Prospecting & Detecting
Cold Water Gold
December 2011 by Tom Leftwich
It was June 2011, and my wife Fran and I with Grandson Lucas and good friend Ernie Cruz were attempting to get to our gold mining claim on the Middle Fork of the Feather River about ten miles from Quincy, California. Rain had poured down in the previous few days and the road in a large number of low places was under water. Following two hours of slugging through the mud...Want to Go to Australia?
Every year there are large nuggets found by the diligent, and occasionally by the lucky newbie.
Time Well Spent
Time is a commodity which if traded would dwarf the price of gold. Nobody has enough of it; we can’t make more of it; and whether squandered or spent wisely, once gone, it’s gone forever. To find gold we have to spend time.
Gemstones to Die For
Some gems can potentially poison you, make you sterile and even make you forget who you are.
There's a First Time for Everyone
...day one was like watching the Gold Rush television show. He furiously worked the nozzle in an up and down fashion that resembled Jack Hoffman sitting on a backhoe.
The Mole
My wife Dorothy has always enjoyed tent camping. She thought she was really roughing it at established campgrounds until I convinced her to take a trip with me to drywash for gold in a remote corner of an arid desert wilderness...
Swing and a Miss
A very good baseball hitter might get a hit roughly one time out of every three at-bats, but for prospectors often the results are much sparser and it may take many trips before the prospector hits a home run.
Mother Lode Leaf Gold
After removing about six inches of dirt and cobbles, the sound was a bit more recognizable. I was now confident that there was a definite target and not just a ground noise.
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