The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1920-03-11


you northwestern hard rock miners
deserves a brief mention of placer
mining-what it is. l would not have
thought this necessary had not several
local experts inquired of me as to
what crushing and grinding we do on
the dredge None, of course, because
there is none to do. Placer gold has
already been freed from the rock by
natures mills, which grind slowly, but
not exceeding fine, as is proved by the
size of the nuggets we recover
Placer mining. l believe, was the
first mining recorded in history. The
Golden Fleece that Jason and his ar
gonauts of Greek mythology fame,
sought with such wild adventures at
the dawn of history, was actually
nothing more or less than an ordinary
sheep skin which primitive tribes in
Asia Minor used to catch placer gold
in their sluices, the wool arresting the
fine gold, just as placer miners today
use cocoa mating and burlap besides
rifles. But that golden fleece story
sounded alluring-almost as alluring
as some of the get quick promo
ton propaganda you can read in the
papers today. Jason should have sold
stock in his venture-then stayed at
home. Let George do the mining! l
knew d titled Frenchman in California
who seemed ever prosperous, despite
the fact that his extensive claims re-
manned almost unopened. 1 finally
asked him how it was done. His an
swer was frank: La. Ia" he said, 4
have re mines here, but do my min
ing in Parcel" That's it, mined his
friends-and the general public. No
wonder it's hard for some of US poor
but honest prospectors to put over |
something of merit!
Placering has long been the poor
mans mining, but not by dredging. 1t
would cost a poor man half a million
to install a good sized modern dredge /
these days The forty niner in Cali
fornia started out by panning exca-
waited one shovelful of dirt at time
and washed it in a gold pan; saved
his "colors" of free gold and threw the
waste Cor tailing) to one side. He
needed but little water-he disposed
of his tailings without grade. 1 want
to trace the growth of placering up to
dredging along the lines Of the three
essentials of placer mining. First
excavation; second, washing and gold
saving; and third, disposal of waste
or failing, requiring elevation or
grade.
Following the slow process of pan
ming a shovelful at a time, came the
rocker or cradle to increase the ca
pacity. The rocker was set up close
to water if possible, one man rocked
the cradle and dipped water into it,
also stopped every so often and threw
n a few shovels of pay dirt unless he
had a partner to shovel in. The gold
was saved on canvass aprons, fine
gold arrested on a piece of carpet or
blanket. and the failing discharged
INTO the ground. When tailings piled r
Up the rocker was moved a few feet u
rhe rocker was followed by the Long g
rom, which was an elongated rocker e
to 10 feet long with rifles or Stats e
# wood to create an eddy to settle the a
,old. A continuous stream of water b
vas delivered on to the hopper which t.
hus disposed of pay dirt more rap Il
dly than the rocker h
Hydraulic Mining. Il
But the volume handled by each of "
he above devices was very, very linn e
ted, and only very rich ground could d
e handled thus, even by Cinnamon. d
therefore the Long Tom kept grow il
ng longer until it developed into the Il
luices were not rocked, but were set Il
p on an established grade. The L
)nger the sluices, the more gold was r.
aved The set of sluice boxes, say d
nree 12-foot long boxes, 10 inches dl
'ide by s inches deep, grew in width &c
nd length as more material was han 10
led, until they reaches sizes feet te
'ide by feet deep and in extreme W
asses a mile or more in length. These
fractures became more and more m
They required elevation V,
-grade-the tailings must have an bt
immense catchment to dump into, or ht
Sc river floods to carry them away. al
his is what happened with the great pl
ydraulic mines of California, discov- "
red when the old timers had worked d.
lie bars and some of the beds of the lie
resent day stream channels farther ri
nd farther back into the hills until al
icy found the source Of gold IN the er
lcient high level gravel channels of m
ertiary and Quatenary days, left high tn
p on the tops of the present hills. tn
hey brought water in high bitches to va
lese mountains of gravel, developed w
lie hydraulic giant after trying the di
feet of water under pressure in a be
invass hose and nozzle to excavate mi
Id move dirt. The mountains were it
ashed down into the steep narrow do
.nyons. Each winter the floods came tn
Id rushed the tailings out into the CO
llleys The tailings were deposited Of
hen the swift currents from the can alb
ms slowed up in the broad valleys. We
e.