u/AdValuable2732

First you need a rotary impact drill. This is a Wal Mart special, just to show you don't have to have a $300 rotary drill.

You need a drill bit that's carbide tipped designed to drill holes in concrete.

When you find a rock or vein you want to test simply place it either in a pan or on a piece of paper. Start drilling and make sure you keep the drillings. They are all crushed finer than you can any other way. Caution don't breathe the dust you will die. You can drill wet or dry. Wet usually goes faster and is easier on your bit. You can also use your sniffer bottle to suck them up with. If you find a vein exposed drill your holes across its face and locate the hot spot. It's a great high grading tool. You can buy drill bits, drill bit extensions that will get you three or four feet into the vein. Or course that takes some thinking and planning to figure out how to keep drill dust. The gold particles are broken from the rock liberated ready to pan. If you drill into a real hot rock you find drill shavings in your pan, that are malleable they bend without breaking. If it pyrites they will just shatter and fall apart in tiny sheets. The rock I have here is manganese with electrum and silver sulfides. Hope this helps you find your own glory hole.

This is a field sample of a vein that I think has silver and gold ore from the Comstock in Nevada. The oxydization is obvious. Photo one is the sample and you will notice I have taken a rotary impact drill to the darker spot and collected the dust and magnified the dust. I circled the silver sulfids that are not totally oxidized. The red circle is around two small beads of electrum stick to quartz look close and you will find more. The tan material with the greyish spots is iron oxide and silver. I continued to drill out a one gram sample of dust. I prepared a 50% nitric acid and 50% distilled water solution. One gram dust into 25 ml of solution. I will use a 250ml pyrex lab glass beaker under an up draft hood. Wearing eye protection and gloves. Depending on how rich the sample is in silver sulfids and maganesse the reaction could be violent as the nitric takes all the oxidized and sulfide material into solution. Now the maganesse can be a bit tougher and Sometimes in the winter you have to warm the solution first. When it quits bubbling ,all that will be left is the electrom and quartz. Which I'll filter off wash and visually assess by counting visible beads of electrum. I will take the filtered now blueish tinted solution and using an eye dropper put a few drops of table salt dissolved in distilled water. If silver is present the solution will turn milky if there is a lot of silver it will form something similar to cottage cheese on the bottom of the beaker. That's the silver precipitating out of the solution.

This is just a quick way to tell if you're in the right spot. I have done enough of this type test to know which ones warrant going into the run pile and which don't visually. But when I am in doubt It sure beats the time it takes to fire assy the samples, and keeps me from running junk at the same time. Note * Comstock ore will almost always be in a ratio of 70% silver 30% gold. Hope you liked my explanation, and shed some light on how poor boys like me getter done.

Clifford Cook was born in Silver City Nevada in 1901. He lived there for 95 years. Mining prospecting and milling.

One of the many things he taught me was finding all five of these stones in the same drainage was a sure indicator that you're going to find gold. Red is Chucker Jasper, clock wise the next is Hematite then quartz then Epidote then Magnetite.

Notice that the Hematite has a red hue.

I have never found this to not be true.

I later learned that these stones are the sigh your in an ancient channel gravel.

I can't be sure that this rule holds true world wide even though Cliff said it did. I can say its true all over Nevada California Utah Colorado Oregon and Washington.

Hope it helps you find some gold. It's what led me to the piece in the center.

Good luck.

​

​

Fossil or rock. I found this in an area known for petrified wood. It was in the rubble of a steep-sided canyon that is dry most of the year, but does run during winter melt and occasional flash flood. The hills here are Andisite and some basalt and some cemented volcanic ash flow. The object is as heavy as a similar sized piece of magnatite. It is not magnetic at all. It's structure is like no other rock here that I have ever seen. It has layers you can see towards its base. The tip is solid with the outer layer intact. This area was under a sea before Nevada rose to the surface and then later the valleys were part of Lake Lahonton. The area where it was found would have been under Lake Lahonton, but near the shore. Most of the Petrified wood found follows a shore line and was Petrified when covered in volcanic ash from the McDermott caldera.

I have myself talked into it being a tooth, but have no idea if there is a creature that would have had teeth this big. It's approx 9" to 10" tall and 7" wide at the base. Any thoughts are welcome. I have it up on other sub reddits right now like whatsthisrock but have had little input.

Found in the foot hills near Dayton Nevada. In an area where fossilized wood is found in a deep canyon this tooth shaped rock was found in the placer rubble. It is heavy like iron but non magnetic. It is layered as you can see. I don't think its andesite or bassault which are two of our major country rocks. Any ideas,?

This rock was also found in the Carson River in Nevada. I broke it open it's fairly soft and comes apart in jagged sheets. The gouge has a light green tint. The chunks are slightly darker green.

What are the specks and how did they get there?

This sample is from the Comstock lode. The same type of ore is found in places in the west. The chalcopyrite is visible near the top and do to its pale yellow appearance it indicates gold and silver present in microscopic form. A scratch test if it will confirm only that it's chalcopyrite with a green black line. If it scratches gold or yellow it's gold. The test won't tell you if there is gold present in the chalcopyrite. It only tells you that is either gold or pyrites

To test for gold you need to do a chemical test.

This sample shows a good amount of Acanthite (Silver Sulfide): and Pyrite (iron sufides) it also has a lot of electum or tiny beads of 14k gold. They are on the margins as well as a nice example of them they are sandwiching the white band of quartz in the lower half of the rock. They are bonded to the Acanthite.

The upper golden material is the chalcopyrite. The color of non gold bearing chalcopyrite is a more brassy deeper color. This sample is pale-like and carries silver and gold. . There is also present sphalerite (zinc sulfide) which also bonds to gold and silver.

You can see a little vein of below the lower band of acenthite they are darker.

Hope that helps with the is this gold question. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

One of these rocks is barren of gold and silver the rest have increasing amounts of silver and gold from 2 oz silver a ton and .66oz per ton processing in value to the richest of them that runs 60 oz silver and 15oz of gold per ton. Fire assy, They are all from the Comstock load in Virginia City Nevada. Who has the eye for high grade.

I am lucky enough to have my own land and area to have a driving range. It's 300 yards deep and 200 yards wide. I buy golf balls from the thrift stores and am gifted them by friends and family. All brands and ages over 2000 I would guess. I pick them up in a sag bag. Walking. When I hit I don't really pay much attention to the brand on purpose. But when I pick them up I do. Here are the six longest balls this week out of approx 100 I hit. . Picture one has the top three left to right. Pic two has the next three left to right winners. Now there were a lot of other balls close but these 6 were the furthest. That worn out Titlest Prov1 was about 240 which is about as far as I ever hit. I don't play Prov1 my gamer is always the Vice Pro. Not scientific but interesting don't you think?

Country rock from below the Comstock lode in Virginia City NV. I popped it in half and found this different material inside.