Mother lodes of mercury

ABBOTT-TURKEY RUN MINE -- The Gold Rush spirit still lingers in the air of this 130-year-old quicksilver mine, where prospectors once extracted mercury and then hauled it to the Sierra for the processing of gold.

But history isn't the only thing that oozes from this abandoned Lake County mine. Every time it rains, toxic mercury gushes from a mountain of spent ore and dumps into nearby Cache Creek. From there it flows to the Sacramento River, adding to the contamination that taints fish from the Sierra to the San Francisco Bay.

Well boys , i have been reading your posts , and i hope i can shed some light on your inquiries,as you will see ,i am not well educated , cant spell much either,and i dont mean to up set anyone,especially Arnie, FIRST WHO TO BLAME, hmm, ?, theres no one to blame, there dead , so they wont pay for it,and your not likly to get money from old miners,i have some photocopies here from a book written by a gentleman that lived in your ,California, he was a miner , completely innocent and unaware of what he was doing while he was running many mines,and i lay no blame on him, or any of them ,but this man was different, he writes ( page 3 ) " i was kindly permitted to investigate the works and it was with no little interest that i studied the first process of Califorian gold extraction. These processes, in the course of my eighteen years residence in many mining districts, I HAVE SEEN IN DEVELOPMENT FROM THEIR INFANCY ", then he wrote this book , in Australia,and as it turns out , certain areas over here are the same as over there , they did not know here either , but still used the same methods, ,but HE did leave some interesting info behind in his book,and i dont see that info in your forum,so lets have a look what was common practise from around 1861,and to stay on subject i will give a few quotes,now these quotes cover different types of operation , eg, underground mine ore crushing, now you people over there would know better than me how much ore was treated in California, so how much do you think ,he writes, "in Australia, during a 18 month milling period 85,521 tons of material was processed,"for one mine , ,i have lost count of how many tons ,theres thousand of mines here,and i suggest that if you take the time to surf the net a little to get an idea of your area, it will take your breath away,the other process is "gold washing by hydrolic process, now over here you can still see the evidence left by this method,read the records ,and i can assure you that there were far more cu metres processed by sluiceing ,(everyone could do it, all you needed was a pick shovel, axe,and some brains,a syndicate of miners to work together was comon place , not much danger of the roof falling in,) and i suggest that you might have the same or maybe more in your area, now my point is in these quotes, (page 11)"In California and Australia there are large deposits of this gravelly soil containing gold,and extending throughout whole mountain ridges," (page 12)from the fountain heads located in the mountain at suitable elevations,The consruction of these water conduits involved very large outlays and labour,as some of them extended from forty to one hundred miles in lenght,)(13)in the interstices (gold recovery areas,)quicksilver is distributed, as much as TWO TONS of this metal being requiried to charge a long sluice, (page 14,) is a sketch, a hilly mountain side ,(page 15)the accompanying diagrame illustrates, (fig 1 ,) depicts this stage of operations ,(dia shows devastation) One thousand "miners inches" of water are equal to 106,600 cubic feet of water per hour ,constantly discharded under a pressure of 100 to 200 pounds to the square inch,(page 16)where it is brought by means of under currents , riffles, and other appliances in contact with the quicksilver,(page 17)These minor streams discharge into the Sacramento, which in turn empties into the bay of San Francisco , (page 79) a less complete mechanical exposure of fine gold, less contact of the gold and quicksilver, and a premature sweeping off of both. The addition of to much quicksilver,though causing the formation or more amalgam, will only lead to its being sweep away by currents of water,(page 80)There is always a considerable loss of quicksilver,(page 80)BY the violet motion of the water in the battery, produced by the water in the battery ,produced by the fall of the stamps ,particles of gold, AMALGAM, and quicksilver are carried with the pulp to copper plates to which they would adhere, (page 83) the quantity of quicksilver in the trough of the attwood amalgamators is about 700 lbs,(page 89)The loss of quicksilver varies, but it is estimated to average one pound for every 30 tons of rock crushed,(page 92) Liberation of the gold must be effected before it can become amalgamable with mercury, and as long as the silica surrounds the gold entirely it will prevent the precious metal from being attacked by the mercury, (page 93,)A very important source of loss is the "flouring"of the mercury caused by rapid motion, or due to too much free chemicals, or the presence of base metals, now that took a bit out of me, and i have run out of time as well as room ,back soon , dredger,

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