Golden Legends Tales of Buried Treasure

  Updated on August 28, 2023 John has been prospecting for gold in Arizona for 10 years. His experience has taught him how to handle the terrain, heat, and gold fever. The Gold Miner Spiral Panning Machine with Action Packer A Spiral to Keep You Busy If you're having trouble relaxing and are always looking for a way to make a little money like me, this discussion may be for you. Recreational gold prospecting has taken off as a hobby throughout the United States. It is a great pastime for one person and can also be a wonderful family activity. I tend to spiral out of control if I'm not working. I get panicked and don't know what to do with myself. — Rose Byrne The Theory Behind Spiral Panning Like many machines used to separate gold from paydirt, the spiral wheel uses two forces to deposit gold into a little plastic pail suspended by a handle behind the spiral. The spiral is powered by a small 12V motor (about 12 revs a minute) and water is sprayed onto the spiral near the s...

  Updated on March 30, 2024 John loves writing about Arizona, gold prospecting, and stories of treasure. Beyond finding his gold, he likes reading about others' quests. Copper, gold, and silver were a boon for Cornish miners in 1850s Arizona. | Source A Bit of History Cornwall is a county in Southwest England in the United Kingdom surrounded by water. The English Channel is to the south, and the Celtic Sea is to the west. Arizona is very dry and bordered by no oceans. Cornwall has historically been 99% White British. Arizona has historically had a broad ethnic spectrum: 43% White and 50% Hispanic, with Native Americans, Blacks, and Asians making up the balance. It would seem that the two states have had little in common. But that would be misleading. In the 19th century (the 1830s -1840s), hard rock miners from Cornwall emigrated to the western United States and Mexico to find their fortune. During the last half of the 19th century, 20% of the male population went abroad. Disease,...

  Updated on November 5, 2023                                                         * John has prospected for gold in Arizona 10 years. His experience taught him to deal with the terrain, heat, and gold fever. He makes tools. The sheer size of the mission with its white stucco makes it a grand sight from a distance (The White Dove of the Desert). Lost Silver Mines Some of the fondest recollections of my youth are trips from Tucson, AZ, to Nogales, AZ, when out-of-town visitors arrived. My sister and I would choose which of the broken crayons we would each take for the ride. We would very carefully fill a Band-Aid metal tin with all of the fractured crayons we would need to color our drawings as we traveled south down the highway. There were rocky mountains full of old mines, mostly silver, and mesquite-speckled verdant hills on either si...

  Updated on July 13, 2024 John is a retired math teacher who is involved in many activities. He writes, builds model ships, gardens, reads, and prospects for gold. A Mysterious Beginning As early as the 18th century, uranium was known for emitting green and yellow hues. When mixed with glass, its fluorescent effects are quite striking. Dating to 79 AD, uranium oxide (what you get after the milling and processing of uranium ore) has been found in some Italian glass. Of course, its chemical properties were not known. Today, uranium plays a huge role in our national economy, and a significant role in Arizona's economy. HEUraniumC, A billet of highly enriched uranium that was recovered from scrap processed at the Y-12 National Security Complex Plant.  Carrizo Mountains Uranium mining has taken place in Arizona ever since 1918. Before the uranium boom in the 1940s, uranium was basically a by-product gotten as a result of vanadium mining and mining of the mineral called camotite. D...