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Melman on Gold & Silver
September 2002 by Leonard Melman
Anyone looking for stability sure didn’t appreciate the financial markets of this past month as they fell, rose, fell and rose with dizzying swiftness, changing directions on the turn of a dime. This was as true of the gold share markets as it was of the financial markets in general.The Wild Rush to Find More Cobalt—Part I
While some future cobalt will come from recycling lithium batteries and other products, the coming huge need for cobalt is virtually a perfect storm of heavy demand and insufficient supply.
What Equipment Do I Need?
Getting started in prospecting often requires the purchase of some equipment, but one can spend as little as $10 and be finding gold or spend thousands and also be finding gold—yet you will probably have many more opportunities and possibilities with more and better equipment.
A Working Arrastra
If everything you see, the men, the animals, the crude mechanism that grinds gold from rock, everything around you, looks to be from centuries ago, if the mysterious sound you hear is pure history and the smell around you is primitive, if the earth beneath your feet quivers with untold strangeness; and, the taste in your mouth sweeps time out of mind then, if all of this happens at once, if every one of your five senses has taken you into the past, then you’ve traveled back in time.
Holcomb Valley Gold, Southern California
The first time I found gold in the creek here is when I decided to try a new place to drywash on a hill not far from the dirt path I was on.
Looking Back
Excerpts from CMJ published 50 years ago this month.
Gold: Is It Everywhere?
Gold, on the other hand, is super rare, and is one of the rarest elements in the earth’s crust. It averages only 0.000004 percent of the earth’s surface. That is four parts in a billion.
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