The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-12-09
STEAMBOAT MINING.
Rich Returns Of Gold from the
Bed Of Snake River.
A Novel Means of Working the Bars Of
Idaho's Great Waterway-The Gold
Caught on Copper Plates with
Quicksilver.

Extravagant stories are told about
the wealth of gold sprinkled through
out the Snake river country in Idaho.
AS a general thing, says the Helena
Independent, the gold is very fine, the
particles being of so light weight as to
be elusive. Save when worked on a
large scale it is difficult to make good
wages in recovering the gold. Numer-
Gus bars along the river would prove
profitable could water be commanded
for sluicing or hydraulicing. An ade-
quate supply is hard to obtain, on &C
count of the slight and gradual fall OF
the stream and the level character OF
the outlying lands. To overcome this
lack of water as well as insure suffi-
cient dumping ground, big floating
gold-saving dredge has been con-
structed and is now at work on the
Idaho bank of the Snake river about
ten miles above Payette.
It is a stern-wheel fatboat propelled
by steam. Substantially constructed,
sixty-five feet long and twenty-five
feet wide, it is equipped with thirty
five horse power marine engine and
boiler and adapted in every way for
navigating Idaho's great waterway.
With a slight alteration it could be
transformed into steam dredge and
used to scoop up sand and gravel from
the bottom of the stream. That has
never been attempted. AS in the past,
operations are now confined to work
ing bars out of the bed Or channel OF
the river. The method pursued is to
anchor alongside one of these gravel
deposits and by the use of scrapers
bring the material to be handled with
in the reach of the gold-washing ma
chinery with which the craft is rugged.
The gravel is scooped up by buckets
attached to an endless chain. There
are forty-eight of these receptacles on
a belt sixty feet in length, and each
has a capacity of about twenty pounds
of dirt. which is delivered into hop
per. This is also an agitator, and the
process employed may be described as
a steam rocker, with the exception that
it has an end motion instead OF one
sidewise. The gold is caught on cop
per plates with quicksilver. The tail
inrs are carried off in sluice boxes by
the force of a stream of water OF one
hundred and fifty mineral inches, sup
piled by China pump, run by the en-
gine which drives all the other ma
chinery. The gravel is worked SO
thoroughly that no gold escapes in the
tailings that are dumped into the rlv.
er. An average of one hundred tons OF
gravel are daily handled, and for this
work three men are employed-an en-
pineer, one to work the scraper, and
another one who shovels the dirt into d
nile so that the buckets can scoop up
full load.
The bar now being worked covers an
area of ten to fifteen acres. The gold
is on top or close to the surface and
will not pay to handle TO greater
depth than one foot to eighteen inches
| This shows a value of one and one-hal1
to three cents a pap. A cleanup Is
made every night, and the average OF
the runs for the first three days was
very satisfactory to the owner OF the
| craft. He says he expects to take ou'
inward of one hundred dollars day
as long as he works, which will be un
ill cold weather sets in. When he ha:
pone over the bar which now engages
his attention he will tackle another.