Gold mining

“ It must be remembered that mining, though often so profitable, is nevertheless a destructive industry, thus differing from agriculture, which is productive, and manufactures, which are constructive. Every ton of stone broken and treated from even the best gold mine in the world makes that mine the poorer by one ton of valuable material; thus, to buy a mining property on its past reputation for productiveness is, as a rule, questionable policy, unless you know there is sufficient good ore in sight to cover the purchase cost and leave a profit. ”

“ Curves representing the world's gold production in past years show periods of increasing annual production as new fields are discovered, followed by periods of decreasing production when no new ore bodies are coming in to replace dwindling reserves. It is entirely possible that in recent years the gold-mining industry has been merely in one of these temporary stagnant periods. ”

“ The gold situation has become a matter of great concern to the various governments, since national financial stability and the confidence of the public in the national credit are based largely upon the acquirement of an adequate gold reserve. Both in England and in the United States, committees of experts have been appointed to make exhaustive investigations and present recommendations for measures to stimulate production. The report of the joint committee from the United States Bureau of Mines and Geological Survey gives a comprehensive review of the conditions in the gold-mining industry. ”

“ As the work of gold-mining has been described elsewhere in the wanderings of the boy travellers, it is hardly necessary to give it here, the processes of mining and reduction being practically the same all over the world. ”

“ There are a good many ways of gold-mining. Sometimes the mines are in veins in the hard rock. Then the miners bore down to them and dig out the rock, and break it up fine to get out the gold, just as they do silver. Another way is to find it in the loose sand in the bottoms of rocks and in gravel. When the miners first went out, they used to take a little gravel in a dish with some water, and shake it hard, so a little would slop over each time. ”

“ Again, while there can never be a trust in gold, the market being unlimited and beyond any possibility of control, gold-mining must remain the chief interest for any group of firms who desired to establish a trust in other commodities. Now gold-mining is one-third an industry and two-thirds a scientific inquiry. An ordinary trust is concerned less with production than with the control of the markets and the methods of distribution. But all progress in Rand mining depends on nice and speculative scientific calculation. ”

“ At the risk of some repetition, we would here say that gold-mining has profited most those who have never engaged in it; that the cool-headed traders, brokers, bankers, and agriculturalists have reaped the real benefit growing out of the gold discoveries in Australia, not the eager, hard-working, excited digger himself. ”

“ Gold-mining in the Rand fashion is a costly business, and altogether beyond the reach of the small man: claims were bought up by the financiers who were first in possession, and, since they were able to hold and develop, the entry of other financial houses has been blocked. But the great mining firms do not confine their activity to gold. They own millions of acres of land throughout the country, and many valuable building sites in the towns. ”

“ Everywhere else gold-mining is a comparatively hazardous and uncertain enterprise. Where the metal is found in alluvial deposits, the deposits usually vary much in the percentage of gold to the ton of soil which they yield, and they are usually exhausted in a few years. ”

“ In very deep mines, where the heat becomes unbearable after a few minutes unless a strong wind be kept going underground, the forward and backward courses for traffic and ventilation together are specially advantageous.
Prices during the twentieth century will depend more definitely upon the cost of gold-mining than they have ever done at any former time in the world's history. In spite of all the opposition which fanaticism and ignorance could offer to the natural trend of events in the commercial and financial life of the world, the gold standard now rests on an impregnable base ”

“ The question is not where gold can be found in Alaska, for it seems to be wonderfully and abundantly distributed, but as to what localities will best pay to expend capital in developing. A number of abandoned claims show that the failure to realize a satisfactory profit in gold mining by eager, impatient, and unreasonable individual seekers without proper machinery is as frequent as in any other business enterprise awkwardly planned. This is as apparent in Africa, Australia, and California as it is in this region. ”

“ Successful gold mining under present conditions is a large-scale operation, utilizing costly and sophisticated machinery capable of handling many tons of low-grade ore each day. The grizzled prospector with a burro is no longer a significant participant in the search for mineral deposits, and the small producer accounts for only a minor share of the total production of metals including gold. ”

“ An important factor in the progress of gold mining has been the increased respect for the industry on the part of the public at large. Not many years ago, many people, especially in the east, looked on gold mining as a gamble and a calling of questionable character; and the numerous fraudulent schemes that had been floated gave them some justification for their ideas. Many a person who sought to increase his fortune by mining, kept the matter a secret, so as not to injure his standing with his more conservative business associates. ”

“ Quartz-mining and milling require capital, and staying-power, and patience. Big companies were formed, and for several decades, now, the lodes have been successfully worked, and have yielded great wealth. Since the gold discovery in 1853 the Ballarat mines--taking the three kinds of mining together--have contributed to the world's pocket something over three hundred millions of dollars, which is to say that this nearly invisible little spot on the earth's surface has yielded about one-fourth as much gold in forty-four years as all California has yielded in forty-seven. ”

“ It has been said that gold mining was not a legitimate business, and that the intense desire for gold created unnatural conditions. But observation and experience show us that the happiness of the human family, as well as the grade of civilization to which it is possible to attain, depends upon the quantity of gold which it is possible to acquire, and its proper use. Without gold in what would life consist? ”

“ I could go on for hours, Jim, telling you about the Australian gold-fields, but I've said enough to show you that I meant what I said when I suggested that it was a pity that you hadn't found gold. The mining of every other metal needs a lot of capital to begin with—as gold does, when you begin to work a reef—but, in nearly every gold deposit, there are placers or pockets where a man can clean up quickly. ”

“ Many gold mines have been abandoned as unprofitable that could have been mined at a profit had their owners been wealthy and enterprising enough to do a great deal of expensive prospecting by diamond drill, cross cuts, drifts and rises. In one instance that came to the writer's knowledge a clever mining engineer cleared nearly $200,000 profit by leasing for a term of years a gold mine that was supposed to be exhausted. A drill hole sunk less than 50 feet below the old workings revealed a pocket of ore in the vein, and paying quartz was found for many hundred feet below. ”

“ When the gold fields of southern Africa were first opened they were said to be inexhaustible; but they have been mined so rapidly, and the supply has proved so far short of the first excited estimates that experts say that the entire region will be almost exhausted within twenty years. The loss of gold in mining and refining is comparatively small. In extracting gold from the cheaper ores the percentage of loss is large; but as only a small part of the gold is gained in this way the total loss is relatively small. By other methods ninety-five per cent. ”

“ When we consider how largely the discovery and exploration of America was due to the search for mines, that the precious metals might be found to replenish the depleted treasuries of European monarchs; and when we note that, as a result of this search, the world’s annual production of gold and silver had increased in the three hundred years following the discovery from $5,508,000, in 1500, to $48,995,000 at the beginning of the nineteenth century, we view with surprise the little progress made during this period in the art of mining. ”

“ A “face” is formed in the drift, and the water played against the lower portion of the ledge, which is quickly undermined, falls, and is soon washed away in the stream of water, which is conducted through sluices with riffles, and sometimes over considerable lengths of amalgamated copper plates. This class of mining has been most extensively carried out in California and New Zealand, and some districts of Victoria, but the truly enormous drifts of the Shoalhaven district in New South Wales must in the near future add largely to the world’s gold supply. ”

“ Of late years, however, the theory of gold occurrence by deposition from mineral salts has been accepted by all but the “mining experts” who infest and afflict the gold mining camps of the world. These opine that gold ought to occur in “pockets” only (meaning thereby their own) .
Recently Professor Joseph Le Conte, at a meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, criticised a notable essay on the “Genesis of Ore Deposits,” by Bergrath F. Posepny. The Professor’s general conclusions are:
1. ”

“ As the tide of emigration began to flow into the mining region, the lucky hits upon rich deposits, of course, began to grow scarcer, until, when an immense population was scattered throughout the whole golden country, the success of the mining operations began to depend more upon the amount of labour performed than upon the good fortune to strike into an unfurrowed soil, rich in gold. ”

“ Of course in large alluvial claims, where capital is employed, such appliances are superseded by steam puddlers, buddles, and other machinery, and sometimes mercury is used to amalgamate the gold when very fine. Hydraulicing is the cheapest form of alluvial mining, but can only be profitably carried out where extensive drifts, which can be worked as quarry faces, and unlimited water exist in the same neighbourhood. When such conditions obtain a few grains of gold to the yard or ton will pay handsomely. ”

“ These deposits are naturally the first to fail in productiveness, but the neighboring hills are formed of a gold-bearing quartz which is being crushed, night and day, by hundreds of powerful machines; and the works still pay ten thousand miners fair day-wages, besides giving the organized companies who employ them satisfactory dividends. Thus mining has been largely robbed of its adventurous character in this neighborhood, and perhaps also of most of its alluring charm, having become a sort of regular industry, like coal-mining, or even brick-making. ”

“ There are the usual paraphernalia of the mining industry, which we have already described in other places. In every direction there are mining-shafts and reduction-works, and for miles and miles around the country is full of prospecting holes, where gold has been sought but not found, at least in paying quantities. ”

“ Although the earth contains only a few cents’ worth of gold to the ton, the use of giant dredges to scoop up the gravel from the beds of the Klondike and Yukon rivers enables the mining companies to operate at a profit. With all the force of a shell from a big gun, a giant stream of water is played against the hillside, washing the earth into sluice boxes, where a layer of mercury catches even the most infinitesimal particles of gold. ”

“ We mention not the gold washings that are being worked so successfully at present, for as respects their duration and the developement of the industry of the country, they scarcely deserve the attention of the economist be they ever so rich; as all other mines are more beneficent in their influence to the progress of a country than gold mines. These will become the means of advancing the prosperity of the country only when a regular system of mining by sinking shafts into the rocks shall commence, which it is to be hoped will be done ere long. ”

“ The earth, which had been previously washed in the common rockers, is to be re-washed in a more scientifically constructed apparatus, and the minute particles of gold, which escape in the common mode of washing, and which are invisible to the naked eye, are to be separated by a chemical process.
As yet no actual mining operations have been commenced in the gold region of California, for the two reasons, that they require a combination of labour and capital, and that the gold-washings have thus far proved so profitable as to make them the most desirable. ”

“ This kind of mining is very uncertain in its results, for a man may make hundreds of dollars in one day, and then not find anything more for months.
The western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains was once covered with the camps of thousands of placer miners. Piles of boulders and gravel are scattered along the creeks where the eager workers took out millions of dollars' worth of gold-dust and nuggets. Now many of the streams and gulches are entirely deserted. But in other places, where the quartz veins outcrop, there are scores of stamp-mills at work, night and day, pounding out the gold. ”