The Quest for Maine Gold

[OreCart]

Triple D, Arizau, and JonnyBravo3000...I really am not sure whether this was a former riverbed or not.

There is a stream not far away, big enough to be called a brook that is forever running. This is located in a valley at 500, feet and my gravel pit is below that, as indicated by me often digging below the water table.

The only information the Maine Geological Survey gave me was that the size of the gravel indicates how much water was moving THROUGH the soil when deposited. It must have been moving pretty good because there are not a lot of big rocks in it. Most of it is sandy, to maybe 2 inches in diameter. Occasionally I do get a big rock, but they are few and far between...very, very isolated.

Sometimes my beliefs do not match up with geologists, but in this one area they do. Geologists believe that the ocean rose to the 540 foot level in Maine, thereby putting this gravel pit under ocean water. I believe in the bible, so I believe in Noah's flood. Regardless, both proposals put this area under water at one time, but when the water ran out of the valley from either event, it would have scoured the hilltop I live on, pushing soils down into the valley, and then left the gravel behind when the glacier melted, or the water ran out leaving behind a gravel bar in a sense,

My spell checker may be spelling this wrong, but what I have here is "eskews" of gravel. Now that I have cut the trees in the pit, you can now clearly see the lay of the land originally, and where that front shovel did its work in 1969. So I am not sure if this gravel pit was the result of one big mud puddle, or a former river bed? The new acre of gravel we found, terrain wise, looks like a giant football in shape. It is tapered on each end, and rounded on the sides to form a twenty foot high hummock roughly an acre in size, split off from the rest of the gravel pit area by a stream.

I will have to take time out from my digging and get some pictures for you guys to show you what I am talking about.

One thing I did note yesterday when I was digging down there was, the clay layer is just on top of the water table. It is about a foot thick, but if I dig below that clay, the water starts bubbling up. I have no idea what that means in terms of gold. There is gorgeous gravel below the clay layer, and down under the water table by another twenty feet or more.

Oh...one more thing in this long-winded post. I am finding a crap-ton of galena-like-stuff. It is the strangest stuff. I dig it out of the gravel, but when I jump down to inspect it, the second I touch it, it crumbles into granules. Most of the time just the gravel swirling around the bucket is enough to take a chunk the size of a milk bottle and instantly turn it into dust. It is the strangest stuff, but in big form, it looks like the pages of a book, layers upon thin layers opened up like you took a book and dropped it on the floor and it fanned open. I got to have it tested just to see what the heck it is exactly. I call it galena, but it might be something else.

 

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[triple d]

Ore cart as you describe.If its an old river channel the size of the rock. Would be the size of a stream in your area. But the clay layer is interesting. That would be related to a stream. And would act as a false bedrock. But also a glacier could have deposited in that one spot. Your gravel pit. The galena your seeing sounds like books of mica. But you most likely know what mica is.

 

[OreCart]

Ore cart as you describe.If its an old river channel the size of the rock. Would be the size of a stream in your area. But the clay layer is interesting. That would be related to a stream. And would act as a false bedrock. But also a glacier could have deposited in that one spot. Your gravel pit. The galena your seeing sounds like books of mica. But you most likely know what mica is.

I got some pictures for you so that you can judge for yourself.

Well it was raining/snowing today…yes, I know it is May 14th 2019, but nature does not seem to know that, so I went and got some pictures down to my gravel pit since I am not doing much else. I have not been prospecting much because I have been redoing all of the earthworks around our old (1930) Tiny House, and it has been taking all my free time.

This photo shows how fine the gravel is here though. I threw a water bottle into the photo so that you could get a sense on the size of the gravel. Its really good for bank run gravel for roads and such, but needs a little overburden mixed it to get it to compact well.

In looking at this photo though, I think you might be right in that it was indeed a stream at one time. There is plenty of quartz, and as hard as that is, that is pretty rounded over edges.

 

[OreCart]

This picture shows the outcropping of bedrock where I took a few buckets of gravel, and test panned it, and found gold. Bedrock crops up every once and awhile here, but there does not seem to be any pattern to it.

As I said in an earlier post, we do not dig constantly in here enough to keep everything fresh. Over time overburden slumps, and we move elsewhere to dig for awhile, never digging more than a few hundred cubic yards in any given year. That is why there is a lot of grass and trees starting to grow.

 

[OreCart]

This picture shows a variety of things. In looking back, you can see where the front shovel just pushed up banks hither and thither, with no real plan on future use. I think they just dug here and there hoping to find gravel, and wherever it was easiest and quickest to load trucks. It looks obvious now, but just last year the forest had grown up so thick since 1969 that you could not even walk through it. The feller-buncher mowed it off nicely though.

The water pictured is NOT ponded water, it is actually the water table.

You can also see the foot-deep layer of clay that sits just on top of the water table.

 

[OreCart]

Totally unrelated to saws, but I was super excited this weekend as I have been redoing my front yard, and built a set of granite steps out of some old granite slabs I had kicking around. Well I have been looking for this all my life, and it was the first time I have ever found it...hand split granite done by flat chisel!!

About 1830 someone invented the wedges and feather method of splitting granite, which is where a star shaped chisel is used to drill a ROUND hole, then half round wedges are inserted and driven home until the rock cracks. You can even buy these feathers and wedges today. But before 1930, they split rock by flat chisel.

To do that, the settlers used a spoon shaped chisel and cut a slot in the rock every few inches, then drove home flat wedges to split the rock.

I have founds tons and tons of rock split by feather and wedges, but never any by spoon chisel and flat wedge. But this weekend I grabbed some granite I had kicking around, and in the dirt, you could just make out the spoon chisel cuts in the rock. That means this split rock was OLD!

My house is not that old, built in 1930, but it was built after the old dance hall here burned. Before that it was a home that burned. To this day, the house sits on the old foundation built for the first house in 1800. Not in the 1800's, but THE YEAR 1800. A few years as I bulldozed around this house, I found some granite foundation stones, and pushed it aside figuring I was use them some day. I had no idea they had been split the old, old fashioned way though with spoon chisel.

I had always heard about this old method of splitting rock, but in all my years of digging around granite, never saw it before. Now it will be part of the front walkway to the house, so I am super excited. (Rocks do that to me for some reason).

Here is a picture of the granite rock split by spoon chisel. Kind of interesting how a person can date how it was split based on the method used. No plug and feather used here. All I can say is it must have taken forever to split this using that method.

 

[OreCart]

It is hard to see in this picture, but this is the football shaped gravel bank that we did not know existed until after we removed the wood off last year. It is about an acre in size, and a nice discovery.

 

[arizau]

Do you wash the gravel or just dig and load?

 

[OreCart]

Do you wash the gravel or just dig and load?

I just dig and load. I kind of have to on this pit as washing would eliminate the clay and it would not compact properly. The soil engineers usually have me mix overburden in with the gravel for that reason.

 

[triple d]

Ore cart by the pictures. Looks glacial to me. But i think the gravels did come from a stream. Picked up by the glaciers. And deposited there. As i said a good place to test. If you find a layer with good gravel. With bigger stones.Laying on the clay. I have always had the idea. Of digging out a beaver pond. Down to bedrock. But not possible now. Thinking all the silt would be a good catch. For the gold. And a story i read. Of an indian in northern N.H. That said there was a beaver pond. That had enought gold pay off. The national dept. And when he came to town. For supply"s had a fair amount of gold. That is a nice piece of granite. As good as any machine. Can do now.

 

[OreCart]

Ore cart by the pictures. Looks glacial to me. But i think the gravels did come from a stream. Picked up by the glaciers. And deposited there. As i said a good place to test. If you find a layer with good gravel. With bigger stones.Laying on the clay. I have always had the idea. Of digging out a beaver pond. Down to bedrock. But not possible now. Thinking all the silt would be a good catch. For the gold. And a story i read. Of an indian in northern N.H. That said there was a beaver pond. That had enought gold pay off. The national dept. And when he came to town. For supply"s had a fair amount of gold. That is a nice piece of granite. As good as any machine. Can do now.

You can still dig a pond like you describe, at least in Maine you can, up to a certain size, which I think is like a quarter of an acre, so not very big at all. It gets questionable when it is in a stream through. I say that because some farmers I know built a manure digester, and to get the manure from their dairy farm to their digester took more permitting to cross a stream then it did for them to get a municipal waste dump permit.

And sadly I have had to go to course for "altering the course of a stream" when I ripped out a beaver dam. That was stupid as I did not alter the stream, the beavers did, I just put it back to where it was. The kid...and I mean kid...who was in charge of the Department of Environmental Protection's case was something else. He wanted me to pay a $35,000 fine and only got $2500 so I call it a win.

He did not stay in Maine long. They sent him up to Millinocket about the time the two paper mils closed, and he started running his skimmer. The boys up there did not like that to much, and started to put the lead to him, and they were not trying to miss either. The DEP knew it was not going to end well, and sent him down to Portland where he did a little better, but I do not think he is in Maine any more.

Good riddance!

I say that because he did not do his job anyway. When I first found out about him having heart burn over a little beaver dam, I went to Augusta to put the questions to him. I got out there at 10 AM and he was not even at work yet! Even then he was scared; he was not used to having to answer to someone that is for sure, and that was before he was getting shot at. We are pretty rough around here I admit, but not like they are in Millinocket, and especially right after the mills closed.

They wonder why we have the lowest crime rate in the country! Its because "shoot, shovel and shut up" deters more crime then calling the police!

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Looks like glacial debris to me.

 

[placertogo]

You can still dig a pond like you describe, at least in Maine you can, up to a certain size, which I think is like a quarter of an acre, so not very big at all. It gets questionable when it is in a stream through. I say that because some farmers I know built a manure digester, and to get the manure from their dairy farm to their digester took more permitting to cross a stream then it did for them to get a municipal waste dump permit.

And sadly I have had to go to course for "altering the course of a stream" when I ripped out a beaver dam. That was stupid as I did not alter the stream, the beavers did, I just put it back to where it was. The kid...and I mean kid...who was in charge of the Department of Environmental Protection's case was something else. He wanted me to pay a $35,000 fine and only got $2500 so I call it a win.

He did not stay in Maine long. They sent him up to Millinocket about the time the two paper mils closed, and he started running his skimmer. The boys up there did not like that to much, and started to put the lead to him, and they were not trying to miss either. The DEP knew it was not going to end well, and sent him down to Portland where he did a little better, but I do not think he is in Maine any more.

Good riddance!

I say that because he did not do his job anyway. When I first found out about him having heart burn over a little beaver dam, I went to Augusta to put the questions to him. I got out there at 10 AM and he was not even at work yet! Even then he was scared; he was not used to having to answer to someone that is for sure, and that was before he was getting shot at. We are pretty rough around here I admit, but not like they are in Millinocket, and especially right after the mills closed.

They wonder why we have the lowest crime rate in the country! Its because "shoot, shovel and shut up" deters more crime then calling the police!

With what you have in Augusta today, DEP can declare a puddle in your driveway to be a wetland. The landowner is behind the eight ball and at their mercy.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

One little canister of Tannerite will eat a beaver dams lunch. Dont be in the flood channel when she goes cuz its alot of water!

 

[OreCart]

With what you have in Augusta today, DEP can declare a puddle in your driveway to be a wetland. The landowner is behind the eight ball and at their mercy.

My opinion differs in that I think they want people to believe that. It is definitely in their best interest to think that way.

I have stood up to them three times and have been better for it every time. Once it went to court, and the other times they did not even try.

People often forget that ultimately their citations have to go through an ELECTED official, the District Attorney's Office, and that office gets citations from the State Police, Sheriff's Office, Marine Patrol, Game Wardens, Forest Service, others, including the DEP. In other words, they are overwhelmed with very limited staff, so unless they are sure they can get a conviction, they will not even waste their resources.

There is a right way to state all this, and a wrong way, but politely suggesting that whatever citations overzealous regulators are leveraging against you must "convince a jury of 12 people of my peers that I am doing something wrong beyond reasonable doubt", lets them know right up front, just what they are up against. There is a host of steps to the process, and if they know every step you are going to defend yourself, they often give up pretty quickly.

Two years ago the forest service tried to nail me on some nonsense "cargo theft" charge. All it was, was long-hauling wood, and I did not do it anyway, because how could I, I do not even own a truck or have a license. It was stupid. I would admit if I did, but it did not get beyond the Grand Jury. It just goes to show that for the most part our court system works.

Even then the Forest Ranger that showed up was quietly put in his place. He was all puffed right up, serving me some subpoena, and wanted me to talk. I just told him, as I do everyone that shows up on my farm, "I am not saying anything until I talk to my attorney." That deflates their ego pretty quick. They messed up pretty good anyway. They executed a search warrant on the wrong house, and looked pretty sheepish when the mail carrier told them so. They could not get out of the house quick enough. Then the Forest Ranger kept running his mouth trying to get me to talk though I clearly stated I needed an attorney. The third strike against them was with the grand jury...

But I can back up what I say, three years ago I took the Federal Government to court and won. The Maine USDA said it was the first time they had ever lost a case in Maine. But in that case, the Federal Judge told me the burden of proof was on me to prove my case, and so I had witnesses, and talked pretty plain when it was my turn to speak. He must have liked me because it even shocked me when I won.

 

[OreCart]

This is a gold forum, and not about logging, but I wanted to clarify what Long-Hauling is.

Loggers call it long-hauling though mills call it "zone-jumping", and the courts lump it into "Cargo Theft", just to confuse things more.

It is pretty simple; trucking is expensive, so papermills pay more money for wood hauled from longer distances away. That mileage is based upon "zones", and so whereas wood coming from nearby would be in zone one, sixty miles away it might come from zone two, or further zone three...etc. If a trucker is trucking wood from woodlots in a farther zone, when asked where the wood on a particular load came from, they just lie and say it came from the farther woodlot. That is long-hauling, or zone-jumping.

Most of the time it is done by the trucker and logger, with most landowners knowing nothing about it. But it might. Either way, the extra money is split between the trucker/logger or possibly landowner if they are involved.

Years ago, if a trucker got caught long-hauling, the papermill kicked them out of the mill for six months and that was it. But a few years ago the paper mills started closing, going from dozens of paper mills, to just 6 today. The papermills realized they were spending money on long hauling and went to the state for help, who were eager to help keep the remaining paper mills thriving. So the paper mills now, if they suspect long-hauling, contact the Forest Service who investigates, and then takes it to the local District Attorneys' office.

They have learned they can lump what is a minor infraction, into "cargo theft" which is a big buzz word now. That is why you hear of "cargo thefts" being on the rise...if it involves a truck, it is cargo theft when that is not really the case. In terms of long-hauling, nothing was stolen, paper mills are just paying more for the wood then they should have. It is theft by deception, not cargo theft; a big difference.

I have done it, but no longer do. First, I go to church and long-hauling is lying, and just plain wrong. But I am also a certified forest, so any wood coming off my land is carefully tracked, not for long-hauling reasons, but for sustainable reasons. But that leads to a third reason, and that is I am limited how much I can harvest from my land. I can only harvest 1600 cords per year, and while I might get $25 a cord extra for long hauling, it is no longer worth risking my reputation, Christian ethics, or forest certification for a mere $40,000 extra a year, and most years I do not come close to logging that many cords.

So I knew that Forest Ranger was getting poor information, and had nothing on me because I did nothing wrong, but I do not appreciate a guy being all puffed up and thinking I am going to cower to him because he is a Forest Ranger. I REALLY did not like him trying to get me to talk after telling him 3 times I was not saying anything without an attorney present.

 

[placertogo]

This is a gold forum, and not about logging, but I wanted to clarify what Long-Hauling is.

Loggers call it long-hauling though mills call it "zone-jumping", and the courts lump it into "Cargo Theft", just to confuse things more.

It is pretty simple; trucking is expensive, so papermills pay more money for wood hauled from longer distances away. That mileage is based upon "zones", and so whereas wood coming from nearby would be in zone one, sixty miles away it might come from zone two, or further zone three...etc. If a trucker is trucking wood from woodlots in a farther zone, when asked where the wood on a particular load came from, they just lie and say it came from the farther woodlot. That is long-hauling, or zone-jumping.

Most of the time it is done by the trucker and logger, with most landowners knowing nothing about it. But it might. Either way, the extra money is split between the trucker/logger or possibly landowner if they are involved.

Years ago, if a trucker got caught long-hauling, the papermill kicked them out of the mill for six months and that was it. But a few years ago the paper mills started closing, going from dozens of paper mills, to just 6 today. The papermills realized they were spending money on long hauling and went to the state for help, who were eager to help keep the remaining paper mills thriving. So the paper mills now, if they suspect long-hauling, contact the Forest Service who investigates, and then takes it to the local District Attorneys' office.

They have learned they can lump what is a minor infraction, into "cargo theft" which is a big buzz word now. That is why you hear of "cargo thefts" being on the rise...if it involves a truck, it is cargo theft when that is not really the case. In terms of long-hauling, nothing was stolen, paper mills are just paying more for the wood then they should have. It is theft by deception, not cargo theft; a big difference.

I have done it, but no longer do. First, I go to church and long-hauling is lying, and just plain wrong. But I am also a certified forest, so any wood coming off my land is carefully tracked, not for long-hauling reasons, but for sustainable reasons. But that leads to a third reason, and that is I am limited how much I can harvest from my land. I can only harvest 1600 cords per year, and while I might get $25 a cord extra for long hauling, it is no longer worth risking my reputation, Christian ethics, or forest certification for a mere $40,000 extra a year, and most years I do not come close to logging that many cords.

So I knew that Forest Ranger was getting poor information, and had nothing on me because I did nothing wrong, but I do not appreciate a guy being all puffed up and thinking I am going to cower to him because he is a Forest Ranger. I REALLY did not like him trying to get me to talk after telling him 3 times I was not saying anything without an attorney present.

Wetting the loads just before getting to the mill was another racket. You get weighed on the way in and on the way out of the mill and the difference is supposed to be the weight of the load. Especially with smaller diameter pulp, wetting the load can add a good amount of weight to the load. Everyone wets the load when leaving their yard with a load but some used to stop off again somewhere just before arrival at the mill and wet it again. Chips go by the ton so some would wet a trailer load of chips, too, which would absorb a tremendous weight of water. Of course, the mills know this so offset their prices accordingly.

 

[Goldwasher]

I forgot this was a gold forum

 

[OreCart]

Wetting the loads just before getting to the mill was another racket. You get weighed on the way in and on the way out of the mill and the difference is supposed to be the weight of the load. Especially with smaller diameter pulp, wetting the load can add a good amount of weight to the load. Everyone wets the load when leaving their yard with a load but some used to stop off again somewhere just before arrival at the mill and wet it again. Chips go by the ton so some would wet a trailer load of chips, too, which would absorb a tremendous weight of water. Of course, the mills know this so offset their prices accordingly.

I did good one mud season when I was cutting wood, and the wood was so muddy that I was getting 1-1/2 cords more for the same size load of wood just because of the mud. But they wanted wood, and they got it...

I always though the mills shafted us loggers on price when they went from stick scale to weight, but I was pleasantly proven wrong. I cut 13.3 cords of 8 foot hemlock pulp and hauled it in, and was paid for 13.2 cords. Considering the amount of air holes and whatnot, I thought that was VERY accurate scale, and so I never complained again.

It can get sticky when you ship a load of mostly light wood like White Ash or Popil, and come up short on the scale by getting 8 cords of pay for a 9 cord load, but you kind of make up for it when you haul in almost all Beech and get 11-1/2 cords for a 9 cord load; so it all kind of washes out.

Overall, I have a pretty good reputation with the area paper mills (what few there are left), and have a good relationship with them.

Yeah: there was plenty of mud!

 

[OreCart]

I forgot this was a gold forum

I hear ya! (LOL)

But this is Maine; Mineral Rights, Timber Rights, Rights of Way, Farm Rights, etc...it all comes bundled as one here. It is like a big bundle of Asparagus; you can sell of individual rights if you want to, but when you start out, all of it is yours when you get that Warrantee Deed.

I do not mess with Quit Claim Deeds, and always do researches going back 100 years on the land that I buy, that takes care of a lot of problems right up front.

But I do not buy and sell land like some loggers do. You can make good money buying land with good wood, logging it, and then reselling it after its logged off, but if it does not sell, then you are left paying property taxes on it. That is too much of a gamble for me; I pay enough in property taxes now.