The only thing that saved me was talking to a local miner who gave me a “heads up” that private individuals owned all the mineral rights in that section.

The burning question I needed answered was why didn’t the deposit ever get mined of at least one of the valuable minerals? A couple of reasons have come to light.

We descended hunched over, down a long, steep, wooden staircase to the 1,000-level.

The first and most important thing of the sampling process is to try to be as unbiased as possible. There is a natural tendency to select rock that looks the best—even unconsciously.