Most of the commercial mineral deposits are on the south and southwest part of the range between Minersville and Milford, though small amounts of gold and silver have also been found in iron-rich outcrops in the basalt to the south of Milford.

So, I took the plunge. I decided on the maximum I would pay for the claim, then placed my bid. A day later I received a congratulations e-mail that I was the high bidder, and oh, by the way, send us your money.

Because of multiple take-out points along a ditch line, the ditches themselves become a wealth of knowledge to us present-day miners.

Your odds of going home with gold will be higher using the discrimination mode, even if you might have misread one of the targets you rejected.

I had two of the guys go down into the creek and each one picked out a small island of bedrock. I had them detect their piece of bedrock and then gave a critique to all on how they did.