Options
x
JCH22
Posts: 344 ✭✭✭✭
.
9
JCH22
Posts: 344 ✭✭✭✭
Comments
Founder- Peak Rarities
Website
Instagram
Facebook
I haven’t heard much about mining in Virginia
Latin American Collection
Go read some of the mint director's reports
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/51
From the 1852 report...
Total gold mined in the US from 1804-1851 is $92,670,608 of which $84,182,488 or 90.84% comes from California in the 1848-1851 period. Except for NC and GA, the other locations are just a rounding error.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
We pan flakes from a creek on my friend’s farm. They mined quartz from the side of a mountain across the road and crushed it until the 1840’s. Exploring the pits means trespassing on private land and on a small National Guard training camp. One landowner lets us explore higher up where we found undiscovered water rounded quartz boulders—on a different property. The generational awareness of the mineral richness is acute and no one wants you messing around. We get some flakes from mud that we jack in buckets from another nearby creek.
On his farm we find large (1-4 cu. yds.) deposits of shocked quartz crystals, topaz, emerald, garnet—all the NC minerals, which are randomly dispersed on his property. (We end up playing in that stuff when the pans are empty). State geologist says that they are “volcanic vomit” from a volcano 30 miles east 200 million years ago, or so. We are not convinced that they are not tailings from the hillside quartz processed on the flatland.
My friend has too many jobs as a farmer to develop the potential of his land for building stone, gravel, and possibly the gems and precious minerals.
.
Agree
If one looks at the gold bullion deposit records for the Philadelphia Mint one will find some gold coming in from Virginia, etc
Deposit Number 2625
Grains Virginia
Gross Weight 15.73 ozs.
Fineness after melting 982 1/2
Deposited December 1 1849
Reported December 3
3145
Bars Virginia
19.64 ozs
882
December 26 1849
December 29 1849
80
Grains Virginia
7.87
929
January 7 1850
January 9 1850
,
We got impetus a few years ago from a U.S. Geological Survey report that pinpointed the location where they panned samples in the 80’s. That where we get the soil that we pan. It’s all for fun, there are more prospects with the gems on the farm than with gold.
Read the reports for where you live, you might be surprised.
Have some land in the highlighted area. Commonly find pickers and fines. Multiple old mine shafts in the area with Dixie Gold Mine and Diamond Hill close by. Have dug some nice amethyst, pyrite, aqua, and quartz as well.