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Here is an interesting article suggested to me from a forum member.
For the effective winning of alluvial gold you only need some very basic knowledge and a few simple tools to begin. As far as basic equipment goes, you will need a pick, a long handled round nose shovel, a small bottle in which to save your Gold and a prospecting dish (or Gold Pan).
After you become familiar with your pan (and I cant stress this point enough) you must then become a proficient panner. The best, and most efficient way, to begin to learn this learning is to find and accompany an experienced person who can teach you on the spot. Once that proficiency, to separate the blacks sands from the Gold is learned, it is best used while still in the field, in order to reducing the weight of things to be carried out. This panning skill quickly progresses to eventually take very little time to complete.
In the course of your increasing experience you will soon find it helpful to construct a traditional sluice box or a cradle (a rocking sluice box). These can easily made, depending on your mechanical and scrounging skills, at a cost of $100 or less.
When water is available (using a small water pump), hand shoveling directly into a sluice box enables a man to put through about 10 times more wash material in a day as through a cradle(having to both hand feed water to a rocking sluice box) and a hundred times (!) as much as he will treat in a dish. The dish is used for preliminary prospecting, to get indications of colour, and to wash the concentrates that collect in the riffles of the unit you are using. That final washing being done at the end of the clean-up process.
Alluvial prospecting is most rewarding activity, and great personal satisfaction can be gained from its pursuit. A few dollars worth of equipment, fuel for the water pump and a fortnight's rations (you were going to eat anyway right?) and the returns, though smaller than from reef ore, are certainly attainable and thoroughly pleasurable in their outcome.
In fact, provided two men are working in a field which has gold bearing wash dirt, a supply of water for the pump, carefully constructed equipment, a knowledge of procedure, and the will to do a solid days work, there is little doubt that they could make a living on an alluvial field.
HOW TO SUCCEED.
At some time in the earth's history, alluvial gold washed down from its various sources and has deposited in the present beds of our rivers and creeks. This is where to start your hunt. The first step is to determine whether the creek or river holds any Gold, identify what types of mineral and soils are associated with the Gold and the richness of the Gold for that set of circumstances. This is very essence of finding a Gold rich lead within a river system.
A creek situation is a bit simpler, in that all you need do is trench across the narrow creek from the high water mark, across the streambed, to the opposite point on the other bank. Test panning as you go will give you the results you need to determine the actual richness of the stream. The daunting task, though, is when you are faced with vast sand or silt bars within a river system. Where to start on that effort?
The very first place, where all the written work tells you to begin, is at a rock bar. Of course, every one else over the past 160 odd years have also read those books as well.
Since Gold is one of the heaviest of minerals in the streambeds, it will generally gravitate, and be caught over time, in the very bottom of a streambeds bedrock crevice. This is what you must attempt to find. It does not matter the quantity of Gold you actually find at this point, but rather, the exercise is to ascertain whether Gold does actually exist in this location. In addition, you will wish to take note of the associated indicator minerals that are found in your pans concentrates. Those indicator (or associated) minerals will take you to the Gold leads, within the river system, 90% of the time.
PERSEVERANCE IS ESSENTIAL.
One cannot lay down any hard and fast rules in prospecting for the deposits buried in river beds, but a careful prospector will take particular notice of where the stream has altered its course slightly, here and there, leaving the sand and gravel that once formed its original bed high and dry.
A wise prospector, in cases such as this, will generally sink holes to these gravels or until bedrock is reached. If the first hole is not successful he will usually sink successive holes in the direction towards the main channel. Here again the elements of luck and experience will play quite some part. The first one, two or three holes may prove profitless, but the fourth may produce sufficient Gold to make ones hopes "spring eternal. In alluvial Gold-seeking, the rewards correspond remarkably to the intelligence and magnitude of the effort made.
It does not follow that a gully or river-bed is non-auriferous just because a few holes have been sunk in it without good results. That river bed cannot be said to have been properly tested until the deposits in its bed, have been thoroughly crossed from side to side and panned in all promising places. Quite frequently, too, the Gold occurs, not in the gully bed, or gutter, but in some deposit on one of the various banks high benches. You would be well advised to carry out your preliminary work quite thoroughly before finally abandoning any easily prospected locality as worthless, even should they have evidence of it having been tried and left by others in the past. In addition, do not be fooled into thinking that the first occurrence of Gold means to stop testing. To find the best Gold you must have other areas, showing Gold, to compare your results.
For the effective winning of alluvial gold you only need some very basic knowledge and a few simple tools to begin. As far as basic equipment goes, you will need a pick, a long handled round nose shovel, a small bottle in which to save your Gold and a prospecting dish (or Gold Pan).
After you become familiar with your pan (and I cant stress this point enough) you must then become a proficient panner. The best, and most efficient way, to begin to learn this learning is to find and accompany an experienced person who can teach you on the spot. Once that proficiency, to separate the blacks sands from the Gold is learned, it is best used while still in the field, in order to reducing the weight of things to be carried out. This panning skill quickly progresses to eventually take very little time to complete.
In the course of your increasing experience you will soon find it helpful to construct a traditional sluice box or a cradle (a rocking sluice box). These can easily made, depending on your mechanical and scrounging skills, at a cost of $100 or less.
When water is available (using a small water pump), hand shoveling directly into a sluice box enables a man to put through about 10 times more wash material in a day as through a cradle(having to both hand feed water to a rocking sluice box) and a hundred times (!) as much as he will treat in a dish. The dish is used for preliminary prospecting, to get indications of colour, and to wash the concentrates that collect in the riffles of the unit you are using. That final washing being done at the end of the clean-up process.
Alluvial prospecting is most rewarding activity, and great personal satisfaction can be gained from its pursuit. A few dollars worth of equipment, fuel for the water pump and a fortnight's rations (you were going to eat anyway right?) and the returns, though smaller than from reef ore, are certainly attainable and thoroughly pleasurable in their outcome.
In fact, provided two men are working in a field which has gold bearing wash dirt, a supply of water for the pump, carefully constructed equipment, a knowledge of procedure, and the will to do a solid days work, there is little doubt that they could make a living on an alluvial field.
HOW TO SUCCEED.
At some time in the earth's history, alluvial gold washed down from its various sources and has deposited in the present beds of our rivers and creeks. This is where to start your hunt. The first step is to determine whether the creek or river holds any Gold, identify what types of mineral and soils are associated with the Gold and the richness of the Gold for that set of circumstances. This is very essence of finding a Gold rich lead within a river system.
A creek situation is a bit simpler, in that all you need do is trench across the narrow creek from the high water mark, across the streambed, to the opposite point on the other bank. Test panning as you go will give you the results you need to determine the actual richness of the stream. The daunting task, though, is when you are faced with vast sand or silt bars within a river system. Where to start on that effort?
The very first place, where all the written work tells you to begin, is at a rock bar. Of course, every one else over the past 160 odd years have also read those books as well.
Since Gold is one of the heaviest of minerals in the streambeds, it will generally gravitate, and be caught over time, in the very bottom of a streambeds bedrock crevice. This is what you must attempt to find. It does not matter the quantity of Gold you actually find at this point, but rather, the exercise is to ascertain whether Gold does actually exist in this location. In addition, you will wish to take note of the associated indicator minerals that are found in your pans concentrates. Those indicator (or associated) minerals will take you to the Gold leads, within the river system, 90% of the time.
PERSEVERANCE IS ESSENTIAL.
One cannot lay down any hard and fast rules in prospecting for the deposits buried in river beds, but a careful prospector will take particular notice of where the stream has altered its course slightly, here and there, leaving the sand and gravel that once formed its original bed high and dry.
A wise prospector, in cases such as this, will generally sink holes to these gravels or until bedrock is reached. If the first hole is not successful he will usually sink successive holes in the direction towards the main channel. Here again the elements of luck and experience will play quite some part. The first one, two or three holes may prove profitless, but the fourth may produce sufficient Gold to make ones hopes "spring eternal. In alluvial Gold-seeking, the rewards correspond remarkably to the intelligence and magnitude of the effort made.
It does not follow that a gully or river-bed is non-auriferous just because a few holes have been sunk in it without good results. That river bed cannot be said to have been properly tested until the deposits in its bed, have been thoroughly crossed from side to side and panned in all promising places. Quite frequently, too, the Gold occurs, not in the gully bed, or gutter, but in some deposit on one of the various banks high benches. You would be well advised to carry out your preliminary work quite thoroughly before finally abandoning any easily prospected locality as worthless, even should they have evidence of it having been tried and left by others in the past. In addition, do not be fooled into thinking that the first occurrence of Gold means to stop testing. To find the best Gold you must have other areas, showing Gold, to compare your results.
One question, what is a "rock bar" and what does it look like?
