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Montana's Virginia City Has Golden Legacy

The discovery of gold at Alder Creek, centrally located in Madison County, Montana, was unusually well documented, with the date and time placed at May 26th, 1863, at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. A group of six miners had been searching the area with little luck until the leader, Bill Fairweather, spotted an exposed area of promising bedrock. He dug up a shovel full of dirt and put it in Henry Edgar’s pan for washing. About the same time that Edgar was busy washing out the pan, Fairweather was poking around the bedrock with his pocketknife. Both spotted the color of gold at once.

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Legislative and Regulatory Update


As mentioned in last month’s column, California Assemblywoman Lois Wolk attached a rider to the pending budget bill. The rider calls for a new study (Environmental Impact Report) on the effects of suction gold dredging, funding for the study, and a two-year moratorium on suction dredging while the study is being completed.

Melman on Gold & Silver


It started out as a modest tropical depression near the Bahamas and was forecast to hit the east coast of Florida and then peter out over land. Then it was forecast to hit south Florida and strengthen moderately over the Gulf of Mexico before hitting the Florida Panhandle as perhaps a Category One hurricane.

Continental Drift


As soon as reasonably accurate maps were made, 200 years ago, one could not help but note the parallelism of some coastlines with those on other continents. The coastlines of Africa and South America, in particular, are strikingly similar. The first scientist to write on the subject was an Austrian, Edward Suess, who put India, Africa, and South America into a supercontinent he named “Gondwanaland.” But, it was not until Alfred Wegener, a German, came out with his “Theory of Continental Drift” in 1912, that scientists took note.

Time for a New Approach: Detecting Float Gold


The first pieces found were in a spot that most gold hunters would not even detect, right in the middle of a downslope meadow.

Alaskan Gold Adventure


In Chicken I had my first experience with the famous Alaska blue clay, sometimes called the blue layer. The blue layer is where the best fine gold was to be found.

Study Confirms Mercury Levels Safe in California's Gold Country


While the Water Board documented the selenium levels in fish and noted they exceed the levels of mercury, they have yet to acknowledge the numerous scientific studies that show selenium effectively neutralizes the effects of mercury.

Looking Back


Excerpts from California Mining Journal, our original title, published 50 years ago this month.

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The Bawl Mill   • Our Readers Say   • 43 CFR 3809 Update   • Breccia Pipes   • Newmont Tries to Become World's Largest   • The Final Gold Strike of the Alaska Gold Rush—Livengood Stampede, 1914   • GATA Update   • Aussie Gold—A Look at Queensland   • Picks & Pans: Lost Below   • Placer Gemstones   • Gold in Iceland?   • Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices   • Melman on Gold & Silver

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