Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-07-20
METHODS OF GOLD MINING
AN OLD PRosPEcToR's INTEREST
ING EXPERIENCES.
Washing the Auriferous Particles
From the Bearing
Onarfz-Ca-tupad INV Rats

representative CLEANED the following
facts concerning gold digging from an
old Australian miner: 'How do we get
the gold ~ he repeated in response to a
question. ''Wash it or crush it. 1t is
found in different shapes in different
places. Out west, where worked first,
it was all aliuvial washing from the river
sand with cradles. The cradle l had
once was piece of plush fastened ON an
inclined plane with the grain of the
plush lying upward so than any fine stuff,
such as the grains of gold in the sand,
would stick into the,plush when washed
over it. All you had to do was to get a
decent head of water to turn into your
cradle, feed in your sand by the shovel
full and rock your cradle. The gold
dust being heavier than the sand would
stick to the plush and the dirt would
wash away. Then you picked up your
piece of plush carefully and washed it off
in bowl of clear water, when the gold
would collect at the bottom. Some fell
lows used piece Of fur instead of plush.
Others only had a pan. They would
take pan half full of sand and puddle
it awhile, and the gold going to the bot
tom, the top would be thrown away.
That's the way prospecting along the
river sands was generally done. If you
could get good color it would be
worth rigginga cradle.
"Two or three men generally go out
together with picks and shovels. Their
expenses are probably half paid at least
by other miners who are earning steady
pay. The prospectors come to likely
looking spot, and probably decide by a
toss-up whether or not to try it. Then
they dig a pit in the ground till they
sink through the same kind of stuff that
is on the surface. Then they may come
TO streak of the clay containing gold.
1t is something like pipe clay, very soft
when first dug, but hardens in the sun,
and was once the bottom of some stream.
If it contains good gold, all that is nee
essary is 10 drive tunnel on the level
and take it out. Sometimes it is 'pock-
ETY., that is at bend of the stream the
gold seems to have settled in lump by
an eddy. The gold is extracted from
the clay by pudding machines and
crushers. Sometimes the pay streak
will stop short off, as though the stream
had jumped precipice. Other times it
will follow along for miles as crooked as
a creek. When one of these holes is first
opened, the miners are often taken sick
with something like malaria, from the
smell of the old stuff that has been COW
cred up so long.
New Zealand has put out a lot of
gold. 1t is found there in river sands,
in the mountains and in beach washings,
all of which, of course, as all alluvial
workings, have originally come from
quartz reefs washed out some time or
another. There was one strip of black
sand on the west coast beach which was
very rich when first discovered. l was
one of party which tramped across the
country to it through the bush, with our
provisions and tools on our backs from
Christ Church to Hokitika, about $50
miles. When we got there things were
booming, and during few months I'M
heard of fortunes were washed out. But
in short time the place became overrun
with rats. There was no way of keeping
clear of them, until one day a little
schooner arrived from Wellington with
cargo of cats sent by a man who first
heard of the plague The pussies sold
rapidly for s. apiece and killed off the
rodents, but the strip of beach got thor
oughly worked out. and then the miners
took to the mountains"
"Quartz mining is the same all the
world oyer. Prospectors go out armed
with sledge-hammers. They see vein
of quartz in a bowlder, smash it up and
perhaps find several small nuggets.
They pick out these pieces of gold care
fully and carry them until they get
enough to send to a crusher. Often a
proprietor will make So or $4 a day
smashing powders These powders al
ways lie near to some regular lead of
quartz, and quartz leads always run east
and west. Consequently, when there
is profusion of gold bearing powders,
the general plan adopted is to run a
trench north and south through the sur
face-dirt to the bed rock, which at
some point must cut across the lead.
White quartz is not by any means the
most valuable; it is generally the poorest.
Most gold is frequently found in dirty
looking veins, mixed with iron rust.
Sometimes the quartz is so rotten with
gold that it can be broken up by hand.
1t has to be blasted out of the rock and
put through crusher to separate it
from the DIRT. The crushers are ma
chimes with very powerful stamps, run
by steam or water power, which pound
the ore to powder. A stream of water
then washes it over plates covered with
quicksilver, to which the gold
dust adheres and the dirt is
washed away. When the plates get
colored with the gold adhering to them
and constituting amalgam with the mer-
curry, they are scraped off and the anal.
gam melted down. The mercury eva,
porates, the gold while boiling in cru
chile is purified with borax, and then
run into bars the same way that it is seer
IN the assay Office. 1t is not necessary
always to see gold in the quartz to make
sure it is there. Often dirt that does not
contain moro than three pennyweights of
gold to the ton will pay to put through
the crusher.
Sometimes a stream will cut through
quartz lead or reef and save the trouble
of trenching to find it. Quartz reefs are
of no uniform width or depth or extent.
They are from half an inch to couple
of feet wide, generally two or three
inches, and their depth has never been dis
covered. After heavy rain at a quart,
diggngs, sites of gold, little nuggets
in scraps of refuse ore, will often bt
picked up in the road.
There is one satisfaction about gol6
mining, and particularly about alluvia
washings," concluded the horse car con
ductor, "and that is that you always get
your money as soon as you make it with
out having to collect it. The harder
you work the more you make, and there
is very pleasurable uncertainty abou
it, for you don't know when you may
| find q nnrnet y