Just wondering about the amount of trash you are dealing with in your search for gold.
AUSTRALIAN diggings from the 1860/1890's are littered with old food cans and rusted metal of all descriptions.
Towns like Coolgardie in WA are dry and water was 'created' by condensors during the early days; resulting in lead-solder spills and corroded condensor plants and their components.
The real mess came from food cans. Things like 'tinned-dog' (meat) which used an early method of canning requiring the use of a coin-sized tin disk soldered onto the top of a 1-lb can. Thousands of the disks remain whereas, the cans are rusted and disintergrating.
Dry-blowing (dry-washing) screens are still giving off their metalic signiture even after a hundred years. These contraptions continued to be used until the 1960's.
Early mining was all by dry-blowing (dish to dish) and dolly-pot. Early dollying used food cans to contain the rich mine-ore and many thousands of tons were treated this way in areas surrounding the Coolgardie goldfields; the fines were bagged and packed to water for treatment. Modern, steam-powered, machinary needed water that was impossible to obtain during the first years.
How does this compare with the American experience?
As a footnote: I was able to dig into the old trash-dumps of Coolgardie during the early 1970's in a search for relics. The most common material, I was surprised to find, were rock=oyster shells. Apparently the diggers celebrated their success with fresh oysters. . . delivered on ice, in sawdust, by train from Perth. Ice was almost as valuable as gold I suppose in that hot, hell-hole before the turn of the century.
The trash areas are worth a go nowadays. The massive 'Kanowna Belle' gold mine just out of Kalgoorlie was found under the old Kanowna towns 'nightsoil' area. . .
lemons
AUSTRALIAN diggings from the 1860/1890's are littered with old food cans and rusted metal of all descriptions.
Towns like Coolgardie in WA are dry and water was 'created' by condensors during the early days; resulting in lead-solder spills and corroded condensor plants and their components.
The real mess came from food cans. Things like 'tinned-dog' (meat) which used an early method of canning requiring the use of a coin-sized tin disk soldered onto the top of a 1-lb can. Thousands of the disks remain whereas, the cans are rusted and disintergrating.
Dry-blowing (dry-washing) screens are still giving off their metalic signiture even after a hundred years. These contraptions continued to be used until the 1960's.
Early mining was all by dry-blowing (dish to dish) and dolly-pot. Early dollying used food cans to contain the rich mine-ore and many thousands of tons were treated this way in areas surrounding the Coolgardie goldfields; the fines were bagged and packed to water for treatment. Modern, steam-powered, machinary needed water that was impossible to obtain during the first years.
How does this compare with the American experience?
As a footnote: I was able to dig into the old trash-dumps of Coolgardie during the early 1970's in a search for relics. The most common material, I was surprised to find, were rock=oyster shells. Apparently the diggers celebrated their success with fresh oysters. . . delivered on ice, in sawdust, by train from Perth. Ice was almost as valuable as gold I suppose in that hot, hell-hole before the turn of the century.
The trash areas are worth a go nowadays. The massive 'Kanowna Belle' gold mine just out of Kalgoorlie was found under the old Kanowna towns 'nightsoil' area. . .
lemons