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How to Mine Hard Rock for Gold

Hard-rock gold mining has grown increasingly less common as the years have passed and was most abundant during the early to mid-1900s. Hard-rock gold mining requires a lot of laborious work in dangerous, dark tunnels that are dug beforehand. The process is physically draining and requires participants to be in good physical shape. Hard-rock gold mining also requires specific machinery that helps to crush and sort through the gathered stones to separate the gold from them.

Things You'll Need

Stone pick
Shovel
Sluice
Ball mill
Filter press
Canvas filter leaves
Deareator tank
Holding tank
Shaker screen
Cyanide
Water
Fine ore bin
Clarifier

Instructions

- 1
  Dig rock fragments out of the tunnel, using a stone pick and shovel. Put these collected stones in the sluice and sort them according to size.
- 2
  Filter out small, half-inch pieces of rock, using the shaker screen, and deposit these fragments into the fine ore bin. These fragments are passed on to the ball mill, which will crush them further into a fine powder.
- 3
  Dump this powder into the thickener along with cyanide and water, which will create a mixture similar in texture and viscosity to liquid cement. This liquid "sludge" should be poured into the holding tank.
- 4
  Pass the mixture through the clarifier and then put it in the deareator tank, which will remove bubbles from the mixture.
- 5
  Run the solution through the filter press, which should result in gold becoming deposited on the canvas filter leaves.

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