Page 25 - 2004 DT 9 Issues

Wha t’ s Insi d e !
Featured Articles
Gold and Silver Everywhere....................... 1
Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort.......................5
Special

Quiz............................................................7
Departments
April 2 0 0 4 News & Notes............................................2
Programs & Hikes........................................4
Desk Schedule............................................6
Bulletin Board.............................................8

the population had increased more than rock as a vein of quartz. But either way,
GOLD AND SILVER
tenfold. you couldn’t miss it. Many miners cursed
EVER YWHERE — They got there by one of two routes, that bluish sludge that clogged up their
in California and Nevada! and both were something to dread. There sluices, not realizing that it was silver. A
was the foreboding wilderness that lay sluice was a long, inclined trough with
by Chuck Kleber direct to the west with its multitude of riffle boxes. Gravel and dirt were shov-
dangers and hardship over more than eled in at the top and washed down. Gold
magine it is 1848 and you’re 2,000 miles, or one could book sea pas- made it relatively easy by being heavier
wondering about the future. There sage around the tip of South America. than stones and dirt. It sank to the bottom
I are stories about gold being found That took up to six months with dangers and was caught by cleats at the bottom
at Sutter’s Mill in California, but it’s all equal to the overland route. Still, they of the sluice. The lure of a big find drove
too fantastic to believe. Then comes the came. miners on, long after they had experi-
electrifying confirmation from President The major gold belt was called the enced disappointment—like the
James K. Polk on December 5th. It’s true; Mother Load, and it ran along the west- enormous nugget of almost 200 troy
gold has been discovered in California ern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. ounces found in California.
at Sutter’s Mill! They say it’s every- Mining camps While it
where. You must go and make your with names like was still rela-
fortune. But how will you get there, how Roaring Camp, tively easy to
will you mine it, and what equipment will Jackass Hill, get gold from
you need? Anyway, for now it’s . . . Whiskeytown, rivers and
and El Dorado streams, miners
Farewell, dear wife, keep up good cheer, sprang up. Unlike largely ignored
There’s glittering scenes before me many gold mines more expensive
You soon with me the wealth shall share elsewhere, you © Norm Kresge 2004 hard-rock min-
That lays in California could actually ing. But they
pick it up off the turned to vein
The saga of gold and silver in the Old ground. Just a few Eldorado Canyon Mine mining in ear-
West truly belongs to California and simple tools and you were able to strike nest when that appeared to offer bigger
Nevada. It is an epic story that has ev- out on your own. rewards. It also brought nature-damaging
erything; adventure, fortitude, treachery, In the earliest days, most finds were techniques like drilling and blasting, but
daring, love, death, luck, and the despair “placer gold.” It was the easiest way of in those days no one was thinking about
of failure. It made some men famous and all, and you didn’t need a load of equip- environmental protection. California was
some men rich, but most were forgotten. ment. It was just there. Stake your claim producing nearly half of the world’s gold
One of the richest was Sam Brannan, who along a stream and start panning for those in the early 1850’s, but then it dried up.
never mined a cent for gold. He shrewdly glittering grains in the water. You didn’t The great days of the Gold Rush had
provided the tools; shovels, pick axes, have to be an expert to recognize gold; it lasted only five years.
pans, and more for the thousands who ar- didn’t combine with other elements. It
rived. It is estimated that 90,000 miners might be mixed in with the sand of a
arrived in California in 1849, and by 1852 stream or it might be in a shelf of bed- Gold and Silver, continued on page 6