Excited for this first notable evidence, I returned to that riverbed, looking for another paystreak and obviously more jade.

After a short time, the tailings pile can get very large, and can actually block the downstream end of the sluice box.

Picking the right spot to placer has to do with years of experience, and a little luck. The textbooks can tell you where it should be, but sometimes the rules just don’t seem to apply.

As I arrived at my detecting location, I got all my gear and headed up the trail. I had to stop and take in the devastation all around me.

On my weekends off I spent many hours dredging the Second Broad River from Cane Creek Road up to the headwaters. I used a three-inch dredge with air and graduated to a five-inch with air.

The father-son duo spent years combing this bit of Pennsylvania wilderness with high-end metal detectors, drills and other tools to prospect for a fabled cache of Civil War gold.

…to see the huge differences between the gold production amounts of the Western States, let’s look at the gold production—both hard rock and placer—of these 13 states up to the present.