There is poor and there are the ‘Ghamelawallahs’ who dive in the gold workers district sewers of Mumbai to dig out baskets of mud, pan out the tiny fragments washed off gold workers hands, then use the highly toxic mercury / nitic acid process to extract enough gold to live on.
Damn there’s that much gold that it’s just in the dirt by the river? Would do for a couple days for the hell of it, then my body would probably say never again.
Hard work and small findings. Guess they’ll sell it for a dime to some local reseller who makes 10x the profit just by knowing the right people/customers.
You'd think that was how it works, but we've found ways to make it much more toxic. A quote from wikipedia... "Since the 20th century, gold has been principally extracted in a cyanide process by leaching the ore with cyanide solution. The gold may then be further refined by gold parting, which removes other metals (principally silver) by blowing chlorine gas through the molten metal."
I mean they say primitive, but this is literally a tourist attraction in Alaska. Rent a pan, brush, and shovel. The one above just adds a sieve to the process.
Different processes for extracting from rock and extracting from river deposits. In the latter the gold is still physically separable so you just end up with big machines doing basically this.
Depends on what your definition of 'industrial' is. There are certainly machines that do exactly what they are doing which would cost you perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars to own and just as much to operate.
peterbozeman
I want the fish pan for chips and salsa.
Muunk
Will mine for nachos
MainJane
Working hard is never an excuse to NOT look great, love the dresses ladies
MainJane
*outfits
Frostycopper
Their hands are probably so callused.
TheWarHymn
I'm coming for you, Mr. Pocket.
imgureeeee
One word: hard job
Blamblam101
Employer: What? Hard? You get to exercise in the great outdoors. Playing in the river all day. You should be paying me!
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
my back would hurt enough to motivate me to lose weight
marthafarquar
There is poor and there are the ‘Ghamelawallahs’ who dive in the gold workers district sewers of Mumbai to dig out baskets of mud, pan out the tiny fragments washed off gold workers hands, then use the highly toxic mercury / nitic acid process to extract enough gold to live on.
LateNightBunnyParty
Doody
IliveIdyeIliveagain
LesserEvils
Better than using mercury.
MelfsAcidArrow
the "primitive" way - aka exactly how the 49ers did it?
killernat
i have to say that fish shaped pan seems more effective than the american style round pan
amipretty
You can find gold in bags of sand at Home Depot and probably ancient bones too.
fredhoffman1968
thats a good spot for little work
Charminbear
Damn there’s that much gold that it’s just in the dirt by the river? Would do for a couple days for the hell of it, then my body would probably say never again.
LukeTheDukeFromMuc
Hard work and small findings. Guess they’ll sell it for a dime to some local reseller who makes 10x the profit just by knowing the right people/customers.
phobosorbust
That fish-shaped pan is awesome. The tiny flour gold they're getting though... that's a rough way to pay for dinner.
TaiPan87
There is "Western poor", and there is "developing countries poor". Travel made me a very grateful person.
CyberWizard252
.....Dudi....
tinyfootprints
Nepalis are some of the hardest workers I have ever encountered. And they tend to be very nice people. Good company.
IncoggnitoMode
I mean you say primitive. But the industrial way works the same. It’s just a larger scale.
sylkysmooth
When it comes to stuff like this it seems like "primitive" just means "not on a industrial world-scooping scale."
Fishkeeper
This is also SO much lower-impact on the environment.
SquidBait
You'd think that was how it works, but we've found ways to make it much more toxic. A quote from wikipedia... "Since the 20th century, gold has been principally extracted in a cyanide process by leaching the ore with cyanide solution. The gold may then be further refined by gold parting, which removes other metals (principally silver) by blowing chlorine gas through the molten metal."
LupusLilium
I mean they say primitive, but this is literally a tourist attraction in Alaska. Rent a pan, brush, and shovel. The one above just adds a sieve to the process.
hipifreq
Ever see a heap-leech gold.mine operation? Besides the dig it up part it has 0% similarity to this operation
ThePunishersVengefulBrother
My cousin does this every weekend in Ohio.
preyingmanti
Interesting, so i guess he gets a good return for his efforts?
ThePunishersVengefulBrother
He gets gambling money.
CaptSchmidtGaming
larger scale? you mean produces lots of green house gas emissions?
UnicornsToxicRainbowFart
Well yeah, but that doesn't really apply to primitive/not
CaptSchmidtGaming
maybe you meant, large scale, only 1 person profits.
SinStar87
hmm? isn't the industrial way to dig up massive amounts of rock, pulverize it, then soak it in a pool of cynanide?
fr0stbyte124
Different processes for extracting from rock and extracting from river deposits. In the latter the gold is still physically separable so you just end up with big machines doing basically this.
nanyatenyaa
Depends on what your definition of 'industrial' is. There are certainly machines that do exactly what they are doing which would cost you perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars to own and just as much to operate.
HappyPetunia
A tad gentler on the environment, even if it isn’t gentle on people.
Aasgeier
You can't tell me they aren't using mercury with that.
TaiPan87
Small panning operations like this wouldn't benefit from Mercury. And I doubt they could afford it anyway.
Aasgeier
Mercury is especially useful in small-scale operations, including panning like that. It's not really expensive. https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/chem.201704840
Cpthornswoggler
I did it for 3 days and spent the next 3 days recovering. Digging is hard, but the call of gold is strong.
cubicleinmate
And how much did you find?
TheTaxDude
About $3.50
Cpthornswoggler
Almost 14g, which easily covered the cost of the experience.
MeatPopsicleMultiPass
I'd say that was a pretty lucky 3 days. Most basically lose money, but I understand it is more for the experience sometimes.
smegginhell
So roughly 700?
Cpthornswoggler
Yeah. Well it was worth around $400 15 years ago, but I still have it.
usualnamewasteken
So, it didn't cover the cost then....
DickbuttPrivate
Outside of metal devices pans and containers this is how a single person always has panned for good
AlexVanPutten
I used to do this in the rivers of northern California all the time
massholesome
I wonder how married folk do it.
SeeMyVests
Everyone knows Married folks dont do it anymore
alcaray
I have done something like this at Knott's Berry Farm.
Calamarre
"you just have the look in the sand to get gold"... :)
sevenfingerman
Yup, this is how you do it.
senyu
"I'm going to find you, Mr. Pocket!"
TheWarHymn
"I'm old, but you're older!"