Crow
Silver Member
- Jan 28, 2005
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Hello All
Here is yarn that has lured thousands of prospectors into a life of hard graft scrounging the bed of a mountainous river on the Eastern side of the Andes in Bolivia. Legend has it was mined by the Incas. And later the Spanish miners in harsh mountain conditions far from transportation periodically mined the site until independence. When abandoned the natives mined it themselves. It came through world of mouth in the 1850s and attracted a minor gold Rush. 2000 gold miners set out from Australia and California and vanished into the mountains of Bolivia and Peru. Their fate has never been properly explained by historians. Family historians can trace many of the miners and families to ports in Peru and Chile but then nothing no trace of them as if they had vanished off the face of the earth.
It has been assumed many sought gold in the hills in the Andes settled and intermarried with locals or died in the bleak canyons with fever or the poison dart of angry natives. Such was the fate of many who flooded down the head waters of the amazon to find fortune glory and for some death.
Around 1903 and Australian prospector who toured Bolivia claimed the gold was being inefficiently mined and gold returns was poor. In 1923 the reviews of the region was much more promising as different gold extraction methods were being used with a better rate of recovery. A Newzealand company in 1911 brought two dredges but were defeated by technical issues and poor gold returns. Such is the fickle fashion of gold mining.
However due to high altitude, remoteness and poor economic polices of the government of Bolivia it kept a lot of the big miners out. Foreign capital was fearful to invest. Small to medium family owned gold leases was operated and still operated today. With better pumps and dredges they have been more successful in dredging the deep river bed down to bedrock underneath the alluvial gravels. Some miners have even scoured the mountain ridges to discover some of the sources of the gold.
Tipuani is the river of dreams for the little guys. The dreamers of fortune and glory that still lures those daring to dream of the glitter of gold.
Crow
Here is yarn that has lured thousands of prospectors into a life of hard graft scrounging the bed of a mountainous river on the Eastern side of the Andes in Bolivia. Legend has it was mined by the Incas. And later the Spanish miners in harsh mountain conditions far from transportation periodically mined the site until independence. When abandoned the natives mined it themselves. It came through world of mouth in the 1850s and attracted a minor gold Rush. 2000 gold miners set out from Australia and California and vanished into the mountains of Bolivia and Peru. Their fate has never been properly explained by historians. Family historians can trace many of the miners and families to ports in Peru and Chile but then nothing no trace of them as if they had vanished off the face of the earth.
It has been assumed many sought gold in the hills in the Andes settled and intermarried with locals or died in the bleak canyons with fever or the poison dart of angry natives. Such was the fate of many who flooded down the head waters of the amazon to find fortune glory and for some death.
Around 1903 and Australian prospector who toured Bolivia claimed the gold was being inefficiently mined and gold returns was poor. In 1923 the reviews of the region was much more promising as different gold extraction methods were being used with a better rate of recovery. A Newzealand company in 1911 brought two dredges but were defeated by technical issues and poor gold returns. Such is the fickle fashion of gold mining.
However due to high altitude, remoteness and poor economic polices of the government of Bolivia it kept a lot of the big miners out. Foreign capital was fearful to invest. Small to medium family owned gold leases was operated and still operated today. With better pumps and dredges they have been more successful in dredging the deep river bed down to bedrock underneath the alluvial gravels. Some miners have even scoured the mountain ridges to discover some of the sources of the gold.
Tipuani is the river of dreams for the little guys. The dreamers of fortune and glory that still lures those daring to dream of the glitter of gold.
Crow
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<- for me !
?.... The grass is always greener on the other side until you get there. I think it would take much more than that to shift you from your Tayopa no matter how much I tempt you. Just as me from my hammock on my island and cozy retirement.
