FINDING GOLD

By Sky

PANNING

Panning is the oldest and simplest way to find gold.

It is important that the dirt, stones and gold are in

the pan for a short amount of time so the gold can

sink to the bottom of the pan. Once done the sand

and dirt will simply wash away as you add water. As

your adding the water move your pan from side to

side or you can move it back and forward.

CRADLING

Cradling is a large wooden tool. The miners would

shovel a large amount of soil, gravel and sand into

the hopper. The hopper had a mesh at the bottom of

it allowing the gold to fall though but would catch

large pieces of rocks and sometime gold nuggets can

be caught in the hopper. When the sand, soil and

gravel are in the hopper a miner would add water

why another miner would rock it back and forth.

SHAFT MINING

People started shaft mining when a miner found small veins of

gold near the surface but the small veins of gold were also

under the ground. The miners started to dig holes about one

metre squared and fifty metres deep. To get the shaft to stay up

they would put timber along the shaft to stop it from falling.

They would need three to four miners working on one site, first

miner would be down in the hole putting soil into the bucket.

Second and third miner washes the soil into the cradle.

Puddling

Puddling separates gold from clay.

The miners would place the mixture

of clay and gold into a large

container and add water, they then

start to stir the mixture making the

clay dissolve leaving gold flecks

and sand at the bottom of the

container, the remaining mixture

then would be panned or cradled.

PUDDLING & MINERS PICK

Miners Pick

Miners pick is a tool to help

the miners break things

apart. This tool mainly breaks

solid pieces of rocks. Miners

pick also helps the miners to

dig there shaft when the

ground becomes to hard.

HOW DO PEOPLE F IND GOLD TODAY ?

The miners today use open-cut mining and under ground mining.

Open-cut mining, also known as open-pit mining, is the easy and

cheapest way to get gold out of the ground. Open-pit mining is

only used if the gold is close to the surface or if normal tunnel

type isn’t possible. Under-ground mining or known as under-

ground hard rock mining. The miners would dig a hundred metre

deep shaft this provides access for machinery in search for their

gold. The deeper the tunnels the deeper the risk of cave-ins and

collapses.