delnorter said:
Eagle and Lanny,
Thank you so much for your efforts. It is truly appreciated by me and I'm sure many others. Regardless of a persons experience you guys writings are exciting and extremely informative. You folks not only provide knowledge to better understand new circumstances encountered in the field but for me you often provide better understanding of how to re-evaluate past places I've prospected.
Thanks guys, I hope you and all the rest of the prospecting amd MD community have a fine Christmas and a great new year.
Mike
Halito Mike,
Thank you for your post!! Quite honestly, it's the posts like this (and previous posts), that keeps me writing. I have to admit that there are occasions when I wonder why I even bother. Especially when
I've posted a couple of times and don't know whether anyone is even reading them.
Then, someone will come in and say how much they appreciate it, and I'm off and running again.
I would also like to say, that if any of my readers have anything they would like to post, they're
welcome to do so. Anything that might add to the knowledge of this thread would be most welcome.
Of course, humorous little stories would be appreciated also. As a matter of fact, I'll start by telling one
of my first big strike.
From Rags to Riches.........Oops, back to Rags!
(Glad I didn't throw the rags away!)
Once upon a time long ago, in a land far away, there was a newcomer to the land. And he was welcomed
by the denizens of this land. Well, at least by his Sister and Brother-in-law. (Actually, they little choice in the matter, as they were the ones who brought him to the land of Bishop, CA.
Now this young man, who had just barely seen his 18th birthday, had read some accounts of gold mining in California, and as young men will, he figured that he knew just about everything there was to know about gold mining. Little did he know, that there was one thing that the books couldn't teach...........But, we'll get to that later!!
So, one bright sunny day in the early Summer, he picked up his tools and ventured into the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to seek his fortune. He decided that the most worthwhile area to find his fortune would be up a road that the local villagers called "ButterMilk Road".
A little segue here: They called it ButterMilk Rd., because it was said that if you put a jug of milk on the floor board, by the time you reached the end of the road, you would have a jug of butter AND milk.
Well, as luck would have it, he reached a point where it was a toss-up as to who would give up first......
him, or the truck. When he parked and got out of the truck, he had to sit on a boulder for a few minutes, until he stopped vibrating. When he finally stood up to go try his luck in a nearby stream, he felt better, because he noticed that the truck was still vibrating.
He walked over to the stream, scooped up some sand and gravel and sat down on the edge of the stream to pan it down. Nope, no gold there. So, he started down the stream, panning here and there for about a half mile. By now, he was getting hungry, so he opened his pack and took out a sumptious........
peanutbutter and jelly sandwich. Oh yeah!! Heavenly repast.
While sitting there eating his lunch, his eyes looked up the granite hill on the other side of the stream and low and behold, there, about 40 feet up, he spotted a vein of quartz. And the way the sun was hitting it, he was sure that he saw a flash of golden light. O.K., forget the lunch, it's time to get rich!
Now, this was a little tricky, since the slope of the granite was about 45 degrees and he soon found out that cowboy boots didn't give the best of traction on a solid rock slope.
But he persevered, and after much sliding and slipping, eventually found himself within reach of the quartz vein. It was then that he KNEW he would return to the village as a hero Nay, a God!!! For more than half of the quartz vein was........GOLD!!!
Now, he found himself in a quandry.
Even if his levis weren't too tight to put the gold in his pockets, he couldn't let go of the little crevasse his fingers were in, to put it in his pocket. The big question was; how do I get it out, without losing any of it. Finally, good sense won out over greed. He had one free hand, so he would just pry it out with his little pick and let it fall down the hill to, and into the stream. (Don't worry, the stream was only about 6 inches deep).
So, using the pointed end of his rock pick, he started prying pieces of quartz and gold out of the vein. When he figured he had enough to fill his shirt, he started back down the hill. And not a moment too soon for the only thing giving him enough strength to hang up there was the sheer excitement of knowing that he would soon be a wealthy man. (Well, in a few years he'd be a man).
It didn't take him long to reach the ground, but it did cost him the knees of his levis. (Good thing it was too steep for him to turn around and slide down on his butt).
Well, he hadn't expected to hit it this big so soon, so he didn't bring a bag to put his gold in.
His only option was to take his shirt off and use it as a bag. Once he had all of it in his shirt, he tied it up into a bundle and put it on the seat of his truck and started the rough trip back down to the village of Bishop. Luckily, the vibration wasn't as bad going down hill as it was coming up.
When he reached the village, he headed straight for the Government Assayer's office. When he stepped inside, Mr. Hogel (the assayer) met him at the counter and asked what he could do for him. Whereupon, the young lad placed his make-shift bundle on the counter and unwrapped his gold.
And was immediately mortified by Mr. Hogel's laughter. "Well", said Mr. Hogel, (between guffaws) "Those are some real nice specimens of.........IRON PYRITES"!!
You see? The one thing the books couldn't show the young lad, "was what real gold looks like". But, it turned out alright, Mr. Hogel took the time to show the lad what REAL gold looks and feels like.
And to this day, he's never mistaken anything else for gold.
Eagle
