Finding gold used to be mostly luck, but modern t
Post# of 9903
Crevicing & Panning
Crevicing (digging) around obstacles is a great way to find an abundance of jewelry-sized (or larger) specimen gold nuggets, flakes and gold fines. Anyone can do it. The basic principal is to dig around obstacles where gold might have been trapped along its way. Gather the surrounding or underlying material in a bucket or in your gold pan, and pan or power-sluice (highbank) that material down. Crevicing and panning is a fun and simple way for folks of all ages to find an amazing amount of placer gold.
Gold Panning
The gold pan is one the oldest and simplest tools used to find gold. A shovelfull of dirt and gravel is dumped into the pan. The pan is then lowered into the water and gently moved in circles. Large stones in the pan can be thrown out and any dirt clumps can be broken up with your fingers. As you move the pan in circles, muddy water and sand will float out, leaving the much heavier gold remaining at the bottom of the pan.
The Sluice
The sluice-box, a long open trough, is very popular. The sluice is narrow and low at one end. Material that you've placed into a bucket from an area you believe gold might be found is placed at the top of the sluice and washed down the length of the sluice by a constant stream of water. Gold is caught either by "riffles" (ridges on the bottom of the sluice box) or by a false bottom with holes in it. Mud and the larger chunks of rock wash out the lower end leaving the much heavier gold behind.
High-Banking
"High Bankers", or "Power Sluice" are considered one the most versatile gold recovery machines available for the prospector. A typical highbanker or power sluice will process nearly twice the amount of material that a medium size sluice can produce when operated under optimum conditions. Simply feed material into the hopper and let the washing action do its job.
Vacking / Crevicing / Dry land dredging
Rapidly gaining in popularity, "vacking" is fun and rewarding for the whole family. It's a very efficient way to recover lots of fine gold and nice little nuggets. Not only does "vacking" do an excellent job at recovering fine gold from moss and crevices - it's a lot of fun! It's so fast, simple, and easy to use, that it seems to take all the work out of mining.Crevicing gets it's name from the cracks and crevices found in exposed bedrock. These are known gold catching areas. it's amazing how deep gold can settle inside these cracks. The job of vacking / crevicing sometimes involves breaking the crack open wide enough to allow you to vac out all the material it contains. This isn't hard. Within a short time you can become a pro at it. The tools of the trade vary... a chisel, rock pick, gold claw, heavy bar, a hammer... Several models of dry-land vacs are available on the market
Metal Detecting
Can you really find gold with a metal detector? The answer is; YES! In our day of modern technology it is more possible than ever to find gold. Miners 100 years ago didn't have the tools available for finding gold as we have today. Miners 100 years ago didn't have the tools available for finding gold as we have today. Gold prospectors can work old places where gold was first discovered with sometimes very rewarding results. The metal detector is quickly becoming the new millenniums treasure hunting tool of choice.
Sniping
For those of you who have never tried sniping, it's a fun inexpensive way to collect jewelry size nuggets from rivers or creeks on your claim. Sniping is a word used to describe picking up gold nuggets right off of the bottom of streams, from crevices in bedrock, or from behind boulders. It usually involves some method of seeing through the surface of the water to the bottom, with the aid of a sniping tube or diving mask. It's picking up pieces of gold with your hands or by using tools like hemostats or tweezers, when you find the glistening nuggets waiting there, in plain sight.
Dredging
Dredges are essentially underwater vacuum cleaners. Although history reveals that dredging has been in existence throughout the world for many years, it is just recently that it has reached such a high degree of popularity due to advanced technology in equipment. Dredges today are lighter, more portable and more efficient than ever before. They are commonly used to pull material up from a stream bottom, run it through a separation system to recover valuable minerals, and then redeposit the stream material back onto the bottom of the stream. (Currently, there is a moratorium on suction dredging in California - subject to change in the future).
By knowing the many ways available for finding gold, you can better choose the gold mining adventure that's just right for you.
How much gold could you find by using today's modern methods?
None, if you're not actively searching for these reserves.
They're discovering they really can own a gold mine.
All Across America people are discovering this exciting simple escape from their hectic lives...
http://theclaimpost.homestead.com/PLACER-MINING-METHODS.html