Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1893 — THE YELLOW METAL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE YELLOW METAL.

FACTS ABOyT BRIGHT AND SHINING GOLD. Where It Is Found and How It Is Gotten Out of the Ground—Different Methods of Mining Employed—Historic Sutter's Mill, California. Discovered by Marshall. The question as to the employment of silver for currency makes interesting some facts in relation to gold, the other metal used for ». he same purpose. There is an enormous amount of gold produced annually, the output last year being $138,81)5,627. Australia furnishes more of this than any country, and we come next with $33,000,000 worth, which is $870,800 less than the production of Australasia. ' The most acceptable theory as to its hiding places is that gold in the days when earth was young existed in certain rocks in a finely di-

vided and powdered condition. The rock covered vast areas. By the slow processes of nature’s great laboratory the auriferous atoms concentrated 'along planes of fracture, the cracks and fissures in the bed ! rocks mingled with quartz and other minerals.

These are the gold veins and drifts so frequently described in the mining nomenclature of to-day. And it is from this source that the bplk of the world’s gold is mined at present. Where these veins have been acted upon by the evading and disintegrating forces of nature the rocky crust has been broken down and the golden atoms again concentrated in beds of clay or gravel. These are what miners term “placers.” It was in the days of the famous placer mining that the romance and story of American and gold mining lay. It wfs the mining of the “fortyniners,” as pictured by the graphic ?ens of Bret Hart and Joaquin Miller, n placer mining it was every man

lor himself. The miner prospected until he found what he thought was pay dirt Then he staked his claim and set up his “cradle," a rough wooden box into which he shoveled the gold-flecked gravel. Upon this he poured water and rocked his cradle until the water had run out at the little sluiceways at the ends, carrying with it the encumbering soil, and leaving the glinting yellow dust and tiny nuggets behind. These were gathered by hand and deposited in the buckskin pouch that formed the sole safe deposit company of the “forty-niner” and his kind. It was a hard life, but full of the fascination of danger and the greater fascination of chance. The Modern Method* The days of individual alluvial digging are practically at an end. The miner does not now prospect for himself, but works for a syndicate or a company of capitalists, which carries on business on a gigantic scale. The mines now worked are mostly those in which the gold is held intact in quartz dug from veins and drifts. The quartz must be broken, crushed and ground fine as powder. This is the work of the stamp mill—huge mortars and pestles operated by machinery. The real difficulty in quartz mining lies rather in separating the gold from the baser minerals than in the crushing. The finely powdered mass is carried from

the stamps by running water first over a shallow bath of mercury. Quicksilver Is heavy, but gold is heavier, and into the mercury the larger particles of gold sink. Next the. water spreads itself over plates of copper, coated with cyanide of potassium. This coathig catches •tin more of the floating particles. The stream pursues its course over a stretch of blankets, the rough and hairy surface of which retains many more of the yellow atoms. Finally the residue falls into a pit, where everything mineral sinks to the bottom, and the water is allowed to run away. To obtain the gold the mercury bath is emptied, the coating oarefully scraped off the copper plates md the sediment at the bottom of ttw pit washed and saved. The mam

is put into a retort, where the mercury is volatilized and .passes off in vapor. The remaining conglomeration of gold, copper, iron, silica and other substances is fused; the gold goes to the bottom and the other ingredients form a crust of slag on top. It isn’t as romantic and picturesque as the old placer-mining, but it is a deal surer, and what the miner loses in the feverish excitement of washing gold soil for himself he makes up in a steady job for fair wages. The average cost of producing one ton of ore varies from 50 cents to $2, and the cost of extracting the gold from the ore runs from $1 to $3. This brings the cost of mining to from $1.50 to $5 per ton, which experts say is a fair average, tnough the cost runs higher in some small mines. Gold in This Country. California is the great gold field, of the continent. Last year there was mined in this State $12,571,900. An interesting feature of the latter-day mining in California is the extent to which the Chinese are getting into the business: Last year they mined $1,134,757. This was taken out of placers in sums of from slotos6o,oQo. The bulk of the American production outside of California comes from Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and Dakota. Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska follow closely in about the order named. Gold is produced, however, in nearly every State and Territory in the Union. The States along the Appalachian range are mining considerable gold. Last year South Carolina produced $123,364, Georgia $94,733, North Carolina $78,560, and Virginia $5,002. Maryland produced but sl,000, but the year before had SII,OOO set down to her credit New and improved methods of mining which have been introduced into these mines within the last year will materially increase their production, as it wM make profitable many mines which had been closed, not because they were exhausted, but because it did not pay to work them. Texas, Maine and Michigan all have gold, but not in paying quantities.

JAMES W. MARSHALL. [Who first discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill, California.]

SUTTER’S MILO, CALIFORNIA. [Near the present site of Sacramento, where James W. Marshall, of New Jersey, accidentally discovered gold on Monday. January 24, 1848, while walking along the tail-race of the little mill, thus inaugurating the most dramatic and interesting period of California’s history.]

A PRIMITIVE GOLD MINER AND HIS OUTFIT.