The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-01

miners pan is shaped like a cake pan with
a fat bottom. When a prospector starts
out he takes one made of copper. Gather
with your hands or a pick or a shovel a
quart of this mixture of soil just described
and put 1t in the pan. Fill the pan nearly
full of water. The earth Will be softened
pan over very little and the soft mud will
run out over the top of the pam Continue
the operation and in ten or fifteen minutes
the earth has run off and all that you nave
left in the pan is the shot, which, being
heavier than the earth, have sunk to the
bottom. together with any gravel you may
have thrown in originally. The WORK OF
separating the shot from the grave after
the earth has been washed away IS very
easy.
en- giobules, and the widest kind of
mountain country for Chicago, and you
know just what tne men in the klondlke
region have been doing all winter that has
electrified the world. In the manner above
described they have been washing the pre-
cious metal from earth found on a very
rough, broken region larger than the CITY
limits of Chicago. The miners have had no
other appliances but the pan and the water
of the creeks flowing through the klondlke
district What makes the authentic reports
from Alaska so startling is the. extraordl-
nary yield of gold TO the pan. Nothing ike
heard of before In the creek beds they
have picked UP chunks of solid gold as
large as your hand, single nuggets worth
81, 900 or more. OF course, these are Sxcep-
tional, even in the new Eldorado.
In the language of miners, the earth from
Any earth which yields 10 cents of gold to
the pan is known as pay dlrt; 10 Genus
tc the pan is good and 20 cents is rlch
i miner working in dirt that runs 10 % y! ~
cents to the pan earns from $3.50 to sou
a day, as he is able to WASH ABOUT IoIly
pansful day, the number depending on the
character of the dirt. In Klondike the
lowest yield to the pan reported is 80 cents.
This would give the miner not less than
$40 a day for his work. Some panfQls yield
500 in precious metal the gold mat re-
mains in the pan after the earth has oeen
washed away is called dust. Some OIL II
is as fine as the finest sand, some the size
of pinhead and some as large as a pea
or the end Of your little finger, but it is all
known dust. Jumps the size of a hazel
nut, a walnut and larger are called mug
gets.
The gold itself is the measure of the
days, or the months, or the seasons prof
it. An ounce of it is worth. barring frac-
tions, $40 any place in civilization. You
can buy as much of anything you want
for an ounce of dust as you can for $40
gold piece. All stores in mining districts
are provided with gold scales and the
miners gold is accepted as so much coin
of the realm. The quantity of gold it takes
to make a dollar is surprising to one not
accustomed to handling the metal. %
much dust as you can hold on the largest
blade of your pocketknife Is worth 50 to
$3.50. When, you consider that this small
quantity is the yield of thirty or forty pans
you can imagine how little bulk there Is
to the gold saved in one pan. A coined
gold dollar is smaller than silver dime.
Now if a miner can save in one painful of
dirt the tenth part of a gold dollar he is
making fair wages.
Some of the gold is in such fine particles
that it floats and does not sink to the bot
tom like shot. A considerable portion Of
such floating gold runs over the top of the
pan and is lost. 1t is estimated that in the
first placer mining in California about one
fourth of the gold was thus lost. To this
day Cinnamon are engaged in panning the
from 1.25 to 81 day in the operations. In
Klondke, where SO much of the gold is
precious metal by reason of its floating
away. Placer mining is the simplest of all
processes for getting gold out of the ground
an ample supply of water. All reports from
<londike agree that the best "diggings"
are in the beds of creeks, and that the fur
til bedrock is reached.