A tale of two tailings.
  Working both ends of your prospecting tools.

  Everyone that uses a Dry Washer knows that you end up with two piles of tailings.

  One is made by the material flowing off the riffles. The other is made from large rocks rolling off the hopper screen and onto the ground.

  We shovel the pile of dirt that falls from the riffle tray back through the Dry Washer to make sure that every last speck of gold gets a chance to settle behind one of the riffles but, the pile of larger rocks that roll off the classifier we treat in a totally different way. We kick the pile aside when it gets too tall and think of it as a hindrance to our running the Dry Washer.

  We need to start looking at the large rocks in this rejected pile in a new way. This pile has not been processed for gold.

  We all like the pickers and small nuggets we find in the days clean up but, lets face it, the larger nuggets are in that pile of large rocks that rolled off the hopper screen.

  Gold can end up in this discarded pile for many reasons.

  Gold can be left trapped in the false bedrock (caliche). Some nuggets are larger then the screen used on the hoppers. Still other gold remains trapped in host rocks like quarts and are to large to fall through the screen and don’t forget about all those dirt clods that don’t get broken up on the screen and roll off the end.

  The only way to find the gold that rolls off the Dry Washer’s classifier is with a metal detector. Don’t be discouraged by the price of those expensive units, most any of the cheaper metal detectors that are designed to find coins will locate the larger pieces of gold with ease.

  After all, none of us go out there for the flower gold, although I don’t throw away the flower gold when I find it in my pan.

  So this weeks tip is to get yourself a metal detector, old or new, cheap or expensive, it will pay for its self with the first large nugget you would have left on the ground.

  You may even find that nut or bolt you lost off of your Dry Washer.

Author: Prospector Jim.

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