I found those nuggets that I have in Julian. I found that by getting down to the bedrock. One was way up in my buddy’s property towards the gold mind at the bottom of a tailings pile. There was a small river at the bottom of the tailings pile where all the rain was washing through the tailings pile. Anything they missed in the hard rock mine gets washed down in that small river. We actually dug right down to the bedrock in front of the tailings pile and that’s where we found both of the nuggets. Small little nuggets probably about $30 worth each. I use the crevice tool to dig out material. I had to dig a deep hold and enough large enough for me to sit in there and dig it out. And we didn’t really know if we had them until we ran the final sluice box sediment through the gold pan. It all comes down to that one moment with the gold pan when you have all your concentrates and you from the sluice box material and you put it in the pan and you find out if all the work that you just did will pay off.
In Julian there are a lot of layers of shale that have been tilted vertically and the gold is caught in between the layers of shale. And in the old days about 1925 to 1930 they were blowing it up because it was shale it would shatter and then they would wash all of that in a trommel which tumbles all of that rock around and has a big line of water that hoses down all that rock to get whatever flakes or nuggets they can find. That’s how a lot of the mining in Julian was done exploding the shale formations and getting that gold that was caught in between the shale. They were drilling at the top of the mountain and make a mine about 200 yards deep and mine whatever they had, then they would go down about 100 feet and drill another tunnel and go another 200 yards into the mountain and run all that material. Then they would explode the roof and collapse all that material down and then minded out and run all that. So they were creating this giant chasm. They got about $2 million worth of gold out of one of the mine’s roughly. And about half a million in silver. So it was gold and silver that they were finding and they were also following quartz veins that were embedded in there. If you go in the mine you can actually see the vein that they were following. I’ve been in some of those mines and it’s very exciting.
I have a friend who owns property up there, it’s his family, they own approximately hundred and 20 acres just outside the city Julian. They don’t mind the property, they just own it, and there are mines on the property three of them – gold and silver mines. When you pan you can sometimes find silver in the bottom of the pan as well as gold. You can find multiple materials. Silver is still a very heavy metal so when you wash it over with the water in the pan it won’t move. It sticks right in the pan.
Next week I’ll tell you about my best day ever!