Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Charters who wrote (82736)	3/1/2002 1:43:55 PM
From: IngotWeTrust	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116770

Nice try, but you missed on several counts. You see, I bought that dude's instructions, and compared it with a particular state geology report on same method that I own, and their accounts differ significantly from yours. For starters, who the heck carried nitric around in their pockets in those days? Certainly not Klondike miners. Secondly, a broke miner doesn't particularly have a ready supply of "real tinfoil" as you claim, there were no funds left over to buy "tinfoil" in those days either. Thirdly, most amalgamating was done on a mercury coated copper goldpan left in the fire and the copper oxidized...definitely a frowned upon practice nowadays. Fourthly, it didn't take 8 hours to dissapate the mercury, either in this dude's report nor in the state geology handbook on this practice. 8 hours may have passed for the drunken miner to wake up because he's boots had frozen solid or some such, but no one, not even back in those days, left their gold unattended in a campfire for 8 hours whilst they slept or panned or whatever... Fifth, and finally in this intellectual skirmish, why did you overlook the customary disposal of the now poisoned potato in the waste not, want not hard world of the starving klondike miner? This ought to be good...<grin> Oh, and I have a rebuttal for you on another one of your posts...you remember talking about microbial gold digestion and acidity a few posts back...you missed big time there too...rather take that one on or the tubular tell all above...

To: E. Charters who wrote (82736)	3/1/2002 7:46:18 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116770

Gold had to be separated from the black sands in the Yukon, despite its nuggety nature. In BC 96% of the gold is fine gold, so if you don't separate the fine stuff, you are broke. In the Yukon its only about 65% fine. Larger stream worn nuggets are the rule there. But still you have to separate and the concentrate from a rocker is about 120 to 200 pounds. You get some nuggets on the canvas but most ends up in the bottom of the rocker in rices size and finer grains. The normal method of coalescing the grains and fine dust was to use mercury, either in the rocker which was sealed with tin, or in a pan, 3 pounds at a time. 60 pans took you about 2 or three hours so you did not waste time. cleaning all those little mercury-gold balls is very important, and you generate hundreds of them, most of them being gold coloured liguid things which separate all over everywhere. The odd one starts to amalgamate up or harden. But you have lots of pans to go through so you needed a cleaner/coalescer. Nitric acid was used. It is cheaper by far than mercury and that was what they used. You did not want to roast your pan in a fire to drive mercury as the fumes were unbelieveably poisonous and that much heat would warp and ruin the pan. Pans would be in short supply for that frequent purpose and tools came first. Mercury was about 30 dollars a pound. If a miner could get that liquid reagant then he certainly could get nitric acid which was a common, cheap reagant in those days. Mercury was used in thermometers and medicine. Nitrates were used commonly in gunpowder and other household medicine. You could mix nitre with water and sulfur or pyrites, and heat it to get nitric. Cyanide was widely used for assaying back in 1896 and it was more depended on than fire assaying although I don't think they had cyanide assaying in Dawson, perhaps in Skagway or Nome. If you did not have a cast iron retort and you wanted economics you had to use the potato method. You left the potato or potatoes in the ground for a good long time to drive off the mercury completely, as the fumes are as poisonous as hell and you don't want any part of that. You wanted absolute completion of the process. Leaving baked ground potatoes for quite a while was normal anyway. The mercury in the potato was recovered by breaking the potato up in water, cleaning it still further in water with nitric and panning it. Sometimes miners would roast their pans or cast iron cooking pots of the concentrate in order to facilitate further panning and mercury amalgamation, as sulphides interferes with the amalgam process and cleaning the con was easier and higher grade when it was roasted. When gold dust was recovered it was taken to the saloon in Dawson where it could be measured and paid for by balance, or to the local branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce who had set up a branch to loan money to miners, and buy their gold dust. It seems surprising that a bank would loan money to miners but they did, as the track record of payback was quite good. All you needed was claim and some colour in the pan. The CIBC in Canada got its start as a national bank in the Yukon goldfields. Gold was generally shipped out of Dawson in the spring by steamer. But by the time 1920 had rolled around and silver was discovered in Cobalt money had grown scarce for mining acouunts. Few miners could borrow from the bank then to get going despite the crazed rush for silver then. Money had become cheap by 1920 but real money for the more expensive and uncertain hardrock mining had become like it always was traditionally for miners. Hard to find. As far as provions the miners were usually well outfitted. There was some talk of starvation in 97 but that abated in a few months. Typhoid fever hit in some camps and took lives though. Life was not all a bed of roses. It is amusing to go to the Yukon today and recall the tales of the rough country and harsh conditions. In fact the bush and ground in the Yukon is not particularly rough. The mountains are small and rounded for the most part, and vegetation is sparse. The great erosion has left the soil and terrane smooth and easy to walk. You can get around in the Yukon in most places in street shoes. Snow is not as bad as much further south in BC, and except for January, winter temperatures not much worse. Tempertature rarely exceed 40 below. You can get 60 below farenehit for a few days but you can get that in Cobalt, Ontario too. For the most part the harrowing tales of adventure were from city people not much used to the woods, the climate or the hard work exploration entailed. If you ask a city lad or even some armchair geologists how long it will take to walk a mile in the bush or even on a trail cut in the bush, you will get some answers that approximate to about 2 miles per hour or more. In fact if I cut a trail for you 3 feet wide with a chainsaw in flat land, and you carry a 20 pound pack, I guarantee you that if you rush to the point off jogging, you will not get one mile in less than one hour. In untracked bush you will not get there in less than an hour and half. Best progress, not on a trail, in bush is less than 5 miles in one day. If you carry a 50 pound pack you will be struggling. And don't forget you have to make camp and pitch a tent. That will take you about 4 hours to complete and be ready for bed. Dragging 150 pounds on a sleigh you will make maybe 6 miles per day on a hard packed trail. EC<:-}