The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1920-02-26
MINING PLACER GOLD
OLD AND NEW METHODS
DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN
DREDGE FROM A CRUDE
MODEL.

CIV J. Ranger in DUPONT Magazine,
Find gold anywhere on this ole
earth of ours, and the announcement
OF its discovery viii draw thousands
of fortune hunters. It was so in Cal
ifornia in the sos, when thousands
scrambled across the plains Of the
west and over the Rockies to find pay
dirt it was SO when the first news OF
the Kiondike filtered through to the
states; it was so in South Africa-it
has always been so, and always Will
be. LIES greatest lure is gold.
Nature chose to deposit her golden
treasures in out-of-the-Way places;
perhaps deep down under a mountain
where gold bearing ores may be found
if one is lucky. or in the bed of some
long abandoned water course filed
with the silt loan and stones washed
down from the mountains thousands
OF years ago.
ore mining is comparatively new.
Washing out gold from the beds and
banks of streams is almost as ancient
a method as ploughing with a forked
stick
Probably the oldest device for wash
ing gold was the 'batea" which was
nothing more than a perforated basin.
II was used by prospectors, first to
test the gold content of deposits, and
if results warranted, to pan OUT the
gold, an expression that is still used
dguratively by many people.
A labor saving improvement on the
batea was the cradle" which permit
ted of washing larger quantities Of
gravel with less fatigue to the miner.
The cradle was generally used in the
California placer operations before
sluices became a factor.
Hydraulic Mining.
Where a deposit was located near a
stream capable of furnishing enough
water to wash it, there were develop
ed other devices, some of which were
known by the names Long Tom"
Jenny Lind" Broad Tom" vic
toria" and others. These devices were
of a system of three
First, the feed trough for
the water, leading to the washing
trough, where gold was separated
from the other materials, and finally,
the rifle box trough, where particles
Of gold might lodge and from which
they might be recovered. In dorado
there are today many placer mining
operations where sluices are employ
These sluices serve to wash through
rifle bars the material that has been
thrown in at the head of the sluices. |
Il has been found that the greater
part of the gold is collected in these
places in the first 200 feet of the
iluice.
With the adoption of the sluice, Ed /
ward Mattison, of Connecticut, devel- /
'ped the plan of directing water
through nozzle at high pressure so
hat the stream would wear away the
'ank and conduct The material to the
luice for the washing process. BY this
method, which is called hydraulicking.
he eliminated the laborious use of the
lick and bar.
Hydraulicking of course. presumes
hat water power can be developed,
ither from running streams. melting
nows, or stored up reservoirs of rain +
rater Water power in this way has
een developed in Colorado to force
stream of water through a 4-inch +
ozzle with pressure of from $50 to I
90 pounds per square inch.
The First Oredqe. t
Where streams can not be diverted q
om their course by fumes and wa t
,r dams, so as to expose the river ,
I'd for placer operations. it becomes
ecessary to excavate by dredges. t
The dredge for working river beds ]
insists of a flat bottomed scow pro- g
ded with suitable machinery. T
Compared with the modern dredges F
ow used in placer mining operations A
Colorado the first dredge was C
'ude affair. It consisted of a small F
ow provided with a spoon which e
as thrown out from the stern and z
lowed to sink to the river bed The y
'oon was then drawn along the river N
'ttom by means of a windlass that P
tally brought a spoon load Of ma R
rial into the scow; there it was P
imped out and the gravel washed E
ON the gold oil
Afterward came scows with under A
OF water wheels so designed that d
e axle served as a windup cable