Cascade Steven
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GM: I should have qualified my "yes" answer to your question about good gold strikes. The Quartzville district is listed as being the second largest mining district, by production, in the Western Cascades of Oregon. However, when compared to southwestern Oregon, Northeastern Oregon or the California Sierra Nevada districts, its production is relatively insignificant. It certainly does not have the coarse gold that Jed found.🙂
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GM: Short answer is yes. The Middle Santiam River is a tributary of the South Santiam River originating high in the Western Cascade Mountain Range of Oregon and flows generally west through the foot hills of the Cascades. It has several names, including North Fork of the South Santiam River and also as Quartzville Creek, named after the 1860's mining camp called Quartzville. According to some sources, gold was first discovered on the lower Santiam River as early as the 1840's and what is now known as the Middle Santiam River or Quartzville Creek was worked for placer gold in the early 1860's. In 1863 the first lode gold mining claim was staked by Jeremiah Driggs and by the mid 1860's there was a mining camp of about 1000 people known as Quartzville. Because of poor milling practices, and not low grade deposits, the camp was abandoned in the late 1860's. In the 1890's the area was reactivated by William B. Lawler with financial backing from a British syndicate. Depending upon which source one reads, there was between $100,000 and 1 million dollars in gold mined from the district at $20.67/oz. The district is known for both crystalline gold (samples in the California State Mineralogical museum reference library) and also wire gold in the form of "birds nests" or "eagles nests" due to the occurrence of pockets of massive fine wire gold. This is the district where I am conducting my mining history research. There are many conflicting stories from this district and facts are sometimes difficult to discern. Much of the placer gold in the Quartzville area is fine gold, However, nuggets do occur and I have personally seen gold nuggets 4 to 5 times the size of a wooden match head. There are also uncorroborated stories of much larger nuggets occurring in the area. Hope this helps.
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GM: I too, like others, want to say "keep up the good work". I am currently doing research on a mining district in the Western Cascades of Oregon and like maxxkatt I too have found letters and maps that are almost impossible to read correctly due to age of the paper, faded hand written pencil notes, and yes the very poor reproductions. And, like you, I too am forced to do the best I can under the circumstances to interpret the information and check other sources, if they exist. So I can in some small way appreciate your challenges and my hat's off to you for all of your diligent effort in sharing this fascinating story. Please also add my name to your list for a copy of your book. I look forward to your continued posts. Best Wishes.
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GM: Just a supportive note to tell you how VERY VERY thankful I am that you decided to "dust off" that old journal and share it with all of us in this prospecting community here at dp. This is a very interesting glimpse into actual mining history in the 1930's through the eyes of an actual participant. I am very glad for your success and wish you the best with your book.
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rled2005: I am glad that you asked about gold scales. I too have been pondering this question and considering posing such a question. About 2 years ago I purchased a gold scales on the recommendation of a blogger and have been disappointed with it. The repeatability and sensitivity are not as I had hoped. Steve H. brought up some good points so I decided to investigate reloading scales. The Frankford Arsenal Scales appears to be the most sensitive of the intermediate price range scales. Although there may be higher priced and more sensitive reloading scales, a quick Google search did not reveal them to me. The Frankford web site listed the scale accuracy at 0.1 grains accuracy. I am currently working in an area with fine gold so a more sensitive scale is an advantage to me. This detail allows me to better calibrate my metal detectors and also aid in a gold related research project. I was unaware of the Frankford scales so thank you for bringing it to my attention. And I decided to "bite the bullet" and ordered one from Amazon. Thanks again for this thread.
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I'm with the crowd on this one - PLEASE don't stop posting. I try to give as many likes as I can and I too really appreciate the fact that you are posting this diary and expending all of the effort to transcribe it. It is truly a labor of love and we too (all of the readers represented by the 59.9k views on Steve's view counter) love it. Best Wishes. 🙂
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Pls Help Identify These! Im Stumped!
Cascade Steven replied to Charlie huggins's topic in Rocks, Minerals, Gems & Geology
Are you able to provide a hardness, density and diameter of these items? -
World Class Arizona Nugget Recent Find
Cascade Steven replied to Gerry in Idaho's topic in Detector Prospector Forum
Gerry: That is a wonderful specimen in the above picture. Congratulations to your customer. I am interested in the quartz or host material. There does not appear to be any iron staining. Was this sample cleaned of iron staining or is this essentially its character as found (minus the dirt)? I am also curious about the quartz host rock (assuming that it is quartz) that hosts the gold. In the picture it appears to be opaque white. Is that a correct assumption. And if so, does this quartz qualify for what is commonly called "bull quartz"? Just curious. Thanks for sharing.