I just had to drop back by here again to day, and report something interesting I found when attended the Owyhee Rock Club show in Caldwell, ID this morning.
There was a rock vendor there who was selling individual chunks of magnetite about the size of a quarter, and about as thick as a lead pencil. He had marked them down from $2.95 per chunk to $1.25 as a show special.
He only had 4 of them left!!
And yes, China is known for their artisanal gold miners scratching out a decent living in the cold, harsh high desert over there if one has been keeping up with their reading. Seeing this made me smile. I spotted a couple of the local GPAA chapter members at the show. Maybe they are all bought up by now, I didn't stick around to watch. LOL
I'll know for sure if they show up at April's monthly club meeting for the show and tell portion of the meeting.
And say, guys and gals, why you're taking another looooooooong look at what hangs out with gold in your finishing gold pan, you know, some more of those other 18 some odd separate items that make up the stuff that we call "black sands"....make a mental note to
pay attention to the little, dark red almandine garnets which irritate us all, in our gold recovery efforts. Irritated me, that is, until I assayed a few grams of them.
Well, the good news is, they don't irritate me as much as they used to, ever since I used the standard assay flux and formula to check out those pesky little garnets the PacNW is rather well known for, especially overhere on the East Side of the State, as well as North Central Washington, up around Cle Elum. Ayup, these garnets hang out where the placer gold is found in the creeks and benches.
LOTS of them!!!
Turns out there is no-see'um gold in those garnets, providing one crushes them up and treats them first with a gravity circuit like an RP4, or go straight to chemical leaching to get the gold out of them, too!!!!
Yes, and it is economical to do so in this part of the country. I was quite surprised when I assayed them, to see beads of gold pop up after cupelling my lead prill/button from my furnace fusion.