the heavy black sand concentrates will build up at the riffles and on the miner’s
moss. Make sure not to overload
the sluice by feeding in too much pay dirt too fast, or gold can be washed out of the sluice. You can tell if the sluice is
overloading by watching to see if the dirt is filling up above the riffles.
|
“Fists Full
of Gold” – By Chris Ralph - Cover Price $29.95 Some of the information contained in the book includes:
How to use a gold pan, including crevicing, mossing and sniping for gold
How to get the best recovery
out of your sluice box or highbanker
How to use a suction dredge to find and recover paystreaks
How to operate a dry washer for gold
An extensive section on metal detecting,
perhaps the best on the market
Building your own equipment: including building
your own:
Portable sluice box
Lightweight suction dredge
Desert dry washer
How to get the most out of your
black sands
How to get the best prices for your gold, specimens and nuggets
Full coverage of the geology of gold
and silver mineral deposits
How to do research to find your own rich concentrations of gold:
Using and understanding topographic maps, aerial photos and GPS
Where to find little known sources of information on gold deposits
How to use geology maps to find
gold
Mining law and how to stake and maintain your
own claim
Platinum placers and deposits – How to prospect for them
Diamonds in placers – How to recognize
them
Plus hundreds of photos, diagrams and illustrations Get your copy now for just $31.99 – SHIPPED! Make your check out to, Arizona Gold Adventures Inc, and mail
to: Arizona Gold Adventures Inc 260 Church St. Suite 3-B-1 White Plains, NY
10603
|
|
http://www.cafepress.com/higoldfever
Placer Gold Mining Equipment 101 - continued
High
Banker / Re-circulating Sluice / Suction Dredge: * The
high banker is a Gold concentration tool based on the sluice box. Like the re-circulating sluice, a “High Banker”
uses water pumped into a hopper, where the pay dirt is shoveled in. The water jets wash and break up any clay or soil
lumps that may contain gold particles. * The
material then drops though a wire or metal mesh classifier called a “grizzly,” and then down into the sluice box.
It is also possible to pump the water from a “suction dredge” into the hopper. A suction dredge is basically an
underwater vacuum with a long hose and nozzle specially designed for sucking out crevices in bedrock, and material that has
settled in dead spots in streams and rivers. * Dry Washer: * The
dry washer is a waterless version of the sluice box. The prospector shovels dry pay dirt into the top of the dry washer, which
has a built in screen (classifier) to sort out rocks too big to go down into the next section of the machine. * When the dirt falls into the lower part of the machine, a battery-
or gasoline- powered fan blows the lighter dust and dirt up and over the riffles (just like water would in a sluice), and
down and out of the washer. The gold stays trapped in the top few riffles because the fan is not powerful enough to blow the
heavy gold into the air and over the riffles. Some dry washers even create an electrostatic charge that makes gold and other
metals “stick” to the riffles. Another dry washer option is a vibrator, which helps the gold settle to the bottom
of the riffles. * Metal Detector:
* This is the newest tool in the prospector's tool
kit! A “Very Low Frequency” or, “VLF” metal detector works using electro-magnetic energy, or
radio waves. In a VLF metal detector, there are two distinct coils. The “transmitter”
coil is the outer coil loop. Electricity flows through this coil, first in one direction and then in the other, thousands
of times per-second creating a radio wave. The number of direction changes per-second establishes the frequency of the unit.
* The
inner coil, or “receiver,” acts as an antenna to pick
up and amplify these waves as they interact with metal and iron objects in the ground. Think of a gold nugget as a conducting antenna. The gold nugget is surrounded by the radio waves sent
into the ground by the transmitter coil. The gold nugget captures these signals and re-transmits a smaller signal back up
to the receiver coil. Specialized gold detectors have a very sensitive receiver to pick up and amplify the signal frequency
of gold. * The soil and rocks in the area being hunted can
also influence the ability to detect gold nuggets. Soils and rocks with various conductive salts and moisture also have
eddy currents. This makes a heavily “mineralized” area hard to detect, as your detector will also detect “hot
rocks,” which makes hearing smaller gold nuggets almost impossible. * Unlike
VLF machines which use a uniform alternating current at a low frequency, a ”Pulse induction” or “PI metal
detector,” fires a high-voltage pulse of electricity into the ground. If no metal is there the pulse will decay at a
set rate. * If there is a gold nugget in the ground, a small bit of the current will flow through the metal and the pulse
time will increase. These time differences are small, but these new machines have a major advantage over VLF detectors: They
are impervious to the effects of highly mineralized soils like those found in the deserts of Arizona. * Arizona Gold Adventures
prospecting instructors are required to have both types of detectors, for use in different areas and situations.
|
http://www.ArizonaGoldAdventures.com Arizona Gold Prospecting Vacations, Day Trips & Fully Outfitted Helicopter Gold Prospecting Expeditions. * MINERS' TEN COMMANDMENTS I. Thou shalt have no other claim than one. II. Thou shalt not make unto thyself any false claim, nor any likeness to a mean man, by jumping
one: for I, a miner, am a just one, and will visit the miners around about, and they will judge thee; and when they shall
decide, thou shalt take thy pick, thy pan, thy shovel and thy blankets with all thou hast and shall depart seeking other good
diggings, but thou shalt find none. Then when thou hast paid out all thy dust, worn out thy boots and garments so that there
is nothing good about them but the pockets, and thy patience is like unto thy garments, then in sorrow shall thou return to
find thy claim worked out, and yet thou hath no pile to hide in the ground, or in the old boot beneath thy bunk, or in buckskin
or in bottle beneath thy cabin, and at last thou shalt hire thy body out to make thy board and save thy bacon. III. Thou shalt not go prospecting before thy
claim gives out. Neither shalt thou take thy money, nor thy gold dust, nor thy good name, to the gaming table in vain; for
monte, twenty-one, roulette, faro, lansquenet and poker, will prove to thee that the more thou puttest down the less thou
shalt take up; and when thou thinkest of thy wife and children, thou shalt not hold thyself guiltless—but insane. IV. Thou shalt not remember what thy friends
do at home on the Sabbath day, lest the remembrance may not compare favorably with what thou doest here. Six days thou mayst
dig or pick; but the other day is Sunday; yet thou washest all thy dirty shirts, darnest all thy stockings, tap thy boots,
mend thy clothing, chop the whole week's firewood, make up and bake thy bread, and boil thy pork and beans, that thou wait
not when thou returnest from thy long-tom weary. For in six days' labor only though canst do it in six months; and though,
and thy morals and thy conscience, be none the better for it; but reproach thee, shouldst thou ever return with thy worn-out
body to thy mother's fireside. V. Though shalt not think more of all thy gold, and how thou canst make it fastest, than how thou
will enjoy it after thou hast ridden rough-shod over thy good old parents' precepts and examples, that thou mayest have nothing
to reproach thee, when left ALONE in the land where thy father's blessing and thy mother's love hath sent thee. VI. Thou shalt not kill; neither thy body by
working in the rain, even though thou shalt make enough to buy physic and attendance with; nor thy neighbor's body in a duel,
or in anger, for by "keeping cool," thou canst save his life and thy conscience. Neither shalt thou destroy thyself
by getting "tight," nor "stewed," nor "high," nor "corned," nor "half- seas over,"
nor "three sheets in the wind," by drinking smoothing down—"brandy slings," "gin cocktails,"
"whiskey punches," "rum toddies," nor "egg-noggs." Neither shalt thou suck "mint juleps,"
nor "sherry- cobblers," through a straw, nor gurgle from a bottle the "raw material," nor take "it
straight" from a decanter; for, while thou art swallowing down thy purse, and the coat from off thy back thou art burning
the coat from off thy stomach; and if thou couldst see the houses and lands, and gold dust, and home comforts already lying
there—"a huge pile"—thou shouldst feel a choking in thy throat; and when to that thou addest thy crooked
walkings thou wilt feel disgusted with thyself, and inquire "Is thy servant a dog that he doeth these things!" Verily,
thou shalt say, "Farewell, old bottle, I will kiss thy gurgling lips no more; slings, cocktails, punches, smashes, cobblers,
nogs, toddies, sangarees and juleps, forever farewell. Thy remembrance shames one; henceforth, I cut thy acquaintance, and
headaches, tremblings, heart-burnings, blue devils, and all the unholy catalogue of evils that follow in thy train. My wife's
smiles and my children's merry-hearted laugh, shall charm and reward me for having the manly firmness and courage to say NO.
I wish thee an eternal farewell." VII. Thou shalt not grow discouraged, nor think of going home before thou hast made thy "pile,"
because thou hast not "struck a lead," nor found a "rich crevice," nor sunk a hole upon a "pocket,"
lest in going home thou shalt leave four dollars a day, and going to work, ashamed, at fifty cents, and serve thee right;
for thou knowest by staying here, thou mightst strike a lead and fifty dollars a day, and keep thy manly self respect, and
then go home with enough to make thyself and others happy. VIII. Thou shalt not steal a pick, or a shovel, or a pan from thy fellow-miner; nor take away his tools
without his leave; nor borrow those he cannot spare; nor return them broken, nor trouble him to fetch them back again, nor
talk with him while his water rent is running on, nor remove his stake to enlarge thy claim, nor undermine his bank in following
a lead, nor pan out gold from his "riffle box," nor wash the "tailings" from his sluice's mouth. Neither
shalt thou pick out specimens from the company's pan to put them in thy mouth or pocket; nor cheat thy partner of his share;
nor steal from thy cabin-mate his gold dust, to add to thine, for he will be sure to discover what thou hast done, and will
straightaway call his fellow miners together, and if the law hinder them not, will hang thee, or give thy fifty lashes, or
shave thy head and brand thee, like a horse thief, with "R" upon thy cheek, to be known and read of all men, Californians
in particular. IX. Thou shalt not tell any false tales about "good diggings in the mountains," to thy neighbor that
thou mayest benefit a friend who had mules, and provisions, and tools and blankets he cannot sell,—lest in deceiving
thy neighbor, when he returneth through the snow, with naught save his rifle, he present thee with the contents thereof, and
like a dog, thou shalt fall down and die. X. Thou shalt not
commit unsuitable matrimony, nor covet "single blessedness;" nor forget absent maidens; nor neglect thy "first
love;"—but thou shalt consider how faithfully and patiently she awaiteth thy return; yea and covereth each epistle
that thou sendest with kisses of kindly welcome—until she hath thyself. Neither shalt thou cove thy neighbor's wife,
nor trifle with the affections of his daughter; yet, if thy heart be free, and thou dost love and covet each other, thou shalt
"pop the question" like a man. These "commandments"
were actually written in 1853 by James M. Hutchings (1818-1902)
|
