1840Indian rebirth

There are many so-called gold mining machines in this era, but in fact most of them are not easy to use, and many are even the products of Minke's whims, the kind that Wang Duoyu is ecstatic about.

After all, in such a historical stage where technological development is relatively young, everyone, regardless of professional or not, wants to invent something, and some people have indeed succeeded.

Compared with those Wangduoyu gold mining machines, the ore washing tank seems simple, but it is actually very efficient.

This was also true in the original history. The use of the ore washing trough was a turning point in the gold rush. People abandoned the original gold pans and various flashy gold mining machines and began to use a large number of homemade ore washing troughs.

Since then, wash chutes have become increasingly popular and are still commonly used even into the twenty-first century.

Ma Shao explained the construction of the ore washing tank in detail, and then people started to work, cutting down the wood, and building the building while building the ore washing tank.

During this period, Mashao continued to detect the river using metal detectors, and then marked the results on the map.

A shallow beach.

"Standing Wolf, take a note. There may be very rich gold mines nearby, and priority should be given to mining." Ma Shao held a detector and said without looking back.

The vertical wolf following behind him immediately marked it on the map and marked a number "2" next to a section of river, which meant "very rich".

"There seems to be less traffic in this section." After walking a little further, the whistler looked at the steady speed of the indicator fan.

Vertical Wolf immediately marked "0" on the map, which meant "less gold mines", or the detector did not respond.

The two of them repeatedly probed and recorded along the river to prepare for the next gold rush, accompanied by several guards.

"It would be great if this detector could be bigger and more sensitive." After the day's work, the vertical wolf couldn't help but sigh.

"First of all, we need better batteries." Ma Shao replied.

"Better batteries?"

"Yes, batteries are a big problem." Ma Shao said sincerely. Even before his rebirth, mankind was facing a bottleneck in battery technology that was difficult to break through.

For example, in new energy vehicles, the biggest limitation is the battery.

"So the detector can't be improved?" Standing Wolf sounded a little disappointed.

Ma Shao smiled and said: "In fact, it is useless even if it is improved. Do you really think it is used to prospect for gold mines?"

People didn't understand.

You were using a detector to detect gold deposits just now, why are you saying now that it is not used to detect gold deposits?

Ma Shao continued: "In the final analysis, we were lucky enough to hit this high-quality gold mine. The detector is just a secondary auxiliary tool, which is only better than the human eye."

"The so-called 'rich gold deposits' or 'less gold deposits' detected by this thing only refer to the shallowest gold deposits, not the true gold deposit content."

"Perhaps the place marked '2' on the map is just a few pieces of gold the size of wheat grains stuck in the cracks of the cobblestones, while the place marked '0' has ten tons of gold buried deep underground."

After a pause, he continued: "So, just refer to this map and don't take it too seriously."

Standing Wolf asked again: "If metal detectors are not suitable for detecting gold mines, what should they be used to detect?"

"Hmm... geology, maybe." Ma Shao didn't understand geological exploration, so he mentioned it vaguely.

I don’t know if there is modern geology these days…

Half a month later, a large ore washing tank was built, and the gold mining work of the westward expedition team officially began.

Compared with serious geological exploration, metal detectors obviously don't make much sense, but they are still a rare tool for the rough manual gold mining industry of this era.

California gold diggers in history basically relied on God's blessing to find gold.

In contrast, the Apaches in the westward expedition at least had some reference provided by the metal detector. Although it was not accurate, it was at least much more reliable than God.

Coupled with the ore washing trough, which was far more efficient than the gold pan, as soon as the gold panning work started, the lumberyard immediately entered a state of sudden wealth, earning tens of thousands of gold per day.

Literally earning ten thousand dollars a day.

Buckets after buckets of sediment were dug out of the river by workers, poured into the washing trough, and then the water was allowed to impact the sediment along the slope of the wooden trough.

After repeated scouring, most of the sediment returned to the river with the water flow, while the gold and a small amount of soil were stuck on the wooden boards of the ore washing tank.

Then workers remove the sediment with extremely high gold content and conduct further manual gold panning to obtain relatively pure gold.

Most of it is sand-like placer gold.

There are also larger pieces of nugget gold, reaching the size of a finger or even a baby's fist. Naturally, there is no need to wash such large pieces of gold. You can just reach out and pick it out.

One day in July.

The horse whistle is counting the gold mining results of the first week, with a large scale placed in front of him.

It was midsummer, and the climate in the forest was hot and humid. Even though he was only wearing a pair of shorts and his feet were soaked in the water, he still felt stuffy.

However, this sweltering heat cannot offset the pleasure brought by gold.

"Seventy-nine and a half kilograms!" This was the result of his final count.

Nearly 80 kilograms of gold, converted into US dollars, is about 50,000 US dollars.

Of course, the real number should be less than $50,000. After all, the specific purity of the gold has yet to be determined, but it is still estimated to be $30,000 to $40,000.

Eighty kilograms of gold, this is the income of the first week of gold mining.

On average, the daily income exceeds 10,000 grams of gold, which is undoubtedly "a daily income of 10,000 gold".

"Good guy, this is more profitable than selling arms." Du Tiao exclaimed.

"This is not making money... this is picking up money!" Shulang said.

"A small scene." Ma Shao smiled, "We will pick up money like this every day from now on. It won't take long for us to get used to it."

He is right. The historical California Gold Rush produced hundreds of tons of gold for the United States in ten years.

In about seventy years, from the founding of the United States to the eve of the gold rush, the total gold production in the United States was only a few dozen tons.

Compared with hundreds of tons, the 80 kilograms mined by Mashao and others are just the beginning.

Even if they only mined one percent, or a few tons of gold, it would still be an astonishing sum of money.

"Great Chief, how should we spend this gold?" asked the vertical wolf.

Ma Shao thought for a while: "First, we have to melt all the gold produced and make it into gold ingots. If people see placer gold and nugget gold, everyone will know that we have a gold mine in our hands."

Du Tiao said: "I think it would be better to make it into gold coins, our own gold coins...for example, Apache gold coins!"