Go to one of the areas that I have named and find a place where a mountain stream has a flat, level topography and slow moving water. Gold is 19.7 times heavier than water and 7 times heavier than the rock with which it travels. Gold tends to go to the bedrock surface below the sand and gravel on the stream bottom and to the crevices of the bedrock. Also pull up weeds and grass along the stream bank and look for gold nuggets in the roots. Gold is almost always found in or near quartz rock. Erosion breaks up the quartz and releases gold streaks or veins. Look for gold in streams in slow water, at the end of rapids, after a natural break water, downstream of rocks and boulders, in water eddies behind logs, at the inside bend of a stream, and in pools of slower water before rapids.
http://www.goldprospectors.org/Sluice Box
The sluice box is a simple wooden trough with a series of riffles. Sluice boxes are easier and faster than a pan when there are large amounts of sand to go through. Build one with a few feet of solid one inch pine. The dimensions are about 6 feet long X 18 inches wide X 6 inches high. Riffles are pieces of one inch lumber to stop the heavier gold particles. The last riffle should be a little larger for safe guarding that no gold escapes the sluice box. Burlap, canvas, or carpet beneath the riffles gives the gold something to adhere to. When using the sluice box the angle should be about 1 inch per foot of the sluice. Dip a pail or coffee can to add water to the sluice at the top but not too much at a time. A head box with a screen bottom is placed at the top of the sluice and this is sometimes of the design that is referred to as a "rocker box".
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A commercially made sluice box
Amalgamation
The metal mercury is used for amalgamation. Use the magnet first and you will use less mercury which is fairly expensive. The sample that contains the gold is washed with the mercury and the mercury will take in all the gold. Scrape the mercury-gold into a chamois skin and twist and squeeze the mercury out. Retorting is the final removal of all the mercury. Here is the old miner's recipe. Put the mercury-gold inside a baking potato with a hollow carved inside just large enough for the mercury-gold sample. Wrap the two halves of the potato together with a wire and then put it in the cooking fire for about an hour. When taken out and unwrapped the gold will be in the hollow and the mercury will be absorbed by the potato. Mercury can be recovered by squeezing the potato. Be aware that mecury fumes are highly toxic!
A homemade sluice box
Here is some other old miner's knowledge that you will need to learn. Gold nuggets can be coarse -- nuggets that will drop through a 10 mesh screen. Medium -- nuggets that will go through a 10 mesh but not a 20 mesh screen. Fine -- nuggets that will go through a 20 mesh but not a 40 mesh screen. Powder or flour -- particles that will pass through a minus 40 mesh screen.
Moh Scale (Hardness Scale) 1. Talc (softest), 2. Gypsum, 3. Calcite, 4. Fluorite, 5. Apatite, 6. Feldspar, 7. Quartz, 8. Topaz, 9. Corundum. 10. Diamond (hardest).
Claims
As of the latest research materials I had here is the information on claims. This may have changed recently due to laws so I will keep up to date on this and bring you the changes.
Up to 20 acres per man may be made into a claim. 40 acres for two men, etc. up to 160 acres. Claims can be made on public land, national forest land, stock raising homesteads, and unpatented parts of congressional grants to railroads. Go to the County Agent or the regional BLM office for the latest information on open lands and maps. To retain rights to a claim you must do a minimum of $100.00 (one hundred dollars US) worth of work on each year beginning on July 1st. http://www.blm.gov/mt/st/en.html
Here are other places to get information: Office of Mineral Exploration U.S. Geological Survey Washington D.C. 20242
Montana Land Office 316 North 26th Street BIllings, Montana 59101
Gregan Wortmann
kruzndog@imt.net
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