Gold panning
Instead of spending a nice afternoon at a bar, or even worse at a television, you might go out in the nature and do something exciting. Why won't you walk to the nearest stream and check if there is some gold in it.
Pure gold is not only rear, valuable and nice material, it is also very useful because of its magnificent attributes. Reshaping gold is extremely easy, because of its perfect plasticity. Small pieces of gold can be rolled in gold leafs that are thousand times thinner than paper. This papers are so thin that NASA used it as a UV protector on the visors of the American astronauts. Nowadays gold is used in the most expensive high technology, as well as in julery industry. No wonder, that gold has been the most important metal for the last few centuries and its price doesn't seem to drop soon.
In the nineties great gold fibbers have rushed across the USA. The gold seekers had been changing the streams of the hole rivers, so they hadn't had to work standing in the water. Nowadays great pumps are used soaking the sand from the river and searching for gold. In South African Republic they get 1 pound of gold out of 80 tons of sand inspite of that their work is highly profitabile.
Nowadays 70% of the world gold production come form Witwatersrand Reef in South African Republic.JAR. In the year 1886 this reef has been exidently discovered by George Harrison. He worked as a coal finder on a farm in Witwatersrand. One morning took a walk around the beach with his close friend George Walkerjem. George accidentally picked up a stone and Harrison found out its a pure gold. Now day there is more than 500 gold mines that are situated inside the distance 300 miles around Johannesburg. Worker, mainly Bantu Niger's, work downto 4000 meters under the earth. One of the problems down there is high temperature, that often exceeds 176 Fahrenheit. This mines produce more than 900 tons of gold within a year.
Looking for gold could be an interesting and healthy way to spent a free day, maybe even the hole holidays. Eve if you don't find any gold, you will learn a lot about interesting materials that might happen to be in your dish.
The most common way of looking for gold is gold panning. It's used by ammeters, as well as by professional gold hunters. You have probably already seen some old westerns, where gold hunters have been standing in the weather rolling somekind of dish with their hands. This dish will be you main rekvizit. A little bigger dish, made of wood, with a large edge would be quite OK. The dish doesn't have to be made of wood, but your work would be much easier if the surface of the dish is not too slippery. Dishes made, for instance of glass, would take much more work, for the same effect, as a wooden ones.
All we might need for panning gold:
1. a dish for panning
2. forceps
3. shovel
4. a dish for panned material
5. a dish for all the interesting materials you might find
6. a magnifying glass
7. rubber boots
How to start ?
Firs of all, you should fin a detailed geological map. Gold us usually found in light Vulcan rocks. Perhaps you know a place where copper, or zinc had been found. Gold if very often found near bye.
On a suspicious theritory now find a stream that flows from the high ground. Because of the tectonic and erosion process, gold often comes out in the high ground stones. Mauntain storms wash the stones into the streams. When the streams starts to flow a little bit slower all the gold sediments down to the bottom of the stream.
Now put on your rubber boots, take your shovel and step right to the middle of the stream. Clean the dirt and the big sand, from the bottom of the stream. Now fill about three quarters of the panning dish with the thin sand from the bottom of the stream. Now rotate the dish with your hands so, that the material is slipping near the edge. This procedure will make the thin sand slipping towards the bottom of the dish, and the bigger stones fall over the edge. Time to time you should add water in the dish, so we could wash out the dirt. Finally, only some sediment send will stay in the dish and it might contain gold. Put this material in a special dish and repeat the whole procedure until it is full. Some times, this sedimentation really looks like gold, but don't be happy too soon. There are many materials in the nature that look like gold, as chrome, copper, hematite, pyrite, iron and so on.
When your sedimentation dish is full, gold need to be picked out of it. You can do it very well, using your forceps. Put the sand on the table and pick out the beans that look like a golden ones.
There is also another way of dividing the gold out of your sedimentation. It's very efficient, but quite harmful, for you as well as for nature.
In that key you will need:
1) Mercury
2) Some potatoes
3) some wire
4) a leaf for roting
The panning procedure is the same as before. This time put some mercury in your sediment material and mix it for some time. Mercury will dissolve the gold in the sedimentation. Do I have to tell you, that mercury is poison, so you mustn't touch ore inhale it.
Now cut the potato on two peaces and make a small hole in one half of it. Put
the mercury in that hole and cover it with the other part of potato. Tie the potato with a wire and put it in the leaf. Now put everything on a small fire, for an hour or two. The potato will soak the mercury, and the gold will remain on the walls of the hole. Don't roast the potato inside the house, and don't eat it, even if it might smell really good. Berry it and save live a deer.
Good luck !
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