Peglegs Black Gold Nuggets

I see that you have searched in the Chuckwalla Mtns. “Lost Treasures of California – Map & Guide” plots the vicinity of the Lost Pegleg Mine about 200 miles northwest of the Salton Sea, just west of California City. The guide relies on Thomas Penfield’s assertion that the mine is somewhere near the Guilliday Well in the Chuckwalla Mountains. Also mentioned is the SW of the Salton Sea theory, and one theory that places the mine 3 miles east of the village of Jamacha, now a suburb of San Diego.
 

Drizzledrone said:
I see that you have searched in the Chuckwalla Mtns. “Lost Treasures of California – Map & Guide” plots the vicinity of the Lost Pegleg Mine about 200 miles northwest of the Salton Sea, just west of California City. The guide relies on Thomas Penfield’s assertion that the mine is somewhere near the Guilliday Well in the Chuckwalla Mountains. Also mentioned is the SW of the Salton Sea theory, and one theory that places the mine 3 miles east of the village of Jamacha, now a suburb of San Diego.
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Yes the Chuckwallas are one area I have hunted Pegleg, along with part of the Chocolate range, Anza Borrego park (state park) and a few others I would rather not mention. There is definitely some gold in some of these areas but nothing like the Pegleg story. I have seen quite a few different versions that place the gold anywhere from well into Arizona to San Diego but 200 miles NW of the Salton sea is a new one on me. :shrug:
 

Whomever wrote that book really needs to put the crack pipe down for a while!

200 miles NorthWest of Salton Sea is somewhere between Bakersfield and Anacapa Island!?!?!?

Really need to read the story of Peg Leg and the black gold nuggets. The best book by far on the subject is "Golden Mirages" by Philip Bailey

GOLDEN MIRAGES

GREAT BOOK!

As Roy knows, we have covered a lot of the same ground looking for (occasionally) the same things. He's been over some places I haven't, and I have been some he and Beth haven't gotten to. None of it is too easy going. I personally know about two places that I KNOW black gold nuggets have been found. Both are down near Interstate 8 near Ocotillo, Ca. Problem is that most of the area needs about three feet of blow sand removed. The best story I have is that after a big sandstorm had moved some dunes a ways, in a wash, there was a smoke tree that you could see about 2 feet of its roots. A black gold nugget was found on the surface. The guy went back with an old (fairly new at the time) 1950s mine detector and found four more. I hit all the washes in the area with a Minelab XTerra 70, and found bullets and wire. I never got out there with my SD2000, but will see about it.

Mike
 

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Thanks for the info, Gollum. I'll update my spreadsheet. I always thought that the area north of I-8 might be a good place to look. You have the advantage, though, because my MD is pretty old....

JB
 

All you Peg Leg searchers are off by about 1100 miles. I found 4 black nuggets in the Owyhee desert this week. LOL
 

rodoconnor said:
All you Peg Leg searchers are off by about 1100 miles. I found 4 black nuggets in the Owyhee desert this week. LOL
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Good for you! Can you post a few photos of those black nuggets? If you read our older discussion you know that we found that it is not that uncommon for gold to become coated or crusted with a black layer in desert environments, which may explain how we have differences in the stories of where the black nuggets were found. Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco
 

Oroblanco , They are no longer black ! A little acid bath and they are looking pretty. I found an ancient river channel under about 50' of basalt. Most of gold is even finer than Snake River gold. That's why I was amazed to find these little nuggets. The next batch I'll try to get some before and after pics.
 

rodoconnor said:
Oroblanco , They are no longer black ! A little acid bath and they are looking pretty. I found an ancient river channel under about 50' of basalt. Most of gold is even finer than Snake River gold. That's why I was amazed to find these little nuggets. The next batch I'll try to get some before and after pics.
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Before and after pix would be great - because we have had people saying it is IMPOSSIBLE for gold to have a black crust, for years now. If you could show a photo (before and after) it kind of settles that point for our skeptics. Good luck and good hunting, hope you can find a bunch more even bigger!
Oroblanco

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
 

Oroblanco said:
Before and after pix would be great - because we have had people saying it is IMPOSSIBLE for gold to have a black crust, for years now. If you could show a photo (before and after) it kind of settles that point for our skeptics. Good luck and good hunting, hope you can find a bunch more even bigger!
Oroblanco

:coffee2: :coffee: :coffee2:
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Agreed!! Congratulations!! Please note, since the acid bath cleaned them up, I suspect they were not the "desert varnish" black nuggets, but more likely the high copper content/copper oxide black nuggets that were discussed before.

JB

:coffee2::hello2::coffee2:
 

From Hairdoggy, I have studied Pegleg's Black Gold Nuggets for 20+ years and hiked the area Pegleg found himself lost in (in my oppinion) for the same amount of time. The reason why no searcher has ever found Pegleg's Black gold is because the Kumeyaay Indians knew of its whereabouts. This fact is well documented. In 1829 ,when Smith made his find, gold had no real value to these desert dwellers. 30 years later these Indians developed a taste for store bought goods from contact with whites(especially sugar, flour, coffee and calico and unfortunatly alcohol). Then sometime after 1860 Cyrus Kimble built the Kimble-Wilson Store near Warner's Ranch on the Southern Emigrant Trail near Kumeyaay territory. The Indians retreaved all the local placer gold and traded it for white man's goods, now gold had value to them. Mrs. Wilson, who ran the store with her husband after Kimble was murdered, testified that desert Indians brought gold into the store and traded it for goods. The Pegleg gold is placer gold , and placer gold is a very limited resource. By the time white prospectors and adventurers got there to search for fabled black gold it was all picked up. A similar scenerio can be said for the Adam's Diggins. The Apache or Navajo knew where it was. Adam's Dig was placer gold. The Indians picked it out when they found it would buy guns and whiskey.
 

Okay, guys, I'm going to try to put my spread sheet in here. it may be too small to read, but we'll give it a try.

Black gold. (2).jpg

Hopefully you can read it.

JB
 

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Thanks for posting that. You are right, the text is very tiny. I still needed my reading glasses when I downloaded the pic but was able to read it.
 

You are certainly welcome. The amount of info was overwhelming until I put it in the spread sheet. the site won't let you attach anything but a picture, but if you want, i can e-mail it to you. PM me if you want.

JB
 

If there is interest in an idea that I have come up with to find surface gold, I have started another thread
to explore the idea further. Just reply and when (if) we have a few people on board, I will open my idea up for comment. It is legal, even in Borrego.
 

bobinsd said:
If there is interest in an idea that I have come up with to find surface gold, I have started another thread
to explore the idea further. Just reply and when (if) we have a few people on board, I will open my idea up for comment. It is legal, even in Borrego.
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Hey, Bob, I replied to the other thread, but I'm not sure which section it is in. Anyway, as I said there, I'm interested. I'm located in Valley center area.

JB
 

This is from a post by Infosponge in the Sister Michela Molina Documents thread, post #337. What is interesting to me in this excerpt, and why I reposted the information is the description of the copper nuggets “which also contained some gold”. They are described as “Chocolate colored stones” which isn’t far from the description of some of the reported “Black gold” nuggets that we have heard about, albeit much larger…. This seems to me to reinforce the idea that at least some of the “black gold” nuggets had a high copper content.

Well then, you just might find the following information a wee bit interesting: From the book titled "Missionary in Sonora The Travel Reports of Josrph Och, S. J." 1755-1767, pages 150 & 151.

I can't seem to get the attachment to paste here, so if you want to see the original, go to the referenced thread.

JB
 

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The Lost Mines of the Desert - Part III: The Peg -Leg Mine

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