Dredge Tailings

Okletsee, I might recomend a lighter weight alternative. Cut the bottom off of an old refrigeration compressor. dump the pump out and the top makes a perfect heavy steel melting pot but also is heavy enough for a mortor and lots cheaper than haveing one made. You can cut it with a carbide blade, a cold chisel or a hack saw if you are patient. gambol.

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okletsee, I was vacationing in Gunnison Co. a few years ago and came across a milkey white quartz vein on top of the ground that someone had been digging years before. It was  about 4 inches -6 inches wide and ran long the ground for several hundred feet. The dig was on the end where it was thickest and I picked up 2 or 3 pieces that had color in them and took them home with me. I had a feeling it wasn't gold but I wanted to see to be sure. It was pyrite but it was embedded in the rock in such a way I couldn't tell until I cracked them open and got a tiny piece out.

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i've got to find someone with a good detector i can borrow to go hit some dredge tailings here in Idaho. I have a very promising spot picked out with lots of gold still in the stream. I am good right now just panning and sluicing but man a big quarts and gold nugget would be awesome!

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I'm closing out this chapter of hunting dredge piles!  I did not find any gold in them around Idaho City, but that doesn't mean its not there.  I talked with two men that DID find gold in tailings, but not consistantly.  Imagine that! The locals I talked to whose families worked on the dredges say its a waste of time.  If I had more time I would concentrate all of my efforts looking for more quartz that was in the piles.  Gold comes out of the quartz.  Having said that....finding placer gold was much more easy to do.  I have placer gold that I found on my own, and I had several spots that I could go to and get a little gold each time.  But my interest was and still is, in the tailings.  But now I am in Washington state so its time to start fresh over here.

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One last comment. This is second hand but My wife's Nephew who is a professional gold miner in Montana showed me an old steam dredge in the Ruby Valley,  that has been moored on dry ground since the stream was dredged out in the 1920s. We climbed over it and he pointed out that the screen that cuts out the rocks (what is this called?) from the soil was about 2-1/2 inch mesh. He said even though the creek was dredged some of the locals later found gold nuggets that were too big to go through the screen!!!... I'm guessing the story has been told many times and is probably true in many cases. He told me that legend has it that a man was posted to watch the screen while the dredge was running would let the big ones go and come back later to get them. No one the wiser. 

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