Difference between revisions of "AY Honors/Gold Prospecting/Answer Key"

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[[Image:Nerrena Fossickers in the Creek Nerrena.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Nerrena Fossickers in Nerrena Creek outside Ballarat]]
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{{honor_header|Unknown|2008|Recreation|North American Division}}
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{{New honor warning|2008}}
  
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The '''Victorian [[gold rush]]''' was a period in the history of [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], [[Australia]] approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s.
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==1. Create a list of equipment used for gold panning. Describe each item and tell what it is used for. The list should include at least the following.==
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;a. Gold Pan
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:A gold pan is typically a round pan with a flat bottom and conical sides. Modern gold pans are made from plastic and have riffles formed into one side. Gold panning is the simplest way to prospect for placer or flood gold.
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:A plastic gold pan with built in riffles is your best choice since it is lighter and won’t rust. Green or blue pans are somewhat easier to use than black pans since it is easier to see the black sands against green or blue than it is to see them against a black pan. A pan with a wide bottom will be easier to use when separating the gold from the black sands than a pan with a narrow bottom. For beginners stick with a basic pan and leave the pans with multiple sets of riffles, or non-round shapes alone. A pan full of material is heavy so for pathfinders an 8-10 inch pan is probably best. For adults start out with a 12-14 inch pan. Pans are available in sizes up to 17 inches but a 17 inch pan is very heavy when it is full.
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;b. Classifier
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:A classifier is a screen that is used to classify material to be panned. Classifying material is the process of separating different sizes of material. Usually a classifier is used to remove large rocks prior to panning. Classifiers are available with screens having holes from 1/2 inch down to 1/100th of an inch in size and are identified by the size of the holes in fractions of an inch. So a number 2 classifier would have 1/2 inch holes while a number 100 would have holes that were 1/100th of an inch in size. For panning the usual sizes of classifier used are 2, 4, and 8.
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:A cheap classifier that is very useful for classifying wet or damp material can be made using a roll of 1/2 or 1/4 inch hardware cloth. Take the hardware cloth and cut out a section large enough to make a cylinder that just fits inside your bucket with about an inch of overlap at the seam. Using the wire that held the roll of hardware cloth together, sew up the seam. Cut a number of 2-3 inch slits spaced evenly along one edge of the cylinder. Cut out a piece of hardware cloth that will just fit inside of the cylinder and secure it to the bottom of the cylinder by bending the flaps formed by cutting the slits under the bottom. Sew the bottom piece to the flaps using more of the wire from the hardware cloth. You should now have a basket that fits inside your bucket. You will want to wrap the top edge with something like cotton rope to protect your hands. To use the classifier fill the bucket with water and then swish the classifier full of material in the water. The small material will be rinsed out into the bucket and the remaining material can be discarded.
  
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During this era Victoria dominated the world's [[gold]] output. [[Ballarat]] for a while ranked number one in terms of gold production.<ref> Weston Bate, ''Lucky City: The first generation of Ballarat, 1851-1901''( 1978) </ref>
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;c. Snuffer Bottle
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:A snuffer or sucker bottle is a plastic squeezable bottle used to suck up gold or black sands from the bottom of the gold pan. The snuffer bottle has a straw through the opening. This straw lets you squeeze the bottle without worrying about the gold inside squirting out through the opening. If you have a large enough snuffer bottle or if you have more than one, consider just sucking up all the black sands and taking them home to cleanup later. You will be able to pan much more material if you don’t stop to clean out just the gold from each pan.
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:For cleaning out the gold from the black sands a small plastic eyedropper is useful to suck up just the gold and drop it in a vial.  
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:Glass vials are very nice for displaying gold, but they will break if dropped on a rock, use plastic vials when in the field.
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;d. Shovel
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:A shovel is used to dig up the material to be panned.
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;e. Pick
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:A pick is used to breakup hard packed material.
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;f. Bucket
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:A bucket is used to haul material from the location it is being dug out of the ground, to a location where it can be panned. 5 gallon buckets are popular because they are readily available and most classifiers are designed to fit on top of them. However 5 gallon buckets have one big disadvantage, when they are full they are very heavy, and they are almost always filled too full. 3 gallon buckets with the same size opening as a 5 gallon bucket are a much better choice.
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;g. Trowel
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:A trowel is used to dig material from locations where a large shovel will not fit.
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;h. Pry bar
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:A pry bar is used to move large rocks to allow you to get to the material underneath them. Other items that might be used for this are pulleys, winches, or come alongs.
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;i. Rock hammer
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:A rock hammer can be used to break up rocks so that they can be more easily moved.
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;j. Crevice tool
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:A crevice tool is a thin piece of metal with a narrow scoop on one end. It is used to dig material out of very narrow crevices between rocks. Purpose made crevice tools can be purchased, but you may have something around the house that will work just as well. Likely candidates are old flat screw drivers, hub cap removal tools from cars you no longer own, or just a piece of metal rod with one end pounded flat.
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;k. Drinking water
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:Prospecting is usually hard work, often in the hot sun. Staying hydrated is very important, and you almost certainly shouldn't drink the water from the river or stream you are panning in, so you should always have drinking water available.
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;l. Other possible items.
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:Other items you might want with you include
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:*Sun screen
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:*Food
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:*A canoe yoke and short straps. (This makes a wonderful bucket carrier.)
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:*Dry change of clothes.
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:*Small towel
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:*Water shoes or waders
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:*Backpack, to carry all your stuff in.
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:*Knee pad
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:*Etc, etc, etc...
  
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Gold discoveries in [[Beechworth]], Ballarat and [[Bendigo]] sparked gold rushes similar to those of [[California]] in 1849. <ref>David Goodman, ''Gold Seeking: Victoria and Calfornia in the 1850s'' (1994)</ref> At its peak some two tonnes of gold per week flowed into the [[Old Treasury Building, Melbourne|Treasury Building]] in [[Melbourne]].  
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==2. Define the following:==
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;a. Pay dirt
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:Pay dirt is material containing high concentrations of gold.
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;b. Quartz
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:Quartz is the second most common mineral on earth. It is a crystal made of silicon dioxide and is often found near with gold. Finding quartz does not mean that you will also find gold, but if you find gold there will almost always be quartz nearby. Lode gold is usually found mixed in or around quartz veins.
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[[Image:Pyrite Fools Gold Macro 1.JPG|thumb|Pyrite]]
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;c. Pyrite
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:Pyrite is often referred to as fool’s gold, there are other minerals that are also mistaken for gold but pyrite is by far the most common. Pyrite is composed of iron sulfide, and can easily be distinguished from gold because it is much less dense and it leaves a black streak if rubbed across the bottom of a gold pan.
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;d. Blond sands
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:Any of the light colored material washed out of the pan while panning. Blond sands usually have a [[w:Specific_gravity|specific gravity]] of 2 – 2.5, that is they are about twice as heavy as water.
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;e. Black sands
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:Black sands are mostly made of magnetite and hematite. Black sands have a [[w:Specific_gravity|specific gravity]] of about 5.
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;f. Placer
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:Placer gold is the gold that has been eroded from the mother lode and washed down into the streams and rivers.
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;g. Lode
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:Lode gold is gold that is still in the rock before it has been eroded and washed into a stream or river. A group of lodes or veins of gold is often referred to as a mother lode. One of the best-known mother lodes is the California Mother Lode. This is a zone one to four miles wide and 120 miles long in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The individual gold deposits within the mother lode are gold bearing quartz veins up to 50 feet thick and a few thousand feet long.
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;h. Nugget
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:A nugget is a naturally occurring chunk of gold. Nuggets can be picked up with your fingers and are usually at least a gram or more in weight. The largest nugget ever found was the [[w:Welcome_Stranger|“Welcome Stranger”]] and weighed 2316 troy ounces, it was found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia on February 5, 1869. Smaller pieces of gold that can still be picked up with your fingers are called pickers.
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;i. Flake
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:A flake is a piece of gold that is flat and cannot be easily picked up with your fingers.
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;j. Dust
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:Dust or flour gold, are tiny pieces of gold too small to be called flakes.
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;k. [[w:Specific_gravity|Specific gravity]]
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:[[w:Specific_gravity|Specific gravity]] is the ratio of the density a given material to the density of water. So a material with a [[w:Specific_gravity|specific gravity]] of 2 is twice as dense as water.
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;l. Wet and Dry panning
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:Panning is using a gold pan to separate gold from the surrounding material. This is accomplished by suspending the material in the pan in a fluid. Once the material is suspended in the fluid the denser material settles to the bottom of the pan. The fluid can be anything but the most common is water or air. Wet panning is panning using water as the fluid, dry panning is using air as the fluid. Wet panning is much more efficient that dry panning because gold is much denser than the surrounding material compared to water, but compared to air all the material is relatively dense.
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;m. [[w:Mercury (element)|Mercury]]
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:[[w:Mercury (element)|Mercury]] is a toxic metal that is liquid at room temperature. Since it is toxic it should be avoided, however it has often been used to pull fine gold out of black sands. When mixed with black sands containing gold, the [[w:Mercury (element)|mercury]] will amalgamate with the gold and you will end up with a lump of [[w:Mercury (element)|mercury]] containing all of the gold.
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;n. [[w:Troy_weight#Troy_pound|Troy pound]]
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:One [[w:Troy_weight#Troy_pound|troy pound]] equals .82 regular or [[w:Avoirdupois|“avoirdupois”]] [[w:Pound_(mass)#Avoirdupois_pound|pounds]], and is made up of [[w:Troy_weight#Troy_pound|troy pound]] 12 [[w:Troy_weight#Troy_ounce|troy ounces]].
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;o. [[w:Troy_weight#Troy_ounce|Troy ounce]]
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:The [[w:Troy_weight#Troy_ounce|troy ounce]] is the standard measure of gold and other precious metals. One [[w:Troy_weight#Troy_ounce|troy ounce]] equals 1.1 regular or [[w:Avoirdupois|“avoirdupois”]] [[w:Ounce#International_avoirdupois_ounce|ounces]].
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;p. [[w:Pennyweight|Pennyweight (dwt)]]
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:A [[w:Pennyweight|pennyweight]] is 1/20th of a troy ounce.
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;q. [[w:Grain (mass)|Grain]]
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:A [[w:Grain (mass)|grain]] is 1/24th of a [[w:Pennyweight|pennyweight]].
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;r. Gold fever
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:What people get that causes them to keep hunting for gold. Extreme cases of "Gold Fever" have been known to cause people to do seemingly insane things such as hauling a ton of equipment over the 33 mile [[w:Chilkoot Trail|Chilkoot Trail]] during the [[w:Klondike Gold Rush|Klondike Gold Rush]].
  
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The gold era evolved Victoria from a sheep grazing economy based around squatters, into an emerging industrial base and small (yeoman) farming community. The social impact of gold was that Victoria's population boomed and the lack of available land for small farming generated massive social tensions. Those on-going tensions around land and selection (small farming) culminated in the Kelly Outbreak of 1878. <ref> John McQuilton, ''The Kelly Outbreak 1878-1880; The geographical dimensions of social banditry'' (1979)</ref>
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==3. What are the following identifying characteristics of Gold.==
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;a. [[w:Specific_gravity|Specific gravity]]
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:The [[w:Specific_gravity|specific gravity]] of gold is 19.3. This is almost twice the [[w:Specific_gravity|specific gravity]] of lead, which is 11.3 and almost 4 times the [[w:Specific_gravity|specific gravity]] of black sands at around 5.
 +
;b. Color of streak
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:When rubbed against the bottom of a gold pan a piece of gold will leave a yellow streak.
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;c. Color
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:Gold is one of only two metals that in their raw state are not silver colored. Gold in its natural state is a yellow color. The other non-silver colored metal is copper.
  
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It was gold that created the growth and power of Melbourne over its rivals; this is witnessed in the rail networks radiating out of Melbourne to its regional towns and ports. Politically, Victoria's goldminers introduced male franchise and secret ballots, based on [[Chartist]] principles. As gold dwindled, pressures for land reform, protectionism and political reform grew and generated social struggles. <ref> Antony O'Brien, ''Shenanigans on the Ovens Goldfields''</ref> <ref> I.D. McNaughton, 'Colonial Liberalism, 1851-92', in Gordon Greenwood (ed.) ''Australia: A social and political history'' (1955)</ref> A Land Convention in Melbourne during 1857 demanded land reform. Melbourne, or "Smellbourne" (due to the stench of the tanneries along the river) became one of the great cities of the [[United Kingdom|British Empire]] and the world. Following the huge gold rushes were the [[Chinese people|Chinese]] in 1854. Their presence on the goldfields of Bendigo, Beechworth and the [[Bright, Victoria|Bright]] district resulted in riots, entry taxes, killings and segeration in the short term and became the foundations of the [[White Australia policy]]. <ref> Katherine Cronin, ''Colonial Casualties: Chinese in Early Victoria'' (1982); and ''Cf'' O'Brien, Ch. 3.</ref> In short, the gold rush was a revolutionary event and reshaped Victoria, its society and politics.
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==4. Where are some good places on a river or stream to look for gold.==
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:Gold is heavy so it is only moved by large amounts of fast water, like in the winter when a river is high or flooding. The gold will drop out of the stream wherever the water slows down, or where there is something to cause an area of low pressure in the stream. So look for gold on the downstream side of large rocks or boulders or in cracks that the gold may have dropped into and been wedged in place. Look on the inside part of bends in the stream. Imagine what the river would be like when it is full and look for gold where the water would have a chance to slow down.
  
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== Background ==
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==5. Make a timeline containing at least 15 items about the history of gold prospecting from 1600 until the present day.==
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By 1840 the city of [[Melbourne]], in the south of Victoria, was nearly five years old. Population growth in Melbourne and the surrounding countryside had been steady, and the population was around 10,000.  
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:The timeline should probably include the “major” gold rushes, as well as any local gold rushes, and specify when they started and how long they lasted, as well as how many people were involved and the amount of gold recovered. Other items in the time line should include things like major technological developments in prospecting, examples of this include the development and subsequent ban on hydraulic mining in California, the development of square set timbers in the Comstock silver mine, or the development of steam powered bucket dredges.
  
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In July [[1851 in Australia|1851]], Melbourne's 29,000 residents celebrated as they broke away from [[New South Wales]] and the Colony of [[Victoria, Australia|Victoria]] was born. Weeks later [[gold]] was found in Victoria. The discovery by [[Louis Michel]], and William McKay Aberdeen at Anderson's Creek, near [[Warrandyte, Victoria|Warrandyte]] 30 kilometres north-east of Melbourne was awarded a prize by the new Victorian Government, with other discoveries by [[James Esmond]] at [[Clunes, Victoria|Clunes]] in July 1851, and [[Thomas Hiscock]] at [[Buninyong, Victoria|Buninyong]], near Ballarat, on [[2 August]] [[1851]].Melbourne, Australia was Sydney
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==6. Learn about gold panning by doing one of the following:==
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;a. Do some gold panning. (preferred).
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:Most states in the U.S. have areas where gold can be located. The best way to meet this requirement is to go to an area and actually dig up the material and pan it there. It would be best for the instructor to scout the area first and find a location where there is at least some gold available, ideally there should be at least a few flakes or specs of gold in each pan.
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:Another way to meet this requirement is for the instructor to get some gold bearing material and then have the students pan it in some type of trough, the plastic pans available at your local hardware store for mixing mortar work well. You can also build a panning trough out of 2x10 lumber with a thin plywood bottom and line it with plastic.
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:You can also purchase black sand concentrates from various locations on the Internet. These can be mixed with sand and gravel from a local river or stream bank and then used for panning.
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:When panning don’t fill the pan completely full. It is easier, especially for beginners to start with a pan that is 1/2 to 3/4 full. You may also want to drop a small lead weight like a fishing weight into the pan. If the lead is still in the pan when the pan is down to just black sands then you can be sure that the gold is still there also.
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;b. Practice panning using flattened lead or tungsten shot mixed with sand (preferably from a river bank).
 +
:Get some sand and gravel, from a river or stream bank if possible, and mix in a specific number of flattened lead or tungsten shot. Tungsten shot would be the best choice for two reasons if you can find it. First unlike lead, tungsten is non toxic, and second, while lead at 11.3 is only about half the [[w:Specific_gravity|specific gravity]] of gold, tungsten is almost identical at 19.62.  
  
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On [[20 July]] [[1851]] [[Thomas Peters]], a hut-keeper on William Barker’s ''Mount Alexander'' station, found specks of gold at what is now known as Specimen Gully.  This find was published in the Melbourne ''[[The Argus (Australia)|Argus]]'' on [[8 September]] [[1851]], leading to a rush to the [[Mount Alexander]] or Forest Creek diggings, centred on present-day [[Castlemaine, Victoria|Castlemaine]], claimed as the richest shallow [[alluvial]] goldfield in the world.
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==7. Look up the following verses in the Bible and discuss them in relation to prospecting for gold.==
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;a. Matthew 13<nowiki>:</nowiki>44-46
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These discoveries were soon surpassed by [[Ballarat, Victoria|Ballarat]] and [[Bendigo, Victoria|Bendigo]]. Further discoveries including Beechworth in 1852, Bright, [[Omeo, Victoria|Omeo]], [[Chiltern, Victoria]] (1858-9) and [[Walhalla, Victoria|Walhalla]] followed.
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:<sup>44</sup>The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. <sup>45</sup>Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; <sup>46</sup>on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
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;b. Matthew 6<nowiki>:</nowiki>19-21
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{| class="prettytable" style="float:right"
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:<sup>19</sup>Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. <sup>20</sup>But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. <sup>21</sup>For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
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!Year
 
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!Population of Melbourne
 
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|-
 
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|1835||0
 
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|-
 
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|1840||10,000
 
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|-
 
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|1851||29,000
 
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|-
 
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|1854||123,000
 
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|}
 
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The population of Melbourne grew swiftly as the gold fever took hold. The total number of people in Victoria also rose. By 1851 it was 75,000 people. Ten years later this rose to over 500,000.
 
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First obtained was the alluvial gold found on the surface. It is reported that miners when first arrived on the [[Mount Tarrengower]] fields nuggets were picked up without digging. This was followed by exploitation of [[alluvial]] gold usually in creeks and rivers. The seekers used gold pans, puddling boxes and cradles to separate this gold from the dirt and water.                                 
 
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As alluvial gold ran out, underground or deep lead [[mining]] began. This was harder and dangerous. Locales such as Bendigo and Ballarat saw great concentrations of miners as teams and syndicates sank shafts. Coupled with erratic and vexatious policing and licence checks, tensions flared around Beechworth Bendigo and Ballarat. These tensions culminated in the Eureka Rebellion of 1854. Following the rebellion, a range of reforms gave miners a greater democratic say in  resolving disputes via Mining Courts and an extended electoral franchise.
 
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At [[Walhalla, Victoria|Walhalla]] alone, Cohens Reef produced over 50 tonnes (1.6 million tr oz) of gold in 40 years of mining.
 
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== Major and long lasting impact ==
 
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[[Image:ProspectorsHut Dargo.jpg|right|thumb|Prospector's Hut, Upper [[Dargo, Victoria]] ([[Gippsland]]), [[1870 in Australia|1870]].]]
 
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Australia's population changed dramatically as a result of the rushes.  In 1851 the Australian population was 437,655, of which 77,345, or just under 18%, were Victorians.  A decade later the Australian population had grown to 1,151,947 and the Victorian population had increased to 538,628; just under 47% of the Australian total and a seven-fold increase. In some small country towns where gold was found aboundant, the population could grow of over 1000% in a decade (e.g. Rutherglen had a population of ~2'000. Ten years later, it had ~60'000 which is a 3000% increase). The rapid growth was predominantly a result of the gold rushes.<ref>{{cite book | last = Caldwell | first = J. C. | authorlink =  | editor = Wray Vamplew (ed.) | title = Australians: Historical Statistics | date = 1987 | publisher = Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates | location = Broadway, New South Wales, Australia | id = ISBN 0-949288-29-2 | pages = pages 23 and 26 | chapter = Chapter 2: Population}}</ref>
 
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The gold rush is reflected in the architecture of Victorian gold-boom cities like Melbourne, [[Castlemaine, Victoria|Castlemaine]], [[Ballarat, Victoria|Ballarat]], [[Bendigo, Victoria|Bendigo]] and [[Ararat, Victoria|Ararat]].  Ballarat has [[Sovereign Hill]] &mdash; a 60 acre (240,000&nbsp;m²) recreation of a gold rush town &mdash; as well as the Gold Museum, while Bendigo has a large operating gold mine system which also functions as a tourist attraction.
 
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The rushes left the legacy of quaint Victorian towns in the Goldfields tourist region like [[Maldon, Victoria|Maldon]], [[Beechworth, Victoria|Beechworth]], [[Clunes, Victoria|Clunes]], [[Maryborough, Victoria|Maryborough]], [[Daylesford, Victoria|Daylesford]], [[Stawell, Victoria|Stawell]], [[Beaufort, Victoria|Beaufort]], [[Creswick, Victoria|Creswick]], [[St Arnaud, Victoria|St Arnaud]], [[Dunolly, Victoria|Dunolly]], [[Inglewood, Victoria|Inglewood]] and [[Buninyong, Victoria|Buninyong]].  With the exception of Ballarat and Bendigo, many of these towns were substantially larger than they are today. Most populations moved to other districts when gold played out in a given locality. <ref> O'Brien</ref>
 
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At the other end of the spectrum ghost towns, such as [[Walhalla, Victoria|Walhalla]], [[Mafeking, Victoria|Mafeking]] and [[Steiglitz, Victoria|Steiglitz]] still exist.
 
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[[Image:Cassilis historical area.jpg|thumb|right|As with many gold towns, after deposits of gold had been exploited, the town of [[Cassilis, Victoria|Cassilis]] ceased to exist. This picture shows the remains of part of King Cassilis Mine]]
 
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The last major gold rush in Victoria was at [[Berringa, Victoria|Berringa]], south of Ballarat, in the first decade of the 20th century. Gold mining ceased in Victoria, not because there was no more gold but in part because of the depth and cost of pumping.  The [[First World War]] also drained Australia of the labour needed to work the mines, but worse the prohibition on the export of gold from Australia in 1915, the abolition of the gold standard throughout the Empire, saw many goldtowns in Victoria die.<ref>Marnie Hague-Muir, "The economy at war" ,Joan Beaumont (ed.) Australia's War 1914-18</ref>. The slump in gold production never recovered. However, as of 2005 the recent increase in the gold price has seen a resurgence in commercial mining activity; mining has yet to be resumed in [[Bendigo, Victoria|Bendigo]], whilst some is occurring in [[Ballarat, Victoria|Ballarat]], and exploration proceeds elsewhere, for example, in [[Glen Wills, Victoria|Glen Wills]], an isolated mountain area near [[Mitta Mitta, Victoria|Mitta Mitta]] in north-eastern Victoria.
 
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== References ==
 
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<!--<nowiki>
 
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  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how
 
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  to generate footnotes using the <ref> and </ref> tags, and the template below
 
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{{reflist}}
 
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== See also ==
 
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*[[Gold rush]]
 
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*[[Welcome Stranger]]
 
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*[[California Gold Rush]] (1848-1855)
 
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==Further reading==
 
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* Robyn Annear,''Nothing but Gold'' Robyn Annear ISBN 1-876485-07-8
 
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* G.F. James & C.G. Lee,''Walhalla Heyday'' G.F. James & C.G. Lee ISBN 0-9596311-3-5
 
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* John Aldersea & Barbara Hood,''Walhalla: Valley of Gold'' John Aldersea & Barbara Hood ISBN 0-9750887-0-X
 
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* James Fleet, ''The history of gold discovery in Victoria,'', 1970.
 
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* Vivine McWaters, ''Beechworth's little canton'', 2002.
 
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* Geoffrey Serle, ''The Golden Age: A history of the colony of Victoria, 1851-1861'', 1963.
 
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* Carole Woods, ''Beechworth: A titan's field'', 1985.
 
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* John Maloney, ''Eureka'', 1984.
 
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* Dianne Talbot, ''The Buckland Valley Goldfield'', 2004.
 
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* Frank Cusack (ed.), ''Songs of the goldfields'', 1991.
 
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== External links ==
 
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*[http://www.egold.net.au/ eGold - Electronic Encyclopedia of Gold in Australia]
 
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*[http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/windows/gold/index.asp Victorian Museum]
 
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*[http://www.walhalla.org.au Walhalla]
 
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*[http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/ Sovereign Hill]
 
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*[http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/museum/index.shtml Gold Museum at Ballarat]
 
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*[http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/stories/s1032324.htm Report on resumed exploration]
 
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[[Category:Australian gold rushes]]
 
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[[Category:History of Victoria|Gold rush]]
 
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[[Category:1850s]]
 
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[[Category:1860s]]
 
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[[Category:History of Australia (1851-1900)]]
 
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[[Category:History of mining]]
 

Revision as of 18:26, 14 August 2008

Template:Honor header Template:New honor warning

1. Create a list of equipment used for gold panning. Describe each item and tell what it is used for. The list should include at least the following.

a. Gold Pan
A gold pan is typically a round pan with a flat bottom and conical sides. Modern gold pans are made from plastic and have riffles formed into one side. Gold panning is the simplest way to prospect for placer or flood gold.
A plastic gold pan with built in riffles is your best choice since it is lighter and won’t rust. Green or blue pans are somewhat easier to use than black pans since it is easier to see the black sands against green or blue than it is to see them against a black pan. A pan with a wide bottom will be easier to use when separating the gold from the black sands than a pan with a narrow bottom. For beginners stick with a basic pan and leave the pans with multiple sets of riffles, or non-round shapes alone. A pan full of material is heavy so for pathfinders an 8-10 inch pan is probably best. For adults start out with a 12-14 inch pan. Pans are available in sizes up to 17 inches but a 17 inch pan is very heavy when it is full.
b. Classifier
A classifier is a screen that is used to classify material to be panned. Classifying material is the process of separating different sizes of material. Usually a classifier is used to remove large rocks prior to panning. Classifiers are available with screens having holes from 1/2 inch down to 1/100th of an inch in size and are identified by the size of the holes in fractions of an inch. So a number 2 classifier would have 1/2 inch holes while a number 100 would have holes that were 1/100th of an inch in size. For panning the usual sizes of classifier used are 2, 4, and 8.
A cheap classifier that is very useful for classifying wet or damp material can be made using a roll of 1/2 or 1/4 inch hardware cloth. Take the hardware cloth and cut out a section large enough to make a cylinder that just fits inside your bucket with about an inch of overlap at the seam. Using the wire that held the roll of hardware cloth together, sew up the seam. Cut a number of 2-3 inch slits spaced evenly along one edge of the cylinder. Cut out a piece of hardware cloth that will just fit inside of the cylinder and secure it to the bottom of the cylinder by bending the flaps formed by cutting the slits under the bottom. Sew the bottom piece to the flaps using more of the wire from the hardware cloth. You should now have a basket that fits inside your bucket. You will want to wrap the top edge with something like cotton rope to protect your hands. To use the classifier fill the bucket with water and then swish the classifier full of material in the water. The small material will be rinsed out into the bucket and the remaining material can be discarded.
c. Snuffer Bottle
A snuffer or sucker bottle is a plastic squeezable bottle used to suck up gold or black sands from the bottom of the gold pan. The snuffer bottle has a straw through the opening. This straw lets you squeeze the bottle without worrying about the gold inside squirting out through the opening. If you have a large enough snuffer bottle or if you have more than one, consider just sucking up all the black sands and taking them home to cleanup later. You will be able to pan much more material if you don’t stop to clean out just the gold from each pan.
For cleaning out the gold from the black sands a small plastic eyedropper is useful to suck up just the gold and drop it in a vial.
Glass vials are very nice for displaying gold, but they will break if dropped on a rock, use plastic vials when in the field.
d. Shovel
A shovel is used to dig up the material to be panned.
e. Pick
A pick is used to breakup hard packed material.
f. Bucket
A bucket is used to haul material from the location it is being dug out of the ground, to a location where it can be panned. 5 gallon buckets are popular because they are readily available and most classifiers are designed to fit on top of them. However 5 gallon buckets have one big disadvantage, when they are full they are very heavy, and they are almost always filled too full. 3 gallon buckets with the same size opening as a 5 gallon bucket are a much better choice.
g. Trowel
A trowel is used to dig material from locations where a large shovel will not fit.
h. Pry bar
A pry bar is used to move large rocks to allow you to get to the material underneath them. Other items that might be used for this are pulleys, winches, or come alongs.
i. Rock hammer
A rock hammer can be used to break up rocks so that they can be more easily moved.
j. Crevice tool
A crevice tool is a thin piece of metal with a narrow scoop on one end. It is used to dig material out of very narrow crevices between rocks. Purpose made crevice tools can be purchased, but you may have something around the house that will work just as well. Likely candidates are old flat screw drivers, hub cap removal tools from cars you no longer own, or just a piece of metal rod with one end pounded flat.
k. Drinking water
Prospecting is usually hard work, often in the hot sun. Staying hydrated is very important, and you almost certainly shouldn't drink the water from the river or stream you are panning in, so you should always have drinking water available.
l. Other possible items.
Other items you might want with you include
  • Sun screen
  • Food
  • A canoe yoke and short straps. (This makes a wonderful bucket carrier.)
  • Dry change of clothes.
  • Small towel
  • Water shoes or waders
  • Backpack, to carry all your stuff in.
  • Knee pad
  • Etc, etc, etc...

2. Define the following:

a. Pay dirt
Pay dirt is material containing high concentrations of gold.
b. Quartz
Quartz is the second most common mineral on earth. It is a crystal made of silicon dioxide and is often found near with gold. Finding quartz does not mean that you will also find gold, but if you find gold there will almost always be quartz nearby. Lode gold is usually found mixed in or around quartz veins.
Pyrite
c. Pyrite
Pyrite is often referred to as fool’s gold, there are other minerals that are also mistaken for gold but pyrite is by far the most common. Pyrite is composed of iron sulfide, and can easily be distinguished from gold because it is much less dense and it leaves a black streak if rubbed across the bottom of a gold pan.
d. Blond sands
Any of the light colored material washed out of the pan while panning. Blond sands usually have a specific gravity of 2 – 2.5, that is they are about twice as heavy as water.
e. Black sands
Black sands are mostly made of magnetite and hematite. Black sands have a specific gravity of about 5.
f. Placer
Placer gold is the gold that has been eroded from the mother lode and washed down into the streams and rivers.
g. Lode
Lode gold is gold that is still in the rock before it has been eroded and washed into a stream or river. A group of lodes or veins of gold is often referred to as a mother lode. One of the best-known mother lodes is the California Mother Lode. This is a zone one to four miles wide and 120 miles long in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The individual gold deposits within the mother lode are gold bearing quartz veins up to 50 feet thick and a few thousand feet long.
h. Nugget
A nugget is a naturally occurring chunk of gold. Nuggets can be picked up with your fingers and are usually at least a gram or more in weight. The largest nugget ever found was the “Welcome Stranger” and weighed 2316 troy ounces, it was found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia on February 5, 1869. Smaller pieces of gold that can still be picked up with your fingers are called pickers.
i. Flake
A flake is a piece of gold that is flat and cannot be easily picked up with your fingers.
j. Dust
Dust or flour gold, are tiny pieces of gold too small to be called flakes.
k. Specific gravity
Specific gravity is the ratio of the density a given material to the density of water. So a material with a specific gravity of 2 is twice as dense as water.
l. Wet and Dry panning
Panning is using a gold pan to separate gold from the surrounding material. This is accomplished by suspending the material in the pan in a fluid. Once the material is suspended in the fluid the denser material settles to the bottom of the pan. The fluid can be anything but the most common is water or air. Wet panning is panning using water as the fluid, dry panning is using air as the fluid. Wet panning is much more efficient that dry panning because gold is much denser than the surrounding material compared to water, but compared to air all the material is relatively dense.
m. Mercury
Mercury is a toxic metal that is liquid at room temperature. Since it is toxic it should be avoided, however it has often been used to pull fine gold out of black sands. When mixed with black sands containing gold, the mercury will amalgamate with the gold and you will end up with a lump of mercury containing all of the gold.
n. Troy pound
One troy pound equals .82 regular or “avoirdupois” pounds, and is made up of troy pound 12 troy ounces.
o. Troy ounce
The troy ounce is the standard measure of gold and other precious metals. One troy ounce equals 1.1 regular or “avoirdupois” ounces.
p. Pennyweight (dwt)
A pennyweight is 1/20th of a troy ounce.
q. Grain
A grain is 1/24th of a pennyweight.
r. Gold fever
What people get that causes them to keep hunting for gold. Extreme cases of "Gold Fever" have been known to cause people to do seemingly insane things such as hauling a ton of equipment over the 33 mile Chilkoot Trail during the Klondike Gold Rush.

3. What are the following identifying characteristics of Gold.

a. Specific gravity
The specific gravity of gold is 19.3. This is almost twice the specific gravity of lead, which is 11.3 and almost 4 times the specific gravity of black sands at around 5.
b. Color of streak
When rubbed against the bottom of a gold pan a piece of gold will leave a yellow streak.
c. Color
Gold is one of only two metals that in their raw state are not silver colored. Gold in its natural state is a yellow color. The other non-silver colored metal is copper.

4. Where are some good places on a river or stream to look for gold.

Gold is heavy so it is only moved by large amounts of fast water, like in the winter when a river is high or flooding. The gold will drop out of the stream wherever the water slows down, or where there is something to cause an area of low pressure in the stream. So look for gold on the downstream side of large rocks or boulders or in cracks that the gold may have dropped into and been wedged in place. Look on the inside part of bends in the stream. Imagine what the river would be like when it is full and look for gold where the water would have a chance to slow down.

5. Make a timeline containing at least 15 items about the history of gold prospecting from 1600 until the present day.

The timeline should probably include the “major” gold rushes, as well as any local gold rushes, and specify when they started and how long they lasted, as well as how many people were involved and the amount of gold recovered. Other items in the time line should include things like major technological developments in prospecting, examples of this include the development and subsequent ban on hydraulic mining in California, the development of square set timbers in the Comstock silver mine, or the development of steam powered bucket dredges.

6. Learn about gold panning by doing one of the following:

a. Do some gold panning. (preferred).
Most states in the U.S. have areas where gold can be located. The best way to meet this requirement is to go to an area and actually dig up the material and pan it there. It would be best for the instructor to scout the area first and find a location where there is at least some gold available, ideally there should be at least a few flakes or specs of gold in each pan.
Another way to meet this requirement is for the instructor to get some gold bearing material and then have the students pan it in some type of trough, the plastic pans available at your local hardware store for mixing mortar work well. You can also build a panning trough out of 2x10 lumber with a thin plywood bottom and line it with plastic.
You can also purchase black sand concentrates from various locations on the Internet. These can be mixed with sand and gravel from a local river or stream bank and then used for panning.
When panning don’t fill the pan completely full. It is easier, especially for beginners to start with a pan that is 1/2 to 3/4 full. You may also want to drop a small lead weight like a fishing weight into the pan. If the lead is still in the pan when the pan is down to just black sands then you can be sure that the gold is still there also.
b. Practice panning using flattened lead or tungsten shot mixed with sand (preferably from a river bank).
Get some sand and gravel, from a river or stream bank if possible, and mix in a specific number of flattened lead or tungsten shot. Tungsten shot would be the best choice for two reasons if you can find it. First unlike lead, tungsten is non toxic, and second, while lead at 11.3 is only about half the specific gravity of gold, tungsten is almost identical at 19.62.

7. Look up the following verses in the Bible and discuss them in relation to prospecting for gold.

a. Matthew 13:44-46
44The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
b. Matthew 6:19-21
19Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. 20But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. 21For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
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