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** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **


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   JUNE 3   1936

   Lord make me a rainbow and may the mother of all the saints shine down upon me and my crew. The weigh of gold from yesterdays 210 buckets was done. We had 18 ounces in the pan. I am too tired to write much more tonight and am more than half drunk. All my feeble mind is capable of tonight is thinking of gold. Jacob and me dug 235 buckets today. We are tired and more than happy and our bellies are full. 

    TO BE CONTINUED .......................

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   JUNE 4   1936

   Yesterdays dig brought us another 9 ounces of gold. The rate of gold per ton is staggering. The gold has been poured into a very concentrated area. Jacob in his working of the northern trench has already encountered country rock which is disappointing. However, the area where I have been digging shows no sign of a bottom. We may very well end up with a shaft following a deep opening down into the fault. Before I pursue that possibility I have decided to work the eastern trench wall even further to see if we encounter the same rich gravels. So today that is what we did, worked the eastern wall with the pick and shovel. This was heavy and slow work as we encountered large rock that had to be moved with the bars. Some test pans showed color and the work was not in vain. I would like to continue this plan for a few days or more to see what is there. Our bucket total was a meager 180 today even though we worked till nearly dark. I am turning in early tonight and will stand my watch when it's time. There has been no trouble and all has been quiet here except for the sound of the pick and shovel striking gravel. 

    TO BE CONTINUED .......................

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   JUNE 5   1936

   Our 180 buckets from the eastern wall dig was somewhat disappointing but did give us one ounce. Jacob and me continued our attack in the wall amongst very heavy ground filled with old channel rock. I did several test pans of these gravels at various levels but the color is not there. We were able to take 160 buckets down to the tom and tomorrows weigh will tell us if we should move away from the eastern wall or keep going. Everyone is for continuing at the main trench which we know is rich. I am trying to determine the area of the strike and where it fades away. I should have a good idea tomorrow. There is nothing easy here and everything is a battle against rock and heavy gravel but the rewards have been unbeliebable to this point. We are all still dreaming of continued glory. Our creek continues to flow well enough for the tom and we have not used the pump yet. I think we may have another week or two of good water before the pump is needed. 

   This evening we had a bobcat enter camp. He prowled the perimiter as we watched. John got up with his pistol and fired a round sending him running down along the creek heading up the mountain. We have seen black bear but have not had any come into camp. There are lion in the area as well but we have not seen any. Will shot a rattler near the creek yesterday and that is the first one we saw. 

    TO BE CONTINUED ...................

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   JUNE 6   1936

   Well, I have proof that I cannot always trust my eyes or the pan as we did the weigh and produced two ounces from the eastern wall dig. Amongst a bit of consternation from the crew I have decided to keep working it to see if it gets better. I told everyone that we need to determine the pay area perimiters. We know the trench is rich. We are not too worried about water as we have the pump when needed. There should be enough water in the creek for the pump clear into fall. 

   So back to it Jacob and me went. Swinging and digging. Prying and digging. It is a battle against rock. We continue to widen the work area a bit and are also getting a bit deeper in the process. My shoulders and elbows are sore from the pick work. Jacob is relentless and relishes every challenge. I am happy to have my brother beside me.

   The digging is slow now. Every bucket requires three times the effort. I am almost hoping to run out of pay so we can move. There was some noise up higher above our dig site today. I couldn't determine the origin but it seemed to be distant and maybe a few hundred yards higher than us. The sounds were like a holler back and forth but didn't sound human. I can't explain it and Jacob just shook his head and shrugged it off. 

   We ended up taking 130 buckets out of the east wall. I did a few test pans when we were digging but again saw little to no color. We will see. Jacob and I knocked back a good amount of whiskey and talked about home and what we would do with the gold. Then we turned in and waited for our turn on watch. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ..........................

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   June 7   1936

   After breakfast we weighed up yesterdays gold count. Got an ounce. That's damn good gold and i'm happy to see it but the guys are anxious for more. Jacob and me went back up to the faultline and brought Will with us for extra power today. We crashed the pick against the rock walls of the fault with grunts and sweat a flying. Rock bars were used to move the bigger rock that was cemented in place. We are in the wall of the fault now and i'm looking for openings or crevaces that might have trapped gold. It's a treasure hunt more than a mining operation at this point.We all know that when we decide to quit the wall we can start working the good trench gravels again.

   Will let out a few curse words and I saw that his pick handle had broke. Jacob and I just dropped onto the rock and sat there laughing. I sent Will down to the tom with a load of full buckets and told him to put a handle on it and come back up. He eventually came back up with the truck and joined the fight once again. I hit a little seem and pried it open. I set a bucket down and scooped some garavel out of there and into the bucket. Maybe about half full. I took it over to the tub and panned some of it. I gave a holler to Will and Jacob. They came over and had a look see. The pan was full of coarse gold and pickers. They all got real excited and we went back to that seem. It wasn't too wide but went back in a ways. I hammered at it and pried like hell on it with the bar. More of it broke off and I scooped more material out into a bucket. Down to the tub I went and panned some of it. Loaded with heavy gold.

   Now we were all getting real excited and started taking turns swinging on that seem with a pick and sledge and then a bar to pry on her. We got a big two foot chunk out and it ended. We took out the material. We had a total of three buckets and change out of that seem. I told the boys to keep them seperate and marked so we could process this by itself. We ended up only gettin 50 buckets total  but the three from the seem might be something special.

   When we told John and showed him some gold in the pan he got real happy. He said to me that I must for sure know what I was doing. I just laughed and said it's just a big treasure hunt. We'll see what we end up getting tomorrow. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ......................

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Jed and his mates had the benefit of the gold price during the 1930's, but competition and crime would of been high because of the gold price increases.

From Wikipedia

International economic historical narrative
The international community during the depression began to shift much of its gold reserves to the United States. Foreign investors clamoured over the $15 increase in value from $20.67 to $35 per troy ounce, and exported their gold to the United States in record amounts causing U.S. treasury holdings to increase. This data shows two important aspects that involved gold in the early 20th century. The first was the massive expansion of gold as a currency across the globe. This data also demonstrates the rapid increase of gold reserves to the US. Even in 1900 the U.S. only held 602 tonnes of gold in reserve. This was 61 tonnes less than Russia and only 57 tonnes more than France.[3]

Over the next 20 years the countries' reserves grew as the amount of gold in the market increased and as normal trading occurred. However, in the 1930s there was a sudden shift up in reserves in the U.S. From 1930 to 1940, treasury holdings had tripled, mostly due to foreign investing. Another reason behind the shift of reserves to the US was the suspension of the gold standard in Britain on September 21, 1931. Gold reserves in the Bank of England also grew over ten times from 1930 to 1940, but it was still less than the amount the U.S. had. The Bank of France also saw over 200 tonnes of gold get transferred to New York following the raising of prices in America.

 

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8 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

 

 Will shot a rattler near the creek yesterday and that is the first one we saw. 

 

Aside from the two legged critters, these are the worst thing out there!  The stories getting good, and they're on the gold!

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