Friday, October 30, 2009

How Individuals Panned For Gold During The American Gold Rush?

By Jack Wagon

In 1849, thousands of people started rushing towards California in quest of gold. Most of the people adopted a lot of methods to find out the huge deposits of this precious element in order to make hefty amounts of money. People used several techniques at that time but the most renowned method was panning. A lot of people succeeded in getting gold flakes through this method.

This was a highly desirable metal and people were not ready to end their struggle without achieving their goal. Their urge to find more and more gold increased with finding gold flake once. They eventually become more enthusiastic in their efforts and tend to strive much harder in lust of having more gold. If they achieved some flakes of gold in their first attempt, they used to struggle for more.

As the number of emigrants was increasing, the government also felt the importance of that once unknown place. The government also extracted the gold deposits. They established several gold mining labs in the areas where gold was expected. Also, they adopted more advanced methods to extract gold rather besides panning.

Most of these forty-niners at California could be seen wearing long shoes and pans in their hands. Sometimes, these pans used to come up with some gold flakes, while most of the times their efforts were proved to be fruitless. When they used to get exhausted after several attempts, they used to vow to come again the next day to try their luck once again. It is also true that some of these miners had found so much gold that the government felt the need of establishing an official mint there.

In the past, only metal pans were used for gold extraction from the waterbeds, while at present time, the use of plastic pans is more common. However, the methods to place these pans in water for getting gold flakes were different from the ones being used today.

The plastic pans, which are in use nowadays, are quite light weighted. Moreover, they are manufactured in such a way that they have shallow areas in these pans. The gold flakes get into these spaces which make the gold extraction much easier than before. Some other equipment such as, slats and bars are also used today, which were not used earlier. The invention of advanced tools has made it easier to separate the gold from the other materials.

However, most of the previously used techniques were quite good and effective. The gold panning is one such method, which is still in use in spite of the fact that so many years have been passed now. They used to place these pans at places where the flow of water was slow in order to get more gold flakes. Previously, people used to separate gold from the sand particles with the help of their hands as no pipette and tweezers were used in those days.

Most of the emigrants came from faraway places. They were determined enough to achieve their goal, and that is the reason that they strived harder. Their efforts together with courage and determination proved fruitful, and they accomplished their task of achieving gold at last.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment