Tools Used in Gold Mining
Gold mining is not a new occupation. It has long been a valuable metal, and people have been looking for gold since the time of the Roman Empire. As time has progressed, so too have the tools used for gold mining.
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Roman Mining
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Like the later miners in California and Alaska, Romans initially were able to find gold in stream beds, which required few tools to collect. Later, they were forced to excavate into mountains to find the valuable metal. The Romans used iron hammers, pointed bars, picks, crowbars and battering rams to extract the gold from rock. Once the gold was free of the walls, they used rakes and spades to collect the gold into buckets and baskets for transport out of the mines.
Mining in the 1840s
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Surface mining was the easiest and most rudimentary method of mining. In the early days of the gold rush, gold could be found easily in stream beds and on the ground. Miners or prospectors most frequently used a shallow metal pan to find gold. The miner would crouch next to a stream or river and mix water and soil. By gently swishing the water in a circular motion, the lighter soils and rock would wash away, leaving gold in the pan. Other variations included the rocker or cradle, in which larger amounts of rock could be poured and rinsed with water to reveal gold.
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Mining After 1858
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After the gold rush, the supply of easily found gold was exhausted in many places, forcing miners to dig into the earth to find the metal. They cut shafts into the earth that they propped up with wooden beams. Miners often used pickaxes and drills, both hydraulic and hand, to cut into rock to remove gold. They also used dynamite to remove large chunks of rock at once. Other times, large hydraulic hoses used high-pressured water to wash away entire hillsides to reveal gold.
Modern Mining
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Today, gold mining largely centers around the use of machines. Some enthusiasts still use panning as a technique, but that has largely been replaced with more efficient methods of mining. The principle of deep-vein mining remains the same, but modern safety standards and practices have improved efficiency and safety. Sluicing is another frequently used process, which is similar to panning but uses a large box and an engine to shake the box back and forth. As gold is significantly heavier than sand or rock, the lighter material is rinsed out and the gold remains. Cyanidation, which uses cyanide and zinc dust to extract gold, is another modern method. Cyanide dissolves the gold, the gold solution is extracted, then zinc dust is added to precipitate the gold back out of the solution.
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References
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