Adam’s condition had been deteriorating every step of the way. At times, I could only coax him ten or twenty feet before he laid down again. He refused to eat or drink. At this point, I realized we might not get out of the canyon by dark and might need help getting Adam out at all.

If you do the math, it equates to about $1,500 of heavy metal value per three-hour dive. This is good wages, and you are doing a service to the environment by removing this toxic metal.

What do you do when you’ve located a promising deposit of gold or gemstones, but it’s trapped in solid rock?

The old timers typically washed these areas down to bedrock, and some areas appear terraced. I would imagine this is because these hydraulic mines were generally where the miners found old Tertiary river channels on the sides of mountains that were gold-bearing.