Alfred Lewis Discovery at the old Mammoth Mine 1949 - 1950

[wrmickel1]

Bill

The Keyhole Mine from the ledgen of the Keyhole Mine is not to far from this site. But the ledgen did'nt actually state it looks exactly like a Skelleton Keyhole from a old door, But it makes sense behind how old the ledgen is.

babymick1

 

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[Lucky Baldwin]

View attachment 1566998
Here is some Eastern Superstition gold right out of the ground. Not cleaned. Soak it in 1/3 vinegar 1/3 salt and 1/3 water overnight. And it looks like this
View attachment 1566999
Your gold looks good to me Mick
I thought the off color was due to a copper content. I was wrong. I gave some to Greg and he later had it tested. 79% gold 20% silver. I had some gold from the Western Superstitions and it had that same off color.

beautiful gold gratz man!

I'm wondering if the dark color comes from the high silver content. As a kid, a few days before Thanksgiving dinner, I remember mom polishing the silverware we weren't allowed to touch because it sat for a year and had turned black. Maybe the dark color is silver tarnish.

I also remember mom saying that eggs were the worst for turning silverware black. I'll bet it's the sulfur in the eggs that does it. A drop of battery acid on a test piece might confirm this theory. If the theory proves true, you might have discovered another possible reason why Peg-leg's gold nuggets were black.

 

[azdave35]

beautiful gold gratz man!

I'm wondering if the dark color comes from the high silver content. As a kid, a few days before Thanksgiving dinner, I remember mom polishing the silverware we weren't allowed to touch because it sat for a year and had turned black. Maybe the dark color is silver tarnish.

I also remember mom saying that eggs were the worst for turning silverware black. I'll bet it's the sulfur in the eggs that does it. A drop of battery acid on a test piece might confirm this theory. If the theory proves true, you might have discovered another possible reason why Peg-leg's gold nuggets were black.

peg leg gold had a manganese coating that made it black

 

[Lucky Baldwin]

peg leg gold had a manganese coating that made it black

I'm no expert on Peg-leg, but I wasn't aware that any of the original nuggets were ever tested. Would you please enlighten me on the details? Thanks.

 

[azdave35]

I'm no expert on Peg-leg, but I wasn't aware that any of the original nuggets were ever tested. Would you please enlighten me on the details? Thanks.

it occurs more often than you think..manganese is pretty high on the electromotive scale and has an attraction to gold....I.E. the black queen mine...the reason its called the BLACK queen is because of the high manganese content..peglegs nuggets dont have to be tested..i've been mining and assaying long enough to know what the black is...besides its pretty much common knowledge..do a little research and you will come to the same conclusion....matter of fact there have been a few deposits of black nuggets in arizona...one was found in 1950 very close to the superstitons

 

[PotBelly Jim]

I'm no expert on Peg-leg, but I wasn't aware that any of the original nuggets were ever tested. Would you please enlighten me on the details? Thanks.

Gonna jump on board here and add some to Dave's post. He has a lifetime of mining to back him up...I don't, but I'm a geek and understand some of the why's so let me break out my slide rule and pocket protector...

The reason the gold looks dull, sort of like brass, is it’s usually naturally alloyed with other metals. The salt (sodium chloride) and vinegar (acetic acid) is just a way to introduce acetic acid with chlorides (the sodium part of sodium chloride isn’t needed) which removes oxidation from the non-gold part of the alloy. The vinegar will work on its own, but it works faster and does a better job if it’s combined with chloride.

When gold is refined (alloys removed) it gets that unmistakable “shiny gold” look. Even if you shade it from light or the sun, it still seems to shine. This is due to the atomic structure of gold, its valence electrons absorb blue and green light, which increases the energy level of those electrons…in other words, energy is created by those blue and green photons hitting those valence electrons, and it has to go somewhere, heat, light etc.… and it radiates/reflects light in the yellow (and to a lesser degree, red) spectrum. Most metals reflect all light, which is why they appear silvery in color.

The only black gold one is likely to find is gold that has been saturated in solution with manganese. Even electrum, (gold with a lot of silver in it), will not turn black. It turns brassy, like the gold Frank and Mick posted. Frequently nuggets have black pits in them, which can be iron oxides but can also be manganese oxide. If the nugget is found in a river or ancient river bed, most of the manganese would have been scrubbed off during the process of placering, leaving it only in the pits. This is what makes finding black nuggets so rare. The manganese oxides didn’t get scrubbed off.

At any rate, I can’t think of any other mineral or process that would turn a gold nugget black, other than being coated with manganese in solution, which when oxidized, turns black. If you crack open an alkaline battery it’s filled with black stuff that’s almost impossible to clean up. That’s manganese dioxide. Best way to turn anything black. It sticks to almost anything and absorbs all light visible to the eye.

 

[azdave35]

jim...35 years ago i met an old prospector that found some black nuggets...not far from the supers...he found them about 1950...at first he didnt know what they were but he brought a few home and put them in a desk drawer...after a few years of rolling around in the desk every time he opened the drawer..he noticed the black was wearing off and could see gold shining through.....he took his knife and scraped the black off and sure enough they were gold nuggets

 

[PotBelly Jim]

jim...35 years ago i met an old prospector that found some black nuggets...not far from the supers...he found them about 1950...at first he didnt know what they were but he brought a few home and put them in a desk drawer...after a few years of rolling around in the desk every time he opened the drawer..he noticed the black was wearing off and could see gold shining through.....he took his knife and scraped the black off and sure enough they were gold nuggets

I hope he remembered where he found them! Also, still working on exact location of that Lynx Creek mine...asked my brother to chime in so I can narrow it down...will PM you later, but I got a sample of bornite from an old rock hound today, he got it in Ontario...that blue stuff in that mine isn't bornite, or I'll eat my loupe...

 

[azdave35]

I hope he remembered where he found them! Also, still working on exact location of that Lynx Creek mine...asked my brother to chime in so I can narrow it down...will PM you later, but I got a sample of bornite from an old rock hound today, he got it in Ontario...that blue stuff in that mine isn't bornite, or I'll eat my loupe...[/QUOTE

the old guy remembered where he got the nuggets ...he had picked them up out of a wash..the only problem was by the time he figured out they were gold....someone had built something over top of it

 

[Oroblanco]

I'm no expert on Peg-leg, but I wasn't aware that any of the original nuggets were ever tested. Would you please enlighten me on the details? Thanks.

Have to agree here, as far as I know no one has ever tested any of the nuggets found by the original Pegleg Smith. And desert varnish can form a black crust on gold as well, there was an AZ geology study on it some years ago. The desert varnish also came right off by cracking the nuggets with a hammer just as we find told in the original story. But manganese is a possibility, we can't know for sure until someone finds Pegleg's gold deposit.

Please do continue;

 

[Lucky Baldwin]

Thanks for the help everyone. Manganese... never would have guessed that. So it must be either manganese or desert varnish.

Is funny, when I first moved to the desert after the Butte fire, I thought prospecting here would be easy. WRONG! First I learned (the hard way) never to step on a mesquite stick, no matter how small it is. Next I discovered a lovely little agave the locals call "shin daggers." A field of them is as formidable a barrier as I've ever come across. Now gold might not look like gold. Sheesh...

Anyway, thanks again everyone for helping me to overcome the desert learning curve.

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Lucky, this is an interesting subject for many reasons…at least to me, anyway!


Hola Roy! Hope you guys are doing well and thawing out up there. Most of our snow has melted, but it is still plenty cold so I can go outside and work without overheating. That last nor’easter took out one of the wife’s sheds and now I have some big pines leaning over our power lines, so I have to get out there with the bobcat and try to push them over far enough where I can cut them down without taking out the power lines to the house.


That desert varnish is something I looked into years ago, as the PegLeg gold was a story that I thought might very well be true. As I recall, at that time they hadn’t yet figured out exactly how desert varnish forms. What I remember is that the brown and red colors were caused by iron oxides, while the blacks and greys were caused by manganese oxides.

The trouble was they really couldn’t tell how those oxides got there. Some people thought it was bacteria (I have both iron and manganese in my well water, so I’ve seen both red and black bacteria growth if I let a dog bowl sit for any length of time without cleaning it out). There were other researchers that said the iron and manganese got into the varnish by being present in clays that over time accumulated in micro-thin layers on rocks. However the black coloring gets there, by saturation in solution or by desert varnish, I’m fairly confident the culprit is always manganese oxides. I may have mangled that as I’m going off memory.


Now one thing that I’ve always wondered about was this piece of iron ore given to me years ago. It looks like a rock, but it is pretty much solid iron. I was told the nodules that formed in this cavity is hematite. I don’t know what to think of that as far as I know that is an iron product yet it appears black.

View attachment 1569018

So who knows, maybe you or Dave can weigh in. I know one thing for sure, any time I see dark black pebbles on the ground in any quantity, I always scoop some up to see if they’re heavier than they should be! Would love to find some “black gold” someday! Take care, Jim

 

[azdave35]

Lucky, this is an interesting subject for many reasons…at least to me, anyway!


Hola Roy! Hope you guys are doing well and thawing out up there. Most of our snow has melted, but it is still plenty cold so I can go outside and work without overheating. That last nor’easter took out one of the wife’s sheds and now I have some big pines leaning over our power lines, so I have to get out there with the bobcat and try to push them over far enough where I can cut them down without taking out the power lines to the house.


That desert varnish is something I looked into years ago, as the PegLeg gold was a story that I thought might very well be true. As I recall, at that time they hadn’t yet figured out exactly how desert varnish forms. What I remember is that the brown and red colors were caused by iron oxides, while the blacks and greys were caused by manganese oxides.

The trouble was they really couldn’t tell how those oxides got there. Some people thought it was bacteria (I have both iron and manganese in my well water, so I’ve seen both red and black bacteria growth if I let a dog bowl sit for any length of time without cleaning it out). There were other researchers that said the iron and manganese got into the varnish by being present in clays that over time accumulated in micro-thin layers on rocks. However the black coloring gets there, by saturation in solution or by desert varnish, I’m fairly confident the culprit is always manganese oxides. I may have mangled that as I’m going off memory.


Now one thing that I’ve always wondered about was this piece of iron ore given to me years ago. It looks like a rock, but it is pretty much solid iron. I was told the nodules that formed in this cavity is hematite. I don’t know what to think of that as far as I know that is an iron product yet it appears black.

View attachment 1569018

So who knows, maybe you or Dave can weigh in. I know one thing for sure, any time I see dark black pebbles on the ground in any quantity, I always scoop some up to see if they’re heavier than they should be! Would love to find some “black gold” someday! Take care, Jim

botroidal geothite / hematite

 

[PotBelly Jim]

Ah-HA! Thanks Dave, just looked it up. The parts I was missing were botroydial (sp?) geothite. Now I can label it. If you ever find yourself in N. Eastern PA, I hope you stop by...for many years I horse-traded for specimens I just thought looked cool, but never made any effort to label what they were or where they were from. Figured I'd get round to it someday but never did and then forgot what most of it was (I always asked what it was but can't remember that stuff anymore). So I have a whole cabinet full of stuff I'm unsure of. At least I know what that rock is now...thanks

 

[azdave35]

Ah-HA! Thanks Dave, just looked it up. The parts I was missing were botroydial (sp?) geothite. Now I can label it. If you ever find yourself in N. Eastern PA, I hope you stop by...for many years I horse-traded for specimens I just thought looked cool, but never made any effort to label what they were or where they were from. Figured I'd get round to it someday but never did and then forgot what most of it was (I always asked what it was but can't remember that stuff anymore). So I have a whole cabinet full of stuff I'm unsure of. At least I know what that rock is now...thanks

your welcome jim....i never leave az but if you ever get back to az ..definitely look me up

 

[gollum]

I know this is an old thread, but I have been absent for a while.

1. Babymick: I was with you until you said your gold was matrixed in Rose Quartz. That gold could have come from an ancient river/creek bed, and was matrixed in caliche. There is a lot of that in Az and Nv. Exposed gold in that Rose Quartz may have gotten smushed, but when you crushed it, EVERYTHING inside would have sharp edges.

2. Dave & Jim: Desert Varnish (windblown manganese clay) is not likely the main reason for the black coating on Peg Leg's gold nuggets. If dark manganese clay were responsible for the black coating, they would only be black on the exposed surfaces. Gold from that area of SoCal has about a 5-10% value of copper. When those nuggets formed, the whole area was under salt water (Widney Sea). You can still see the old sea level stains on the sides of the mountains South of Palm Springs in the Santa Rosas, and also on the North Side of Fish Creek Mountain along Hwy 78. As it wasn't exposed to air, but was covered by salt water, the copper values would not generate verdegris, but turn black.

I have seen black gold nuggets from the 1951 find, and know the approximate location of an earlier source from 1927:



Both finds came after tremendous windstorms. The guy I met was out prospecting and had to take cover when the sandstorm hit. The winds stripped about three feet of sand from area around this creekbed. He found one nugget just lying near the exposed roots of a smoke tree. He grabbed a metal detector and found four more. The 1927 story was similar, but one guy of the two in the car got out after the sandstorm walked for about 30 minutes, then came back with some nuggets. He gave them to his friend that stayed in the car. That guy kept them displayed in his rock and gem shop in Old Town San Diego for many years.

Mike

 

[gollum]

.....also,

don't confuse Lake Cahuila (freshwater) with the Widney Sea (Saltwater). Here is an old pic of the Lake Cahuila Shoreline (about 40 feet above current):



Mike