By the tenth day of August fully 1500 men were at work on the beach; from being 'broke,' they were winning from 2 to 10 ounces of gold per day. 'It livened up the town considerably.' It is said that the highest yield from a day's work with a rocker was 129 ounces of gold, which was a clean-up made by Missouri Bill and his partner. Within three days silver coins disappeared from circulation, for the dollars were used in the process of saving the gold by means of amalgamation. Gold dust became the sole medium of exchange. Mercury went to $5 per pound. All the sheathing on the boats and the big coffee urns in the restaurants were utilized for the copper needed in the rockers and long-toms. Lumber being worth $400 per thousand, the diggers constructed rockers out of any sort of material, such as the boxes in which the condensed milk was packed. In less than two months 2000 men extracted over $1,000,000 from the beach.
The method of mining was simple indeed. First the prospector tested the sand by washing it in a pan. If the result indicated that he had found a rich spot, he started to dig a hole, from which he obtained a supply of gold-bearing material. This he fed into a rocker or long-tom, two devices of early origin. The long-tom essentially consists of an inclined surface over which the gravel or sand is washed by water fed by hand. From 6 to 10 feet of launder or sluice-box is set at an angle steep enough to permit the light particles to be washed away while allowing the gold to settle on the bottom. At the head, a hopper or box serves to hold from 50 to 150 pounds of material which is flushed, a little at a time, down the slope, by the action of water thrown out of a dipper or small bucket fixed to a handle. To arrest the gold, cross-bars or riffles are nailed to the bottom of theIn summer Nome-ites explore the beach for driftwood and sea glass (to make jewelry and art), build bonfires (especially on West Beach), and watch the amazing sunset over the Bering Sea. The gold that originally brought the world to Nome is still here, in smaller quantities.
launder. In addition, mercury may be employed, or even amalgamated copper plate. When the latter is used the plate is covered with wire screen or perforated sheet-iron, the effect of which is to size the gravel, causing the larger pebbles to slide down the slope, while the fine stuff sinks through the apertures and comes in contact with the mercury and amalgam. The long-tom was familiar to the early Californian miners, and in its simplest form dates back to the very beginning of the world-wide search for gold. In order to facilitate the process of concentration, a shaking motion was imparted, merely by placing the inclined sluice-box or launder upon rockers. This constituted the cradle, which is shorter and more compact than the 'long-torn,' the quicker separation of the gold rendering unnecessary a long surface.
These methods are still in vogue. It so happened that during August 1908, while I was at Nome, there was a sudden increase of beach mining. At one time I saw more than 100 men at work. The beach is steep and forms a fringe only 60 yards wide between the tundra and the tide. The scene of greatest activity in 1908 was in front of the town itself, under the wharves and in the rear of the houses. As the beach is a Government reservation, no location is possible, each man holding a small patch of ground only as long as he works upon it. Where the beach had been found most productive, the long toms were thick and the workers numerous, but without any suggestion of disorder. Each man knew his rights and forbore to trespass. The apparatus varied according to the means of the operator. Most of the long-toms had a false bottom of galvanized iron or else tin-plate torn from oil-cans. This is punctured with holes so as to act as a screen separating the fine stuff from the coarse; the latter runs down the slope into the sea, on the edge of which the apparatus is erected. The fine sizes of sand, including the particles of gold, drop down through the false bottom screen and onto the amalgamating plates. These are of copper, usually silver-plated. At the end of the copper plate there is, ordinarily, a bit of carpet, matting, or wire netting to serve as a check on any gold or amalgam escaping from above. At the upper end of the box or launder, the sides are raised or a hopper is constructed; into this the sand is discharged from a bucket, emptied from a wheelbarrow, or shoveled direct from the ground that is being exploited. While one operator attends to this part of the work, his partner is furnishing the water to wash the sand down the incline, standing with rubber boots in the tide and swinging a ladle consisting of a bucket fixed to a long wooden handle. Sometimes, for convenience, a temporary dam is made with bags of sand, forming a pool which is renewed by the waves that break over it at intervals. Some of the contrivances that I saw were pathetically crude; in one instance a small strip of old carpet and a few globules of mercury constituted the entire gold-saving system.
Nome Beach Dating Site
By the tenth day of August fully 1500 men were at work on the beach; from being 'broke,' they were winning from 2 to 10 ounces of gold per day. 'It livened up the town considerably.' It is said that the highest yield from a day's work with a rocker was 129 ounces of gold, which was a clean-up made by Missouri Bill and his partner. Within three days silver coins disappeared from circulation, for the dollars were used in the process of saving the gold by means of amalgamation. Gold dust became the sole medium of exchange. Mercury went to $5 per pound. All the sheathing on the boats and the big coffee urns in the restaurants were utilized for the copper needed in the rockers and long-toms. Lumber being worth $400 per thousand, the diggers constructed rockers out of any sort of material, such as the boxes in which the condensed milk was packed. In less than two months 2000 men extracted over $1,000,000 from the beach.
The method of mining was simple indeed. First the prospector tested the sand by washing it in a pan. If the result indicated that he had found a rich spot, he started to dig a hole, from which he obtained a supply of gold-bearing material. This he fed into a rocker or long-tom, two devices of early origin. The long-tom essentially consists of an inclined surface over which the gravel or sand is washed by water fed by hand. From 6 to 10 feet of launder or sluice-box is set at an angle steep enough to permit the light particles to be washed away while allowing the gold to settle on the bottom. At the head, a hopper or box serves to hold from 50 to 150 pounds of material which is flushed, a little at a time, down the slope, by the action of water thrown out of a dipper or small bucket fixed to a handle. To arrest the gold, cross-bars or riffles are nailed to the bottom of theIn summer Nome-ites explore the beach for driftwood and sea glass (to make jewelry and art), build bonfires (especially on West Beach), and watch the amazing sunset over the Bering Sea. The gold that originally brought the world to Nome is still here, in smaller quantities.
launder. In addition, mercury may be employed, or even amalgamated copper plate. When the latter is used the plate is covered with wire screen or perforated sheet-iron, the effect of which is to size the gravel, causing the larger pebbles to slide down the slope, while the fine stuff sinks through the apertures and comes in contact with the mercury and amalgam. The long-tom was familiar to the early Californian miners, and in its simplest form dates back to the very beginning of the world-wide search for gold. In order to facilitate the process of concentration, a shaking motion was imparted, merely by placing the inclined sluice-box or launder upon rockers. This constituted the cradle, which is shorter and more compact than the 'long-torn,' the quicker separation of the gold rendering unnecessary a long surface.These methods are still in vogue. It so happened that during August 1908, while I was at Nome, there was a sudden increase of beach mining. At one time I saw more than 100 men at work. The beach is steep and forms a fringe only 60 yards wide between the tundra and the tide. The scene of greatest activity in 1908 was in front of the town itself, under the wharves and in the rear of the houses. As the beach is a Government reservation, no location is possible, each man holding a small patch of ground only as long as he works upon it. Where the beach had been found most productive, the long toms were thick and the workers numerous, but without any suggestion of disorder. Each man knew his rights and forbore to trespass. The apparatus varied according to the means of the operator. Most of the long-toms had a false bottom of galvanized iron or else tin-plate torn from oil-cans. This is punctured with holes so as to act as a screen separating the fine stuff from the coarse; the latter runs down the slope into the sea, on the edge of which the apparatus is erected. The fine sizes of sand, including the particles of gold, drop down through the false bottom screen and onto the amalgamating plates. These are of copper, usually silver-plated. At the end of the copper plate there is, ordinarily, a bit of carpet, matting, or wire netting to serve as a check on any gold or amalgam escaping from above. At the upper end of the box or launder, the sides are raised or a hopper is constructed; into this the sand is discharged from a bucket, emptied from a wheelbarrow, or shoveled direct from the ground that is being exploited. While one operator attends to this part of the work, his partner is furnishing the water to wash the sand down the incline, standing with rubber boots in the tide and swinging a ladle consisting of a bucket fixed to a long wooden handle. Sometimes, for convenience, a temporary dam is made with bags of sand, forming a pool which is renewed by the waves that break over it at intervals. Some of the contrivances that I saw were pathetically crude; in one instance a small strip of old carpet and a few globules of mercury constituted the entire gold-saving system.
Nome Beach Dating Site
A more systematic arrangement commonly seen on the beach is a series of 6 to 10 sluice-boxes, set on a slope so that the reject falls into the sea and is removed by the tide. The boxes are lined with woven wire, having 2 to 4 holes per square inch, lying upon the cocoa matting that covers the bottom. Mercury is sprinkled on the matting by shaking it from a bottle through a cloth stopper. In order to expedite operations a small gasoline engine works a pump to supply the water for washing. The intake pipe of the pump rests on two wheels so that it can be withdrawn during stormy weather and the mouth of the pipe is protected with a wire net to shut out drift-wood. The distribution of the gold is erratic, so that constant panning is necessary in order to ascertain whether it is rich enough to be profitably worked. Thus I saw a man, shovel in hand, scrape the top sand to one side and then dig into the red layer underneath. Shoveling about 20 pounds of this stuff into his pan, he walked to the edge of the sea, dug a hole, which, becoming filled by the incoming wave, served as a basin in which he panned the sample. He obtained three 'good colors,' that is, three particles of gold worth about 10 cents. This was the first gold I had ever seen won from the sea-shore, although similar deposits are known in Oregon and California, in Tierra del Fuego, and also off the west coast of New Zealand. The gold in the beach at Nome is the result of a natural process of concentration, in which the surf is the final agent. The gold bearing material thus concentrated is derived from the rocks of the coast, the gold occurring in small quartz veins in soft schist, which is the prevailing formation. As the schist is weathered and eroded, the softer portions are swept into the streams and carried by them far out to sea, while the shattered quartz yields particles larger than silt but small enough for transport by running water. When borne to the mouths of the rivers this gold-bearing quartz gravel meets the tide and the surf, and. by them it is washed to and fro, until the heavier particles are thrown in a narrow band at the upper edge of the beach where it is topped by the tundra. Among the heavier particles thus deposited is the gold, which, by disintegration of the quartz that contained it, has been released and now in the form of flakes of metal lies concentrated in a fringe along the 30 miles of Arctic coast.
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