Diamond & Jewelry News, Advice and Prices for Consumers
Diamond & Jewelry News, Advice and Prices for Consumers
September 14, 2010
Obviously they didn't have a lot of sophisticated technological methods to mine gold back in the 19th century gold rush... Ho wdid they do it? Were any modern day techniques developed in this era by the old California gold diggers?
September 17, 2010
Yes. Well, it started with simple panning for gold in the state's rivers and streams, because there was just so much gold to be found in the gravel beds at the time. This was a type of placer mining. But the problem was this could only be done on a small scale, so groups of hopeful gold seekers would use place mining "long-toms" which meant they could sift through a lot more of the gravel. It is estimated that during the first five years of the gold rush, these guys extracted twelve million ounces of gold, which would cost seven billion dollars today! In 1853 hydraulic mining was invented by Edward Matteson. This technique basically used high-pressure jets of water to remove gravel from the gold. The loose gravel and gold passed aver sluices and the gold would collect at the bottom. it's estimated that roughly 6.5 billions dollars worth (in today's prices) were extracted this way. The method used in the California gold rush spread around the world.
September 16, 2010
Another technique used in those days was called "coyoteing." If I understood this correctly, the gold diggers would dig about 30 feet deep into the solid rock around the streams and then they dug as many tunnels as they could so that they could obtain the sediment and then they extracted gold from it.
