One of my favorite things to do is to explore the desert. The desert is filled with abandoned mines. Most were Gold mines. In the depression era and before. Miners were making a living by tunneling into mountains, getting the minerals and selling them.
In 1942 our Government passed a law caled "L208" which outlawed the private ownership of Gold mines. This put the miners out of business and they had to walk away from their claims.
Many of the mines around here were still producing when they shut them down. After WW2 ended and "L208" was lifted the price of Gold dropped and it wasn't profitable to mine anymore.
If you have an eye for things you can see mines dotting hills. I can't believe how many people cant tell a mine tailing pile from a regular hill. I guess I've been doing it so long that I can look at a hill and see if it's had any work done to it.
Theres an old Gold mine way out in the desert that I have been wanting to check out. Yesterday I had some time so I went to it.
These old tailing piles have been used by shooters for 50+ years so a metal detector is useless. With a metal detector you can dig up .22 casings all day long. If you discriminate the casings out you descriminate the good stuff out too.
Anyway it looks like the miners that were working this mine were only getting the big Gold and throwing the smaller stuff out.
My gf and I spent about 30 minutes picking up rocks yesterday.
I wonder how many people walked over these rocks? Never paying any attention to them. City folk!
Here's a sample of what we brought home. Never mind the bad Cell pics.
In 1942 our Government passed a law caled "L208" which outlawed the private ownership of Gold mines. This put the miners out of business and they had to walk away from their claims.
Many of the mines around here were still producing when they shut them down. After WW2 ended and "L208" was lifted the price of Gold dropped and it wasn't profitable to mine anymore.
If you have an eye for things you can see mines dotting hills. I can't believe how many people cant tell a mine tailing pile from a regular hill. I guess I've been doing it so long that I can look at a hill and see if it's had any work done to it.
Theres an old Gold mine way out in the desert that I have been wanting to check out. Yesterday I had some time so I went to it.
These old tailing piles have been used by shooters for 50+ years so a metal detector is useless. With a metal detector you can dig up .22 casings all day long. If you discriminate the casings out you descriminate the good stuff out too.
Anyway it looks like the miners that were working this mine were only getting the big Gold and throwing the smaller stuff out.
My gf and I spent about 30 minutes picking up rocks yesterday.
I wonder how many people walked over these rocks? Never paying any attention to them. City folk!
Here's a sample of what we brought home. Never mind the bad Cell pics.
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