What is Fool’s Gold?

Fool’s gold is a mineral called pyrite, also called iron pyrite. Its name comes because it fools people into thinking they’ve found genuine gold.

“Pyrite is usually found in quartz veins, sedimentary rock, metaphoric rock even igneous rock. It has a very cubic form and a nice brassy luster, so it’s confused for gold a lot. There aren’t too many things out there that look like gold besides gold,” said Michael George, Assistant Chief of the Nonferrous and Precious Metals Group in the Mineral Commodities Section of the National Minerals Information Center of the U.S. Geological Survey.

George has been with the USGS (www. usgs.gov) for almost 20 years. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mineral economics from Penn State and his master’s degree from George Mason in geographic and cartographic science.

How Fool’s Gold Differs From Real Gold

Looking at it from a scientific standpoint, fool’s gold and real gold aren’t alike at all.

“Chemically, pyrite is made up of the chemicals iron and sulfur where gold is its own element. Gold only has molecules of gold in it. Pyrite has one iron molecule for every two sulfur molecules. Their chemical compositions are completely different,” explained Cynthia Pridmore, a California Geological Survey (CGS) Senior Engineering Geologist.

Pridmore has spent 33 years with the CGS. Although most of her work has primarily been in earthquake hazards, because gold is California’s state mineral, she feels it’s something all employees should know about.

“Gold doesn’t really have a form, it’s pretty much an amorphic blob when it’s found in nature,” added George. “While pyrite usually has a cubic structure, it usually has flat edges on it. If you see something with flat edges and shiny, you’re pretty much guaranteed that it’s pyrite.”

Simple Tests to Tell the Difference

There are several simple ways to tell the difference between fools’ gold and the real deal. One quick way to tell is if you bite it and it hurts, it’s not gold. However, this test isn’t recommended if you want to keep your teeth!

“This kind of goes back to when you’d watch old movies and you see the gold miner bite on the gold nugget and says, ‘Ah, that’s real gold,’ that’s because he’s denting it with his teeth,” she said. “The gold nugget is going to be soft enough that teeth will dent it. However, if you bite on too many rocks that aren’t gold, you’ll start wearing your teeth away.”

Hardness, however, is one of the easiest tests, but Pridmore has a better solution than the old bite test.

“If you take a metal probe or metal fingernail file or anything that has steel in it and you touch gold, it’ll deform. Kind of like a ball of aluminum foil kind of crushes,” said Pridmore. “Gold is malleable, it’s soft and it can dent easily. If you don’t want to dent it too much, you can dent it lightly and look at it with a hand lens to see the dent in it. The hardness is really important. Pyrite is brittle. You’ll either scratch it or you’ll chip off a piece of it.”

She said another easy way to tell the difference is in color. Pyrite is often described as brassy, but it has a bit of greenish color in it when compared side by side with gold. In the field, you can compare your find to a piece of gold you’ve already confirmed as genuine, like a wedding band.

Both Pridmore and George agree that shape is also a reliable way to tell the difference between fool’s gold and real gold. They both describe pyrite’s shape as cubic. George also describes the edges as straight, while Pridmore describes the crystals of the pyrite as usually being at right angles.

When asked about the most accurate ways to distinguish pyrite from gold, Pridmore suggested panning and George described a fun streak test.

“Gold is heavier than pyrite,” Pridmore said. “If you break the substances up into a fine material and pan it, you’ll see that the heavier mineral is what’s left behind. Pyrite isn’t that heavy, so it’d get flung out of the pan.”

George added that “in Geology 101, we’re taught what’s called the Streak Test. If you take a chunk of pyrite and rub it against a white unglazed porcelain tile, it’ll streak black. It’s very noticeable. But if you use gold, it’ll leave a light yellow streak. All you’re doing is transferring the gold onto the porcelain. It’s really easy to tell. This is a fun test. I used to go to elementary schools and do geology talks, and this was always a fun one to show them. You don’t expect it to happen.”

Other Minerals That Might Fool You

It’s not just pyrite that can fool a person.

“Besides pyrite, sometimes people mistake weathered mica for gold, which is a flaky mineral. But mica is only mistaken when it’s weathered because it’ll usually catch the sunlight. If you see it at a certain angle, it’ll catch the sunlight and reflect back maybe yellowish hue. However, once you get close to it, you’ll clearly note that it’s not gold. It just looks like a flake, like Formica,” said George.

While pyrite (fool’s gold) is the most common mineral mistaken for gold, chalcopyrite also appears and looks like gold, but it’s also brittle and not soft like gold. Weathered mica could look like gold, particularly when you’re panning.

“If you do see gold, you’ll see that little bit of grain in the bottom of the pan with the heavy dark minerals. But mica is sometimes in there, too, because it’s flat and it floats around,” said Pridmore. “Kids get really excited, especially if you’re at the river and you stir up the sand, and you see all those things twinkling at you, that’s mica. It can look like it’s flashing gold at you, but it’s not gold. It scratches very easily. If you take a little metal probe and scratch the mica, it’s brittle. It’ll scratch, but it’ll scratch in crumbs and break into powdery pieces. Whereas gold, if you poke it, it’s going to be soft and not break.”

What’s Pyrite Worth?

Much of the information you find on pyrite declares the mineral relatively worthless. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not used for certain things that can give it some value.

“Back in the ancient times, it was a useful thing to find because it would spark so it was used a lot against steel to start fires. Now, not so much,” said George. “Domestically in the United States, we don’t use it for anything other than pretty rocks, which I guess is a useful thing,” he said. “You’ll often see it as an ornamental rock on somebody’s desk. I’ve got several pieces in my office. It does look nice and pretty.”

Elsewhere in the world, pyrite is used to produce sulfur dioxide to make sulfuric acid. Sometimes it’s used in the fertilizer industry.

Armed with these details on fool’s gold, you should be able tell if those shiny specks are truly gold that’ll put a little cha-ching in your wallet.

This story about fool’s gold appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Moira McGhee.

The post Get to Know Fool’s Gold first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Gold panning, the simplest form of hydraulic gravitational separation, relies on differences in mineral density, which is measured in specific gravity. The specific gravity of quartz, the primary component of most sands and many rocks, is 2.65. That of native gold is most often between 17.0 and 18.0. Because of gold’s far greater density, it remains in the pan while the common, quartz-based gravels are washed away.

Most Common Concentrates

Most gold-pan concentrates consist of relatively dense, iron-based minerals such as magnetite (iron oxide, ferrous-ferric), hematite (iron oxide, ferric), ilmenite (iron titanium oxide), and chromite (iron chromium oxide), all of which have substantial specific gravities. between 4.3 and 5.3. Their generally dark colors are the origin of the term “black sand.”

With careful panning techniques, minerals with specific gravities as low as 2.9 will remain in the pan concentrate.

These minerals can include everything from the sulfides, oxides, and carbonates of heavier metals to such relatively dense gemstones as diamond, ruby and sapphire (corundum), topaz, garnet, spinel, and chrysoberyl.

Concentrates Aid In Deposit Discovery

Both the historic silver discoveries at Nevada’s Comstock Lode and Leadville, Colorado, were made by gold miners who identified oxidized silver minerals in their pan concentrates. Gold panners also discovered Montana’s five major sapphire deposits.

Sometimes pan concentrates can be a big problem. I once sluiced gold-bearing gravels in an Alaskan creek—where the pan concentrates consisted largely of tiny bits of native lead—from which the gold particles could be separated only by amalgamation.

Even in this age of high-tech mineral exploration, panning remains a valuable prospecting tool for many minerals other than gold. In the late 1980s in northern Canada, pan concentrates led to the discovery of diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes.

Prospecting for ‘Indicator Minerals’ Pays Off

When exploration geologist and prospector Chuck Fipke panned his way across 400 miles of tundra, he was not searching for diamonds per se, but for the “diamond-indicator” minerals that typically associate with diamonds in kimberlite environments, but are much more abundant and readily identifiable.

Fipke was specifically looking for black ilmenite (iron titanium oxide), red pyrope garnet (magnesium aluminum silicate), and green chromium-rich diopside (calcium magnesium silicate), which all have sufficient densities to be retained in pan concentrates.

During several years of prospecting, Fipke never panned a single diamond. He did, however, follow a trail of ilmenite, pyrope, and diopside. He eventually panned a green diopside crystal with no alluvial wear at all—enough to convince him that he was standing atop the eluvial remains of weathered kimberlite pipe. Core drilling revealed a kimberlite pipe that has since been developed into the billion-dollar Ekati diamond mine.

Along with the common black sands, you’ll find an array of other minerals with densities mostly in the 3.0-5.0 specific-gravity range.

Under a loupe, the combination of colors can be eye-catching. The common garnet-group minerals impart bright orange, pink, and red hues. Some concentrates even have a “Christmas tree” appearance when garnets mix with another common, dense mineral—green epidote (basic calcium aluminum iron silicate).

Panning Leads to Fascinating Discoveries

Although many minerals in gold-pan concentrates are abraded and rounded from alluvial wear, some retain enough of their original crystal forms to aid in identification.

So gold pans are not just gold-recovery tools, but geological sampling instruments. Take a closer look at those ubiquitous “black-sand” concentrates and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the cornucopia of interesting minerals that meet the eye.

This story about gold pan concentrate appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Steve Voynick.

The post What are Gold-Pan Concentrates? first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

There are reports of mined gold in Georgia by the Spanish and French explorers from 1560 to 1690, and Thomas Jefferson first referenced a gold discovery in Virginia in 1782. In 1799, gold was discovered in North Carolina. Gold was found in Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1828 and one year later in Maryland. Gold was found in Maryland within quartz veins, together with pyrite and/or galena, mostly near the Great Falls of Potomac (Maryland Gold Fever, Walter A. Goetz, 1979, revised 1996). Maryland state became the northern end of the “Appalachian Gold Belt.”

Dahlonega, Georgia

The Dahlonega Gold Museum Historic Site is housed in the 1836 Old Lumpkin County Courthouse. The museum’s exhibits share the history of the 1828 gold discovery, two and a half miles south of Dahlonega by deer hunter Benjamin Parks. That discovery triggered America’s first major gold rush in northwest Georgia, where thousands of prospectors poured into the Cherokee Nation area within the next year. The intruding miners did not respect the Cherokee lands and agreements with the Federal government and caused a lot of problems and lawlessness.

The town of Dahlonega was established in 1832. After the 1835 treaty that the United States made with the Cherokees, whereby the Cherokee agreed to give up their lands for $5,000.000 and migrate west of the Mississippi to what is now Oklahoma, the town of Dahlonega and the gold miners thrived.

A U.S. Mint opened in Dahlonega in 1838, coining more than $6 million in gold before closing in 1861. One of the museum’s amazing exhibits is a complete set of those rare gold coins on loan from the North Georgia College and State University. Also on exhibit is a gold pan with approximately five ounces of gold dust and nuggets found by a local prospector in 1996, surrounded by gold nuggets and gold ore specimens from the Loud Mine in White County, Battle Branch Mine in Auraria, Crown Mountain Mine in Dahlonega, and the Calhoun Mine in Lumpkin County – the site of the first discovery of vein gold. The Calhoun Mine got its name because it was purchased shortly after the gold discovery by U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and his son-in-law, Thomas G. Clemson, operated the mine.

Several rooms in the Dahlonega Gold Museum and exhibits, artifacts, and mining equipment tell the story of the gold discovery and Georgia’s nearly 200-year-old mining history. A 25-minute film describes the mining techniques, hardships and lifestyle of the gold prospectors.

Consolidated Gold Mine

The Consolidated Gold Mine offers a 45-minute Underground Adventure Tour that takes visitors 200 feet underground. The guides share tales of miners’ struggles and show the equipment used for underground mining. The mine operated from 1900 to 1906 and was probably the largest gold plant east of the Mississippi. It had a 120-stamp mill, a large chlorinator, a 500-foot tunnel, and numerous small buildings. The $18 tour admission includes a gold-panning sample with a gold-panning demonstration. The mine is located at 185 Consolidated Mine Road and is open seven days a week.

Crisson Gold Mine

The Crisson Gold Mine is an open-pit gold mine, established in 1847. It was commercially explored until the 1980s. The mine started as a tunnel mining operation, with some hydraulic mining machinery in use. Once the old tunnels were dugout, it resulted in a new open-pit mining operation, which continues today.

The mine’s instructors are happy and willing to teach everyone how to pan for gold. On-site is a crusher from the late 1800s – a ten-stamp mill, with each stamp weighing 450 pounds each, still used today to crush the gold-bearing quartz rock into sand. In addition, the mine has rod mills and jaw crushers which they use upon occasion. The guides take visitors to see the Stamp Mill, which is the only working stamp mill in the state of Georgia and only one of two in the Southeast.

The gold-panning experience at the Crisson Gold Mine includes several options. Visitors can purchase five-gallon buckets with concentrated ore and pan by hand or rent the trommel to run the dirt through it before the final panning.

Concentrated gold ore can be purchased to pan at home, especially during the winter months. The mining shop has a lot of gold mining equipment, including pans, dredges, and metal detectors.

The Crisson Mine is located at 2736 Morrison Moore Pkwy, E. Dahlonega, and is open seven days a week.

This story about gold panning in Georgia previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe! Story by Helen Serras-Herman.

The post Gold Panning in Georgia first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Walt Disney reportedly once said, “Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.”

It’s evident how this perception has benefited youth and the Disney brand for decades, but did you know that one of the most active and impactful rock clubs in the U.S. can attribute its origins and much of its growth to the minds and eager interest of youth?

Origins in Youthful Inquisitiveness

It’s true. The Mother Lode Mineral Society of California (MLMS) grew out of the interest and ideas of a group of chemistry club students at a local high school. It was the early 1930s, and members of the Modesto High School chemistry club expressed interest in going on a field trip to the Sierra Mother Lode 1849 Gold Rush area, to their advisor Dr. Will L. Brown, according to MLMS historical records.

Dr. Brown, a chemistry teacher at the school from 1920 to 1941, approved and lead the field trip. The club also hosted its first mineral show in the early 1930s, and except for a short hiatus during World War II, MLMS has held a show every year. In the early years, the show took place on the canvas-covered wooden floor of the Modesto High School gymnasium. Today, the MLMS, which was incorporated in 1936 with Dr. Brown as the group’s first president, occupies the two main buildings of the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds in Turlock, California each March, to present this wildly popular show.

“We provide a high energy, educational family event with an inviting ‘come see what there is to do!’ feeling. The energy and excitement of our show is felt the moment people approach the admission desks,” explained Terry McMillin, a long-time MLMS member and co-show organizer with her husband Bud, who is also the club’s vice president. “The show committee consists of 33 active members who meet six times a year to plan and organize the show. Show meetings are always high energy events that generate lots of shared ideas. “

Mother Lode Mineral Society’s Gem, Jewelry and Rock Show 
Date: Mar. 14-15, 2020
Location: Stanislaus Fairgrounds, 900 North Broadway, Turlock, California
Admission: Adults $6, free admission for children 12 and under with a paid adult admission.
Visit www.turlockgemshow.com for more information.

Collaborate and Educate

In addition to high energy, the words innovative, hands-on, and collaborative also describe the MLMS’ annual show. The group partners with school districts within 40 miles of the fairgrounds to encourage students to attend. In 2019, 4,000 children under the age of 12 attended the show, McMillin said.

“Teachers are very aware of the educational value of our show and encourage their students to attend by offering extra credit for completing the Treasure Hunt, which includes items like the California state fossil, rock, gem, and mineral,” added McMillin. “Kids in our area know all about the show and look forward to it.”

Elementary-age children are not the only youth actively participating in the show. The MLMS, which has a membership of of 291, including 43 junior rockhounds, also teams up with local high schools to create volunteer opportunities for teens. During the 2019 show, 118 students provided 385 hours of volunteer service.

“We would have difficulty running the show without the help of these wonderful high energy kids,” said McMillin.

The collaborative efforts evident during the Mother Lode Mineral Society of California’s Gem, Jewelry and Rock Show, do not stop with the annual event. The Delta Gold Diggers of Stockton, California oversee the gold panning booth, while the Great Valley Museum of Natural History, associated with Modesto Junior College, presents hands-on Earth science exhibits throughout the show. In the past, McMillin said, other collaborative partners have included Women in Mining Education Foundation and the California Geological Survey.

Diverse Learning Opportunities

The demonstrations and exhibits taking place during the show are also fantastic examples

of the importance of community and collaboration to the MLMS, which was incorporated in 1936 with Dr. Brown serving as the first president.

Each year the show features around 10 demonstrations and more than 60 display cases featuring exhibition specimens organized by adult and junior members and guest exhibitors. For example, the field of demonstrations includes faceting, chain mail, soapstone carving, pearl stringing, forming cabochons, and silversmithing. The demonstrators are MLMS members, Modesto Junior College jewelry or lapidary students, and invited guests.

Additional notable guests and presenters who participate in the MLMS show include Dr. Alan Schaffert, organizer of the non-profit organization the Tethys Ocean Project, which is focused on introducing people to marine fossils, and this year’s exhibit will feature sharks; Richard Wade, a popular presenter at the show, whose discussions about dinosaurs typically draw crowds of 300 people and more; along with internationally known paleontologist Neal Larson who joins the ranks of experts discussion dinosaurs during this annual gathering; and Mike and Chris Whittier, owners of Rocks in a Hard Place and MLMS members, whose appreciation for fluorescent minerals began as a table-top presentation. Five years later, and the MLMS show features just not a table or a section devoted fluorescent minerals, but a 1,200-square-foot room with 18 tables of fluorescence exhibits, many of which are from the collections of Fluorescent Mineral Society members.

“We strive to involve people with a passion for what they do,” McMillin explained.

Always Aiming to Improve

One of the longest and best examples of the MLMS effort to partner with a wide variety of community groups and individuals to enhance multiple interests is the partnership with Modesto Junior College. The two groups have enjoyed a fantastic working relationship for around 50 years, which was when the college started offering day and evening lapidary and jewelry classes, McMillin said.

For its part, MLMS provides and maintains the lapidary equipment, while the college provides the facility and the instructor, who also happens to be an MLMS member. The partnership has grown and evolved over the years and has weathered some challenges including the unexpected closure of space on the Modesto campus where lapidary workshops were held. As the groups work toward and wait patiently for a new permanent space to become available, a member opened a building to serve as a temporary location. These many experiences and collaborations have truly strengthened the relationship between the two groups, McMillin explained.

As the Mother Lode Mineral Society continues to feed various rockhounding interests, every effort is done with an inquisitive and appreciative spirit, which serves to inspire people today and for generations to come.

For More Information

Email: rocksbob@sbcglobal.net
Telephone: 209-365-3301
Website: www.motherlodemineralsociety.com
Show Website: www.turlockgemshow.com
Monthly meeting: First Sunday of the month at the Tuolumne River Lodge on 2429 River Rd., Modesto, California. Meeting begins at 1:15 p.m. for juniors and the general meeting follows at 2:30 p.m.

The post Club Spotlight: Mother Lode Mineral Society first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Twelve-year-old Nadine Marshall is a young lady with many facets.

Not only is she a lapidary artist extraordinaire, but she also enjoys playing basketball, cooking, and reading. Her interest in the gemstone hobby started with her grandma. Together, they gathered rocks from an Oregon creek when Nadine was just four years old. Later, her dad took her gold panning, and they found garnets and “flour gold.” These experiences hooked her on the hobby.

Rock Club Opens Doors

Nadine wanted to learn to facet when she joined a rock club at age nine, but the club prohibited children under age 14 from using machinery. So she stuck

to rock hunting while keeping an eye out for opportunities to learn. When the family moved to Washington, they joined Lakeside Gem & Mineral Club (LGMC). There, Nadine found a mentor in Mike Zinski. Mike was willing to teach anyone, regardless of age.

“I wish us grown-ups would stop thinking our young ones are not capable of doing what we do,” says Zinski. “Juniors are the future of our hobby and arts. Saying NO without giving them a try is shameful to me. If they show ability, give them a GO!”

Since December 2018, when Nadine finished her first faceted stone under Mike’s guidance, she’s enjoyed growing and learning more about faceting with Mentor Mike. As of this writing, she’s completed more than 25 faceted gems. With her first stone, she was scared, but Mike showed trust in her skills, thus building her confidence with inspiration and encouragement

Learning Lapidary Arts

Nadine thoroughly enjoys her membership in LGMC. She’s been able to learn about the lapidary arts world and view works completed by other artists. She socializes with members and learns from their experiences. She especially loves how members invest in each other and take time to support one another. For instance, Mentor Mike offers his services free to fellow members. Says Nadine of LGMC, “I am so grateful.”

For other juniors, Nadine urges, “Do everything you can to figure out how to

learn. Set goals for yourself. For example, maybe it’s a new style of cut. When working with natural stones, you’re going to experience frustrating moments and it’s okay to walk away from that stone, start another, then come back to it later when you can look at it with fresh eyes. Find a mentor, listen and glean what you can; find artists online and observe what they’re doing. There’s so much information online than was available when seasoned members were starting.”

For parents who have a child interested in the hobby, Nadine recommends joining a rock club, then finding a mentor to help get started while setting goals, like how many types of stones or designs to complete in the first year. And, if still excited, make a plan for how to save to buy supplies—from rough stones to cut, to books with instructions and designs, to your very own faceting machine. Nadine has been saving babysitting money toward the purchase of a machine. Her dream is to become a master faceter and gemologist.

Inspiration Through Resources

She notes, “I love taking something already pretty and making it shine to its best potential.”

Rock clubs and their members are great resources to help in all this—along with parental support. With the right support and determination, anything is achievable. Nadine has all the fine facets to prove it!

If you know of a junior rockhound you’d like to nominate for a spotlight profile, please contact me at jbraceth@roadrunner.com.

The post The Many Facets of Nadine Marshall first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

One of the world’s foremost collections of leaf and wire gold is displayed at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. It consists of 100 of the finest pieces from the John F. Campion crystallized gold collection, including the spectacular 102-troy-ounce specimen known as “Tom’s Baby.” All these specimens have one thing in common: They were mined in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Located 70 highway miles west of Denver, at an elevation of 9,600 feet, Breckenridge today is a bustling resort town filled with glitzy bars, fine restaurants, and high-end boutiques. Winter skiing and summer recreation attract thousands of visitors each year.

But in its previous life, Breckenridge was one of Colorado’s greatest gold-mining towns. It produced 1 million troy ounces of gold, pioneered the regional use of floating, bucket-line dredges, and played a major role in establishing both an appreciation for the rarity and aesthetics of crystallized gold and a premium valuation of fine gold specimens.

Although Breckenridge’s last mine closed decades ago, its rich mining history is still celebrated through a downtown museum, three outdoor mining museums, several gold-panning sites, and an underground-mine tour.

Breckenridge’s Golden Beginning

Breckenridge was founded in 1859, late in the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, by prospectors who panned their way west across the Continental Divide into the Blue River drainage and struck gold in a small creek now known as Gold Run.

That name was fitting, given that two brothers, using only gold pans and a wooden sluice, washed out 1,000 troy ounces of gold in just six weeks. Gold Run was the richest of the initial strikes in the Blue River Diggings, which would soon become known as Breckenridge.

Other prospectors found gold in the nearby gravels of Georgia, American, French and Humbug gulches and the Blue and Swan rivers. Two thousand prospectors soon surged into the Breckenridge Mining District; in just the next three years, they would recover 50,000 troy ounces of gold worth nearly $1 million.

Once the shallow discovery gravels had played out around 1870, prospectors began searching for lode sources of the placer gold. Although they found little lode gold, they discovered rich deposits of sulfide ores of silver, lead and zinc. After silver became the primary metal of economic interest, the district boasted 20 underground mines, several mills, and a central smelter.

Spotting Silver, Seeking Gold

While silver mining paid the bills in Breckenridge during the 1870s and ’80s, prospectors continued to search for lode-gold deposits. Many focused on French Gulch, just north of Breckenridge, where placer gold occurred not as rounded grains, but as fragments of sharp-edged wires and leaves that had obviously originated in a nearby lode deposit.

One of the French Gulch prospectors was Harry Farncomb, who arrived in Breckenridge in 1860, but hadn’t yet struck it rich. In 1879, still looking for a big find, Farncomb worked his way up French Gulch searching adjacent hillsides for gold-quartz outcrops. Near the head of the gulch, he stopped at a low, rounded hill. Judging from its surface of loose, “rotten” shale with no visible quartz outcrops, it was an unlikely place to find lode gold.

Nevertheless, he dug a few holes and, much to his surprise, sunk his pick into a rich, eluvial gold deposit, the remains of a gold-quartz vein that had weathered away in place and was buried beneath several feet of decomposed, gray shale. Noting the similarity of the eluvial gold leaves and twisted wires to those in the lower placers, Farncomb knew that he had found the source of the French Gulch placer gold.

Farncomb also knew that announcing his find would trigger a chaotic, local gold rush. So he kept his discovery to himself and quietly staked a claim that he named the Wire Patch Placer. During the following months, he conducted a low-key, pick-and-shovel mining operation, while casually buying up adjacent ground an acre at a time.

A year later, Farncomb walked into a Denver bank and deposited 300 troy ounces (25 pounds) of gold in—according to the bank’s description—“most unusual forms”. When word of this deposit reached Breckenridge miners, they rushed, as Farncomb had predicted, to French Gulch, only to learn that he already owned the richest ground.

Fascination With Farncomb Hill

After mining the eluvial gold, Farncomb drove a short drift into the hillside to find

a series of erratic, but extremely rich, gold veins knifing through the in situ shale. He named his little underground operation the Wire Patch mine, and in just two years he recovered 7,000 troy ounces (580 pounds) of wire gold then worth nearly $140,000! In 1886, Farncomb sold his holdings on what had become known as Farncomb Hill and retired as one of Colorado’s wealthiest men.

Farncomb Hill had six major gold veins—the Bondholder, Boss, Fountain, Gold Flake, Key West, and Ontario—that were emplaced in both the underlying porphyry country rock and the overlying shale. The shale, a soft, sedimentary rock that weathers quickly, was the reason that Farncomb Hill had no visible quartz exposures: it had decomposed completely into a clay-like soil that buried the fragmented gold-quartz veins.

Underground mining at Farncomb Hill involved a great deal of luck. The veins either “pinched out” to nothing or “blossomed” into bonanza pockets filled with crystallized gold in a rust-colored matrix of limonite (a mix of iron oxides and hydroxides). The gold was 90% pure; a small copper content sometimes imparted rich, warm colors that enhanced the visual appeal of its crystallized forms.

The crystallized gold at Farncomb Hill occurred as wires, leaves, and arborescent masses. The wires were as long as 2 inches and up to ¼ inch thick. Intricate, tangled masses of these wires were called “bird’s nests”. The delicate, flattened, arborescent growths were as long as 3 inches and had a spongy, flexible feel.

Most common was leaf gold, which formed parallel intergrowths of thin, flattened octahedrons as long as 6 inches.

Influencing Public Interest in Collecting

Farncomb Hill’s crystallized gold had a major impact on the valuation of gold specimens and on public interest in mineral collecting in general. Previously, very little gold mined anywhere had been preserved for mineralogical or aesthetic reasons. Gold had traditionally been assessed only by purity and weight to determine its bottom-line, bullion value. Because premium specimen values did not yet exist, all native gold, regardless of form, was assayed, weighed, and melted down into bullion.

The appreciation and value of specimen-grade gold began changing in 1886, thanks initially to Colonel Albert J. Ware, Farncomb Hill’s first consolidated mine owner. Ware leased sections of his mines to independent miners in return for cash fees and a 25% royalty on all recovered gold. This royalty, payable as mined gold, enabled Ware to build the first collection of Farncomb Hill crystallized gold.

To attract investment capital for his mines, Ware displayed his growing collection at Eastern fairs and expositions. The intricate shapes, rich colors, and bright luster of his specimens ignited public interest in fine gold specimens. Ware also sold some pieces for prices based not on purity and weight, but on aesthetics and rarity. By asking for and receiving prices for his specimens that were above their bullion value, he established a premium collector value for fine gold specimens, a concept that soon extended to the valuation of specimens of many other kinds of minerals.

Farncomb Hill’s most celebrated piece of crystallized gold was recovered on July 23, 1887, when lease miners Tom Groves and Harry Lytton, working on the Gold Flake Vein, blasted into a pocket filled with 243 troy ounces of gold. The largest piece originally weighed 160 troy ounces (13.3 pounds), but after two sections separated, the largest remaining piece weighed 136 troy ounces. Cradling that piece in his arms, Groves paraded through the streets of Breckenridge.

Onlookers named the gold mass “Tom’s Baby.” The Breckenridge Journal reported the event in detail under the headline “An Immense Nugget of Gold”.

High-Grading Rampant Run

“High-grading”, the miners’ practice of stealing gold almost as quickly as they mined it, was rampant at Breckenridge. Although the courts agreed that high-grading was a criminal act, miners justified it as earned, supplementary compensation for their long hours in the dangerous, dark confines of the underground.

By the late 1880s, Breckenridge miners, looking to cash in on the newly established, premium collector value of crystallized-gold specimens, had become master high-graders. Wealthy Denver residents building their own collections of crystallized gold often visited Breckenridge to buy high-graded specimens directly from them. A Colorado School of Mines geologist of the time observed that more Farncomb Hill gold was “stolen by miners and sold as specimens than was ever shipped by the owners”.

The greatest gold collector of all was Denver-based mine owner John F. Campion. After acquiring several Farncomb Hill properties in 1894, Campion began building an unparalleled collection. He offered to buy all crystallized-gold specimens—even from his own high-grading miners—at prices well above those being paid on the Breckenridge streets and with no questions asked. While colleagues ridiculed his policy of “buying gold that already belonged to him”,

Campion amassed one of the world’s finest collections of crystallized gold.
Campion helped to found the Denver Museum of Natural History (now the Denver Museum of Nature & Science). One of his founding gifts was his entire 600-piece collection of Farncomb Hill gold, which included “Tom’s Baby”. A 102-troy-ounce section of the specimen is on public display there today.

By the late 1890s, when Farncomb Hill was largely mined out, Breckenridge miners redirected their attention back to the district’s placer deposits. These were geologically classified as high-level or low-level. The high-level, or terrace, placers occurred in hillsides above the water levels of the creeks and rivers. The more geologically recent low-level, or deep, placers were found on or near bedrock in the river gravels.

Emergence of Churn Drilling

Back in the 1860s, Breckenridge miners had worked these shallow, low-level placers by sluicing and ground sluicing. But by 1890, with the easy-to-reach, shallow gravels long depleted, they began hydraulic mining of the high-level terraces. Fed by water piped down from high lakes, nozzles emitted high-pressure streams that quickly eroded away entire hillsides. Miners then recovered the gold by channeling the hillside-gravel slurry through massive steel sluices.

Churn drilling, the forerunner of modern core drilling, revealed that far more gold was present deep in the low-level river gravels at or near bedrock. But buried at depths of 30 to 90 feet, there was no way to reach it—until a Breckenridge mining engineer named Ben Stanley Revett took on the challenge.

Revett, one of Campion’s mine supervisors, saw a solution in the floating bucket-line dredges that had recently been developed in New Zealand. Resting on large, floating hulls, these dredges had long, forward, boomlike gantries supporting continuously rotating lines of steel buckets that could be lowered below the water. A rear “stacker” conveyor disposed of tailings. The interiors of the dredges were filled with steel screens, grates and sluices that separated the gold from sand, gravel and boulders.

These dredges created the ponds they floated on by excavating gravels in front and dumping tailings behind. Dredges with 250-foot-long hulls could process about 2,000 cubic yards of deep gravels per day.

Although Revett’s first dredge, which began operating in 1898, was steam-powered, prone to breaking down, and notoriously inefficient, it could nevertheless recover gold from previously unreachable gravels. Within a few years, several vastly improved, electrically powered dredges would also be profitably mining the deep gravels of French Gulch and the Swan and Blue rivers.

Dynamic Dredging

By 1916, a fleet of nine dredges had become known as the “Breckenridge navy.”

Amid the round-the-clock din of humming electric motors, clanking bucket lines, and clattering tailings, these dredges recovered about 20,000 troy ounces of gold per year and established Breckenridge as Colorado’s most productive placer-gold district.

The dredges recovered many 1-troy-ounce nuggets, along with some nuggets of 6 troy ounces or more, few of which, unfortunately, have been preserved. The dredges also recovered occasional small nuggets of native silver and bismuth.

In 1942, wartime gold-mining restrictions shut down the Breckenridge navy, and the dredges never resumed operations. By then, however, Breckenridge had produced 1 million troy ounces (58 tons) of gold, three-quarters of it from placer deposits, and most of that by dredging.

During World War II, many Breckenridge underground, multimetal mines, including the Washington, Wellington, and Country Boy, produced lead and zinc for the war effort, along with a good deal of silver. By the time these mines closed after the war, the district’s total production had topped 20 million troy ounces of silver and thousands of tons of lead and zinc. Even so, Breckenridge was never known for its metal-sulfide specimens. While its sulfide ores were often rich, they occurred only in massive forms that were of little interest to collectors.

By 1960, Breckenridge had devolved into a down-and-out, busted mining town with dirt streets, a decimated population, and little hope for the future. The biggest problem was the environmental mess left behind by a century of unregulated mining—10 miles of river channels buried beneath undulating heaps of dredge tailings, barren of minerals and life.

Celebrated for Its History

But after skiing caught on in the 1960s, land values took off and vast expanses of dredge tailing were reclaimed, notably along the rechanneled Blue River, where attractive parks, gardens, river walks, and bike trails now entice visitors. And thanks to extensive preservation and restoration of 350 structures dating back to the 19th century, Breckenridge has become Colorado’s largest historical district.

Despite its many transitions, Breckenridge has not forgotten its mining history. An excellent museum in its downtown Welcome Center explains the various phases of Breckenridge mining. Immediately south of town, the circa-1880s Washington mine is now the Washington Gold and Silver Mine Tour that welcomes visitors with a short, guided underground tour and displays of hardrock mining equipment.

Just north of town, the Lomax Placer Mine museum and the Iowa Hill Trail recall the hydraulic-mining era. The Lomax mine displays sluices and hydraulic-mining equipment, offers gold panning, and presents a video about hydraulic mining. The Iowa Hill Trail is a mile-long, self-guided tour of an 1890s hydraulic-mining operation.

Especially popular is the Country Boy Mine attraction in historic French Gulch. The Country Boy opened in 1887 and, over 60 years of mining, recovered 8,000 troy ounces of gold, along with huge tonnages of silver, lead and zinc. A guided tour takes visitors through 1,000 feet of well-lit, underground workings. The Country Boy also has underground and surface displays of mining equipment, a video presentation about early mining, and a gold-panning site.

Directly across French Gulch from the Country Boy are the remains of the Wellington mine, the district’s largest mine, with 14 levels and 18 miles of underground workings. A major multimetal producer, the Wellington was the last Breckenridge mine to close.

Remains of Mining Production

Dredge tailings still cover much of French Gulch, where the remains of an old floating dredge are still visible. Upper French Gulch is also the site of Farncomb Hill, an area that is now posted, private property.

Breckenridge still has one floating “dredge”, but it does not mine gold. Located in downtown Breckenridge, The Dredge, billed as “the world’s highest floating bar and restaurant”, floats on an impounded section of the Blue River, directly over the sunken hull of an old bucket-line dredge. Its size and exterior appearance replicate the big dredges of the old Breckenridge navy, while its comfortable interior is decorated with mining artifacts. The Dredge is a good place to cap off a day’s visit to the historical mining attractions at one of Colorado’s greatest historic gold camps.

Breckenridge is located about nine miles south of Silverthorne. From Interstate 70, take Exit 205 and go south on state Route 9.

For further information about Breckenridge’s history and mining attractions, visit the websites of the Breckenridge Heritage Alliance (www.breckheritage.com) and the Country Boy Mine (www.countryboymine.com).

The post The Golden History of Breckenridge first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.