On Friday, November 9, 2001 at 5:17:51 AM UTC-7, Ki...@usa.net wrote:

On Fri, 09 Nov 2001 08:15:04 GMT, "zolota" <zolata3@shaw.ca> wrote:

<Kiowa@USA.net> wrote in message >news:3bea8384.2924015@news.iac.honeywell.com...

On Thu, 08 Nov 2001 08:59:51 GMT, "zolota" <zolata3@shaw.ca> wrote:

SNIP

Hi ,
I am really enjoying your comments. Please say more. Also, could you
please summarize the chemist's scheme for getting the gold out of the
black sand?
Thanks,
Kiowa in Pa USA

If I post about old mining things over there I think I'll restrict them to >alt.mining.recreational because the are not really in the forum of >sci.engr.mining which I presume is more of a modern mining technology group >but the idea of historic mining is found in the former.

I went through my notes, could not find details of the chemistry, just a >note that the barter rate for gold was 4 grams for a 50 kg sack of flour. I >have the details in storage somewhere. Also, 250 men on the river were >mining 18 kg per year (about 2 ounces each). Flakes were >5mm in size. That >would be seasonal, they were not working during planting, harvest, or >winter. Welders at the time made $40/ month, school teachers $16, and >doctors or dentists made $8, so the miners were not doing too bad. Another >note was a silver deposit grading 28 kg/t, about 90 Oz.

IIRC the chemical path used hydrochloric acid and chlorine gas but at >boiling temperatures. At one stage there was a complete evaporation of the >liquids. I commented that it was way too energy intensive to be practical, >they almost agreed.

All my life I had heard how the Soviets had massive numbers of engineers and >geologists compared to North America. But after meeting some of them huge >differences were obvious. None ever studied economics, that was an >economists job. Projects were planned in very inefficient ways, poor choices >of chemicals, proceedures, etc. For example, we mine an open pit by going >down in sections like the rings of an onion. As one is nearing the pit >bottom a second cut is started. The idea of course is to delay the expense >of removing waste. Over there they removed the rock in horizontal layers so >in year one they were mining waste that we would only remove in the last >cut, maybe year 20. They would start out with a massive fleet of trucks and >shovels with plans to scale down as they wore out.

They had no idea of economic cut-off, the whole geologic deposit was to be >mined. In one proposed mine >90% of the gold was in 10% of the structure. >They planned to mine all the rock to create jobs. We pointed out that it was >more profitable to just mine the core and pay the miners to sit on their >ducks for the next four years, creating the same man-years but without the >cost of fuel and powder.

Another remarkable thing, all deposits were to be drifted for a bulk sample >of up to 10% of the ore before a production decision. The geologists would >drift the entire length, then do laterals, then raises, sometimes on many >levels. This is rarely done in the west due to the extreeme cost, although >some properties have short drifts done to provide a small bulk sample for a >pilot plant or to confirm drill indicated grade. If so, the drift is part of >the mining plan aka development in ore. The money wasted by geology was >amazing (and many will say it's bad here LOL). Worse, after up to 20 years >between geology and production, the mine planner had nightmares. Geologic >drifts were located for geology (academic interest) and often bore no >relation to the needs of a mining plan. wworking around the existing voids >must have cost money in some deposits. Earlier drifting had changed the >stresses in the rock, resulting in cave-ins that could not be mined or >causing high stress areas that would be a stability problem.

Well, time to go.

Hay, at least HCl is easy to obtain. You can get it in any hardware
store or brick supplies place. I have been trying to get a little
cyanide for years, with no success. When I was in college I was a lab assistent in the Chem lab. I borrowed a little cyanide and did some
gold plating experimenting.

Iodine is easy to get also. I bought a bottle of ticture of iodine in
a farm supply store which was perhaps 9%. I added NaOH to form the
NaI and drove off the alcohol with light heat (wood stove)

I am again experimenting with the halite leaching thanks to all of
you. I wasn't too succesful the last time I tried it. Recently I put
a piece of electronics scrap in some iodine/ sodium iodide solution.
Last night I added some NaOH and a ppt formed. So far, so good.

I have about 5 gal of black sand that I would just love to get the
gold out of. It's not the value of the gold, but the challenge. I
would then love to convert the black sand to iron. I play around at blacksmithing and I would love to be able to make a small chunk of my
own wrought iron.

Some one suggested HCl in place of chlorox to liberate the iodine.
This didn't seem to work for me a few days ago when I tried it- no
color change.

Well, to work,
Kiowa

are you in colorado? im In aurora and would love to talk to you. I have a few gold mine projects going and you have some experiance Id like to talk about solarsmith@comcast.net

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