Small Mining Operations
The Hughes Creek Placers, Montana
April 2013 by Rob Towner
Gold discoveries in the Montana territories sparked a frantic stampede to these bonanza destinations in the early 1860s. Hughes Creek is located in Ravalli County, which is located in western Montana, and the gold here is...
Extracting & Smelting Your Gold
Unfortunately, not all the gold that we prospectors find is pretty, or appealing to the eyes. They are not all nice, bright, shiny nuggets with lots of character that carry high collector value.
The “Chuck It Out” Nugget
This was no ordinary nugget. It had not traveled very far from its nearby source, and that did mean a lot, as we were searching for the source of several such nuggets found during a gold rush that occurred in 1859.
Hard Rock 101: Blasting With Kinepak Explosives
Fortunately, there are products on the market that can address these problems and make a small-scale mining operation feasible.
Principles of Designing Your Mill Production System, Part I: Starting Up
One of the issues that prospectors run into when working to upscale from micro-scale hard rock testing to a greater production output, is that they often confuse individual devices or machines with systems.
Dry Washer, Wet System or Metal Detector?
I love to dry wash old nugget patches found by detector operators, and I have found my fair share of gold dry washing those areas. I have also found a few nuggets using a detector on the bedrock exposed by dry washing the patches.
Gold Dredging on Oregon's South Umpqua
Familiarizing oneself with an unfamiliar part of the country is often a requirement of successful gold prospecting. In the pursuit of gold, it may become necessary for a prospector to branch out into new hunting grounds.
Tips for Cleaning Gold Nuggets
I pulled out the nuggets I had worked on previously and looked at the size of the wire basket that the items to be cleaned are placed into. It looks much like a miniature french fry deep fryer.
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The Bawl Mill
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