Gold and mineral assay and ID

[YumaMarc]

I posted this on the Gold Prospecting forum, but I think it should be here, too.

Way back in 1958 or so I bought a set of little paperback books from a place called Dukes' Research Laboratory. Some of you may be familiar with it. It consisted of three parts, the first was called "Overlooked Fortunes in the Newer and Rarer Minerals", I believe. It was more or less a promotion for the second and third parts. The second part was called "Duke's Short Course in Prospecting and Mineral Identification". It was very interesting and went into the nut and bolts of finding mineral deposits in the wild. The third section, "Duke's Quick Qualitative Analysis" was the meat of the whole thing. It contained many quick and easy tests for most mineral elements you are likely to find out in the hills.

Over many years of working in a gold assay lab and refinery, I had the opportunity to try out Duke's tests, and THEY DO work! They are not precise because they are QUALITATIVE tests, thus are merely to show the presence of certain elements and sometimes an approximation of quantity, but are not a quantitative assay.

They are available online on many sites for a fee, but (may miracles never cease) I found a site where they can be downloaded as a pdf for FREE! The address is: http://silverprospector.com/dukes/dukes-vol1.pdf. If you want volume two, just change the "vol1" in the address to "vol2". They have been nearly impossible to find in the past, so I don't know how long they may be available. Anyone interested in the metallurgical aspect of prospecting will find them fascinating.

If you can't get them from that site, I have both the paper copies and digital files.

 

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[RockRaven]

Thanks for posting this, by following the link to the main website I was able to download a large number of very valuable mining and prospecting pdf. Amazing value, always trying to learn more within a budget, thanks for the great link.

 

[Highkamp]

I posted this on the Gold Prospecting forum, but I think it should be here, too.

Way back in 1958 or so I bought a set of little paperback books from a place called Dukes' Research Laboratory. Some of you may be familiar with it. It consisted of three parts, the first was called "Overlooked Fortunes in the Newer and Rarer Minerals", I believe. It was more or less a promotion for the second and third parts. The second part was called "Duke's Short Course in Prospecting and Mineral Identification". It was very interesting and went into the nut and bolts of finding mineral deposits in the wild. The third section, "Duke's Quick Qualitative Analysis" was the meat of the whole thing. It contained many quick and easy tests for most mineral elements you are likely to find out in the hills.

Over many years of working in a gold assay lab and refinery, I had the opportunity to try out Duke's tests, and THEY DO work! They are not precise because they are QUALITATIVE tests, thus are merely to show the presence of certain elements and sometimes an approximation of quantity, but are not a quantitative assay.

They are available online on many sites for a fee, but (may miracles never cease) I found a site where they can be downloaded as a pdf for FREE! The address is: http://silverprospector.com/dukes/dukes-vol1.pdf. If you want volume two, just change the "vol1" in the address to "vol2". They have been nearly impossible to find in the past, so I don't know how long they may be available. Anyone interested in the metallurgical aspect of prospecting will find them fascinating.

If you can't get them from that site, I have both the paper copies and digital files.

This is wonderful and thank you for posting. I actually purchased a small assay test kit including tests for over 29? different items but the kit (ebay) was a vintage one and did not come with any details regarding the analysis. Nor did it come with any instructions as to who the mfg was of the kit, or any name or address etc. It wasnt until I came across this thread that I realized that the kit I have is related (or made for) the Dukes course as it matches perfectly with the tests presented herein. I tried to link (silverprospector) but it does not appear to work. I would love to have a digital copy of the 3 volumes (especially vol 3 since that has the test procedures if you would'nt mind sending me). Thanks again for posting and helping me solve a long mystery as to where my kit originated from.

 

[Solomon Homicz]

I posted this on the Gold Prospecting forum, but I think it should be here, too.

Way back in 1958 or so I bought a set of little paperback books from a place called Dukes' Research Laboratory. Some of you may be familiar with it. It consisted of three parts, the first was called "Overlooked Fortunes in the Newer and Rarer Minerals", I believe. It was more or less a promotion for the second and third parts. The second part was called "Duke's Short Course in Prospecting and Mineral Identification". It was very interesting and went into the nut and bolts of finding mineral deposits in the wild. The third section, "Duke's Quick Qualitative Analysis" was the meat of the whole thing. It contained many quick and easy tests for most mineral elements you are likely to find out in the hills.

Over many years of working in a gold assay lab and refinery, I had the opportunity to try out Duke's tests, and THEY DO work! They are not precise because they are QUALITATIVE tests, thus are merely to show the presence of certain elements and sometimes an approximation of quantity, but are not a quantitative assay.

They are available online on many sites for a fee, but (may miracles never cease) I found a site where they can be downloaded as a pdf for FREE! The address is: http://silverprospector.com/dukes/dukes-vol1.pdf. If you want volume two, just change the "vol1" in the address to "vol2". They have been nearly impossible to find in the past, so I don't know how long they may be available. Anyone interested in the metallurgical aspect of prospecting will find them fascinating.

If you can't get them from that site, I have both the paper copies and digital files.

Hello, this collection of books sounds very interesting, unfortunately the website domain has expired. I was curious if you knew of another site that may host these files or if you may still have these files available?
Thank you for your time, good day.