why is gold hard to find

[dwt]

thought id kick this topic off as a bit of general interest, i have recently obtained some 15 original copies of the mining registars reports dating back to the 1870's and after a bit of a flick through i was amazed at the amount of gold which had been sent back to our king & queen in the day.(No wonder i have so much trouble)
"QUARTER ENDING 30th SEPTEMBER 1870 :Alluvial 162,118 oz 1dwt :Quartz (crushings) 146,239 18dwt :Total 308,357 18dwt.
"GOLD EXPORTED" 272,105 1dwt
13 months later
"QUARTER ENDING 31st DECEMBER 1871 :Alluvial 178,336 0dwt 21gr :Quartz (crushings) 174,362 0dwt 4gr :Total 352,698 1dwt 4gr
"GOLD EXPORTED" 292,327 8dwt
these are records of victoria only so sorry all other states cant flick you some info,but to anyone who chases the yellow in victoria wants some old info, type in your major area :eg the mining district, and i will try and flick some info your way you never know.....
cheers....... 8)

ps if nobodys interested let me know i already have a sore finger from typing

 

[Twapster]

If I had 200 $2 coins in my pocket and I threw them into the air in the park down the road over a 100m area, over a few year id say 90% of them would be picked up if people went looking for them and knew I threw them there, If you detected the area another 5 -8% and I reckon 2% still sitting there.

Take that analogy to gold (yes simple but prob reasonable), the easy gold is gone in Gold areas. Now we have machines that can look further under ground. Give it 10 years and more gold with new machines will pop up deeper.

What that also tells you ....look for gold where it hasn't been documented much or hasn't been pounded. Sunbakers still pop up everywhere. Theres a few pieces still out there, and prob a few places where all 200 coins are still sitting there.

 

[KarlS]

Sunbathers - that is the word I have been searching my memory for. I'm getting stupid.

 

[Twapster]

Even gold sometimes likes the sun!

 

[Goldtarget]

Its staggering isn't it! Stories of days out finding good colour don't even come to an enth of those sorts of figures, pretty damn humbling. I sit and imagine how big the grins were when they opened up new areas. Thanks for sharing, awesome stuff.

 

[Goldpick]

There is still plenty of gold in the ground, the sort of stuff that was too deep or difficult to access due to water or sulphides, but yet too small and insignificant for modern miners to even consider. Whether it is detectable gold is another matter, you really have to think outside of the square these days, your brain and research is probably going to help you walk over gold versus the type of detector you have.

 

[dwt]

Its staggering isn't it! Stories of days out finding good colour don't even come to an enth of those sorts of figures, pretty damn humbling. I sit and imagine how big the grins were when they opened up new areas. Thanks for sharing, awesome stuff.

no worries gold target i notice your out Epsom way gooood areas out that way i'll have a squiz through the books and see if i can find anything of value to post for ya...............cheers

 

[GOLD Billyen]

A time machine would be nice.

 

[Goldpick]

Was originally going to say that if gold wasn't hard to find, it wouldn't be worth anything, but thought it better to read the thread properly! :lol: It was certainly a case of the motherland plundering the colony's resources and riches. Although in the cases of other minerals, most was originally sent back to the UK to be processed as we did not possess the technology or expertise to extract the minerals from the ore, cornish miners working here quickly sorted that out.

There is an old mine my house that exposed a 1 ton slab of solid malachite according to my little blue book on our historic mines, needless to say, it was prepared for the Queen and sent offsore back to the UK as a present. :|