Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1897-10-14
What is Placer Mining.

earth, a considerable proportion U
clay, little cement, double handful
of shot varying in size from the small
est birdshot to the end of your little
finger, and imagine all this stuff to b'
mixed thoroughly together. How
would you go at it 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 a pan and plenty ot
water. Any sort of fiat vessel, from
a soup plate to dishpan, will answer
the purpose. The miners pan is shaped
like a cakepan, with a fiat bottom.
When prospector starts out he takes
one made of copper. Gather with
your hands or pick or a shovel a
quart of this mixture of soil just de-
scribed and put it in the pan. Fill
the pan nearly full of water. The
earth will be softened into mud. Add
more water. Then tilt your pan over
a very little and the soft mud will run
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
separating the shot from the gravel
after the earth has been washed away
is very easy.
Substitute PARTICLES of gold for your
leaden 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 and the water of the creeks flow
ing through the Klondike district.
What makes the authentic reports
from Alaska so startling is the extra
ordinary yield of gold to the pan.
Nothing like it or nearly approaching
it has ever been 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.
In the language ofminers, the earth
from which gold is extracted is called
dirt" Any earth which yields ten
cents of gold to the pan is known as
pay dirt" fifteen cents to the pan is
good, and twenty cents is rich. A
miner working in dirt that runs six to
ten cents to the pan earns from $3.50
to $3.50 day, as he is able to wash
about forty pansful day, the number
depending on the character of the
dirt. In Klondike the lowest yield TO
the pan reported is thirty cents. This
would give the miner not less than $40
a day for his work. Some pansful
yield 500 in precious metal. The
gold that remains in the pan after the
earth has been washed away is called
dust" Some of it is 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
as dust. Lumps the size of II hazel
nut, walnut and larger are called
nuggets.
The gold itself is the measure of the
days, or the months, or the season s
profit. An ounce of it is worth, bar
ring fractions, $50 any place in civili-
zation. You can buy as much of any
thing you want for an ounce of dust as
you can for $40 gold piece. Ali
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 dollar is surprising to one
not accustomed to handling the metal.
So much dust as YOU can hold on the
largest blade of your pOcketknife IS
worth S. 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 dol
lar is smaller than silver dime. Now,
if a miner can save in one painful Of
dirt the tenth part of gold dollar he
is making fair wages.
Some of the gold is in such fine par
ticles that it floats and does not sink
to the bottom like a shot. A consid-
cradle portion of such floating gold