The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-08-08

WHAT is PLACER MINING?
Pan and Plenty of Water All That
Are Needed.

From the Chicago Times-Herald.
AT little informal social gathering this
week, where there were present eight ma
ture well-informed men and women, the
Klondike gold fields came into the con-
versaton. 1t developed that not one of the
company had more than the faintest idea
of gold mining; that no one knew what a
placer mine was, or a hydraulic mine or
a quartz mine, or that there was a marked
difference between the processes of min
ing. Query: Is this indifference to acquir-
ing information concerning a great indus
try general?
To give a homely but reasonably truth
full illustration of placer mining, take a
bushel of coarse sand mixed with gravel,
bushel of earth such as you see taken
from an excavation in Chicago, a cOnsid-
cradle proportion of clay, n little cement,
double handful of shot varying in size
from the smallest bird shot to the end of
your little finger, and imagine all this
stuff TO be mixed thoroughly together
about the consistency of the soil on the
shore of Lake Michigan where the surf
b ats 1t into some sort of compactness.
How would you go at il to extract the
shot in the least possible time and at the
least expenditure of labor? If you had
heard of placer mining you would wash
the earth away and save the shot.
All you need is pan and plenty of wa
ter. Any sort of a fiat vessel, from a soup
plate to a dishpan, will answer the pur-
pose. The miner pan is shaped like
cake pan with a fiat bottom. When a pros
pector starts out he takes one made of
copper. Gather with your hands or pick
or a shovel n quart of this mixture of soil
just described and put it in the pan. Fill
the pan nearly full Of water The earth
will be softened into mud. Add more wa
faa t.r.t -
and the soft mud will run out over the top
of the pan. Continue the operation, and
In ten or fifteen minutes the earth has
run off, and all that you have left in the
pan Is the shot, which, being heavier than
the earth, have sunk to the bottom, to-
gether with any gravel you may have
thrown in originally. The work of sepa-
rating the shot from the gravel after the
earth has been washed away Is very easy.
Substitute particles Of gold for your lead
en- globules, and the widest kind OF a
mountain country for Chicago, and YOU
know just what the men In the Klondike
region have been doing all winter that
has electrified the world. In the manner
above described they have been washing
the precious metal from earth found on
very rough, broken region larger than
the city limits of Chicago. The miners
have had no other appliances but the pan
through the Nlondike district What
so startling Is the extraordinary Weld of
gold TO the pan. Nothing like il or nearly
approaching Il has ever been heard OF
before In the creek beds they have pick.
ed up chunks of solid gold as large as
your hand single nuggets worth 81 900 or
more. OF course, these are exceptional,
even In the new Eldorado.
In the language OF miners, the earth
from which gold Is extracted Is called
dirt" Any earth which yields 10 cents OF
gold 20 the pan Is known as pay Dirt"
10 cents TO the pan is good. and % cents
is rich. A miner working la dirt that
runs 70 10 cents 10 the pan earns from
$3.50 20 $3.50 o day, az he is able 70 wash
about forty panfuis a day the number
depending on the character OF the dirt.
In klondike the lowest Yield TO the pan
reported Is 30 cents. This would give the
miner not less than SO a day for hls
work. Some pansful yield 500 In precious
metal The gold that remains IN the pan
after tho earth has been washed away b.
called dust" Some Of IL Is nne as the
finest sand, some the size OF q plnhead ana
some a. large az pea or the end OF your
little hnger. but u BE- M known az dust.
LumpH The size OF a hazel nut q walnut
ana larger are called nuggets.
Tho sod itself ls the measure OF the