Things You'll Need
Instructions
Put on safety goggles and a respirator. A respirator (available at most hardware stores) is a face mask worn over the mouth and nose to protect you from noxious fumes and harmful particulate. Crush the quartz with a sledge hammer into pea-sized pieces.
Transfer small pieces to a mortar and grind the pieces to sand-like consistency with the pestle. This will take some time and effort to grind the pieces to the correct consistency.
Put the sand into a gold pan and add water. Swirl the mixture in a clockwise fashion, allowing the water and other materials to slosh over the edge. Gold, having a very high specific gravity, will stay in the pan and settle in behind the ridges or "riffles."
Put on long rubber dish gloves and start the process of cyanidation. This is where you add a very diluted mixture of cyanide and lime to the gold in the pan. This can be purchased from a company that specializes in gold recovery chemicals such as Shor International (see Resources). This solution will melt the gold, turning it into liquid form and separating it from the other materials, if any, left in the pan.