Gold Panning And The American Gold Rush
by Jack Wagon
panning for gold, gold panning, gold rush, american gold rush
Gold fever could be felt with all its force in 1849 when thousands of people were rushing to California to get their part of gold. People used different ways to find out gold, but panning was the most popular technique at that time and people often spent months finding gold flakes with their gold pans.
The lust for gold never let these people quit their search for gold. Thus, the people kept searching for gold and tried latest methods to get gold. The gold fever increased once the people achieved a single flake of gold. They sometimes increased their struggle to find out more gold flakes.
However, they were not individuals alone, as some Govt. institutions had also realised the importance of that place and they had developed some gold mining labs in these areas that were using some other techniques to find out gold at that places besides panning.
The people who migrated to California in search of gold deposits to make more and more money were known as forty-niners. They had pans in their hands and used to wear long shoes. These people made several attempts to find some gold. Sometimes they used to get some flakes while there were times when they found nothing, and all their efforts went in vain. When they used to get exhausted in their struggle, they used to put their search on the next day. They never left trying their lucks and strived hard to achieve gold and money. It was reported that some of the government officials found a lot of gold flakes due to which the government felt the need to establish a proper mining mint at the place of gold deposits.
At present, the use of plastic pans for finding gold flakes is quite common. In the past, only metal pans were used for finding gold flakes. Moreover, special technique was used to place these metal pans in the riverbeds or water.
Plastic pans that are used for panning these days are quite lighter in weight and they often have shallower angles that reduce the chances of gold tossing out from the pan. Similarly, slats and bars that are used today were not used in the past. Now, with the help of these tools, it has become quite easier for people to separate gold from other particulars with lots of ease.
However, these earlier gold seekers were using some very good techniques in this connection and most of their gold panning techniques are still in use even after so many years. They used to place their pans at those places where water was noticeably slower and usually they picked large rocks or sandbars for this purpose. Use of tweezers and pipette was not so common in those days, and these people usually used to separate the gold flakes from sand with their hands.
Most of the emigrants arrived California from faraway places in order to get their dreams come true. So, they made utmost efforts for achieving their goal and their determination led them to the way of success.
