1800's stream sluicing

[No gold in NY]

I have been wondering about the old time wooden sluices built by mining companies back then. Were they high tech, or did they lose as much gold as they captured? I have heard some of them were as long as 100 feet or more. Thanks for any input.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[RTR]

I've seen Old pictures of them being used on the beaches in Alaska .

 

[Goldwasher]

They were built by the miners on sight.

They found A LOT of gold. you'll notice in pictures that they were fed at multiple points along the run not just at the head

Their length actually made them pretty effective on all sizes of gold

Super fast sudden water would blow them out.

They also have a 0% recovery rate after they collapse, lose one wall or are destroyed by floods and dump all of their cons right back on the ground

 

[seafox]

in occola nevada the repost was the sluice was 1000 feet long, a friend claims that the capture area was only at the bottom but that does not make scence. the water was brought from the eastside of the mountian ranve in ditches and ran for about 5 months of the year. part was cleaned out as they worked for supplys and pay but mostly ran 24 four hours a day untill the water began to dry up and then their was one big clean up at the end. in another news paper story from the 1930 from carriboo mountian idaho say was 4 men were on the mountian with three monitors and a 600 foot long sluice.

on youtube their is some movie footage of sluiceing in alaska after the end of ww2 and I have seen photosa where the sluice was toped with wing dams to direct water and sediment into the sluice rocks were thrown out of the sluice both slong side and up hill of the start of the saluice. not trying to hijanck this thread but I wonder is the area above where the sluicew but where rocks were sorted out might be a good spot to mine? also along where the row of rocks tossed out of the sluice would leakage from the sluice enriched the path of the sluice?

 

[goldenmojo]

On the NF American the Tertiary channels were high on the side of the ridges and some sluices were up to 6oo' long and shot out down the side of the mountain. The main capture area was in the top 1/4 of the sluice and that was cleaned out the most often. Past the halfway mark not much gold was recovered and the cleanouts were done infrequently. The right to work the taillings was bid out to Chinese miners.

https://books.google.com/books?id=N...AC#v=onepage&q=mines of placer county&f=false

 

[N-Lionberger]

in occola nevada the repost was the sluice was 1000 feet long, a friend claims that the capture area was only at the bottom but that does not make scence. the water was brought from the eastside of the mountian ranve in ditches and ran for about 5 months of the year. part was cleaned out as they worked for supplys and pay but mostly ran 24 four hours a day untill the water began to dry up and then their was one big clean up at the end. in another news paper story from the 1930 from carriboo mountian idaho say was 4 men were on the mountian with three monitors and a 600 foot long sluice.

on youtube their is some movie footage of sluiceing in alaska after the end of ww2 and I have seen photosa where the sluice was toped with wing dams to direct water and sediment into the sluice rocks were thrown out of the sluice both slong side and up hill of the start of the saluice. not trying to hijanck this thread but I wonder is the area above where the sluicew but where rocks were sorted out might be a good spot to mine? also along where the row of rocks tossed out of the sluice would leakage from the sluice enriched the path of the sluice?

Yes, if you can figure out where the sluice run actually sat in a hydraulic pit there is good chance of finding gold along the whole run but its best at the ends top and bottom.

 

[dave wiseman]

Long toms....

 

[Goldwasher]

long toms were ran differently than sluice.

in different circumstances.

they left behind different signs.

 

[N-Lionberger]

A long tom is like a highbanker except instead of the rocks falling out the back they are flung out with a hay fork making their tailing distinctive as GW pointed out. They were fed water much like a highbanker often with canvas hoses.

 

[Goldwasher]

A long tom is like a highbanker except instead of the rocks falling out the back they are flung out with a hay fork making their tailing distinctive as GW pointed out. They were fed water much like a highbanker often with canvas hoses.

Yep. Sluices were ran at the bottom of Hydraulic pits.. as the processing method for large benches that material could be moved to. In the river beds with low water using diverted flow and wherever the water was constant. For those long sluices you needed a lot of water.

I believe long Toms were moved and sluice runs generally were added to and then left.

Rockers were used when there was water but, it wasn't flowing..and later on not as much.

Toms were set up on the benches where they could get water from upstream diversion.I'm sure they se them up in the river beds as the water dropped as well....But, we will never see evidence of that..other than what was put on paper.

The feed portion of the set up was a bit off the ground by design...so getting water to them must have been a job in itself.

There are some guys who set up a respectable sized replica at Gold Rush Days in Coloma every year.

A gas pump a good size Hi-banker and two guys would run circles around it.

Seems like the bottle neck would always be the punch plate. Too much water would be pointless and wasteful in booming situations.

I have Iron punch plate on a bench on our claims..holes made with a pick. About 3/4" to 1" holes

There was no ditch up stream to run hoses of off.

The 1872 hand drawn survey shows a flume about 3/4 of a mile upstream.

Water is normally gone by the end of Ma​

 

[bug]

That sounds about right Goldwasher, it seems most the smaller operations were generally using the Tom style with punch plate, unless they had good water flow and enough drop to move things along.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Rocker boxes at the beginning were often carved from logs and were fairly large ran by a few friendly miners. As toms and sluices became popular they still saw use in low water situations, by lone miners and by bigger concerns as a means of further concentrating sluice concentrates. River sluices were big undertakings to build and often were destroyed on a yearly basis by flood waters especially the big wing damn operations.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Riffles in all the boxes typically consisted of wooden boards, log rounds, or small dia. saplings.
Hardly high tech.

Water could be intermittent due to having to share with other miners, not to mention the weather.

Pay material was stockpiled up during the dry season. They would run large volumes of dirty pay quickly. Clay balls rolled through the box.
Clay and silt probably packed the voids each time the water was shut off.

Boxes were many times only cleaned up every month or once a mining season.

Of course there were mining operations of all sizes.

 

[blichney]

Watch this guy builds one in the bush with a few hand tools and logs, works great!

 

[N-Lionberger]

That is one of my all time favorite youtube videos.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Riffles in all the boxes typically consisted of wooden boards, log rounds, or small dia. saplings.
Hardly high tech.

Water could be intermittent due to having to share with other miners, not to mention the weather.

Pay material was stockpiled up during the dry season. They would run large volumes of dirty pay quickly. Clay balls rolled through the box.
Clay and silt probably packed the voids each time the water was shut off.

Boxes were many times only cleaned up every month or once a mining season.

Of course there were mining operations of all sizes.

I wanted to end with this; when you see evidence of old sluices and small piles of even sized rocks, keep walking. All you will find is nails and hot rocks. Those old timers got most of the gold and your time would be better spent searching for some undiscovered virgin ground.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Yes walk away more gold for us.

 

[Goldwasher]

I wanted to end with this; when you see evidence of old sluices and small piles of even sized rocks, keep walking. All you will find is nails and hot rocks. Those old timers got most of the gold and your time would be better spent searching for some undiscovered virgin ground.

to me that means the Chinese didn't flip the ground

Square nails in between piles means rotten sluices

TRASH MEANS GOLD!!!

If your finding multiple square nails... the ground hasn't been hunted right.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

to me that means the Chinese didn't flip the ground

Square nails in between piles means rotten sluices

TRASH MEANS GOLD!!!

If your finding multiple square nails... the ground hasn't been hunted right.

Shhh. Nothing there..move along.

 

[arizau]

I have been wondering about the old time wooden sluices built by mining companies back then. Were they high tech, or did they lose as much gold as they captured? I have heard some of them were as long as 100 feet or more. Thanks for any input.

Mining other peoples tailings is almost always productive to some extent. Methods, even modern methods are not 100% for various reasons.

I for one pretty much exclusively mine old rocker box tailings when I prospect in my neck of the woods/errr desert. Water is scarce to non existent except for hauling in which is out of the question for me. The piles are remote from the parking spots, easy to dig (important when you get to be my age) and are already pre classified to a size that is perfect for feeding a drywasher. I always find gold, not much but what I do find always gives me grins and it beats the hell out of the prospect of hauling home some dirt to sample pan and getting skunked. Been there, done that, "no mas". I'm still hoping I will find some nuggets in the screen oversize reject piles with my detector like others have.