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

[GhostMiner]

9 hours ago, geof_junk said:

 

"  Last night we were woke up by the return of the midnight screechers as I call them. The bobcats come in from the west and screech blood curdling calls to each other as they approach camp. "

If you are in Australian Bush you may hear a terrifying animal blood curdling call. It will be coming from one of our DROP BEARS known as KOALA. Carol and I was night camping in a National park when the Koala let go. Two Italian girls doing a backpacking hike in Australia raced up to our tent as scared as can be.   

The drop bear is a hoax in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory, carnivorous version of the koala. This imaginary animal is commonly spoken about in tall tales designed to scare tourists. Wikipedia

 

Very interesting! As for Jed's midnight screechers, I have heard them while camped out there also. 

[GhostMiner]

16 hours ago, beatup said:

great old photo

Yes, it's a good one.

[GhostMiner]

   A map of the area as Jed worked it.

[GhostMiner]

2 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   A map of the area as Jed worked it.

The top of fault kettle is pretty good size being about 100 ft long and 60 ft wide & 25 ft deep or so. It has been worked but there is a good chance of finding gold still there and needs exploration work. It's remote so innitial exploration is going to be by hand with a drywasher. 

[GhostMiner]

   AUGUST 7   1936

   Whiskey Jack weighed the crew's gold and it was a good one totalling 4 ounces. Even with the smaller bucket total we are getting good results. I also had good news from Sarge and Ben telling me they will stay until the end of August. This enables the crew to work without much worry and also get good rest at night. Jack thinks it is very important for us to have good security on the mine as many people in town are aware that we have been here for quite some time and the rumors are that we have made a big strike. Jack said this could be dangerous for us.

   As we worked the drift we are seeing the tunnel beginning to narrow even more. We are down the slope about 4 feet below the flat area and the gravels are now more compacted. The pick and bar work is tedious and it takes great effort to loosen the material. Jack came back in with me late morning and had himself a look see. He thinks we may be nearing the bottom of the channel and the question is whether the drift can be continued or will we be stopped out. Jack and me took a couple of pans of this dense gravel to the tub and panned it. The gold was there in spades. Jack said we may be hitting the big pot. The crew continued taking turns at digging and we ended with 87 buckets of rich pay gravel.

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

[Macca]

GM, I stumbled on this forum after searching for something I can’t remember and fell down the rabbit hole of this thread. i’ve become a member just to comment on your story.

An amazing tale that I’m fully invested in lol.

I’m an Aussie living in a small town of about 1,000 people and even though my grandfather was a mad prospector in a renowned NSW gold region it’s taken me 64 years to get “the bug”.

Thanks for the work you are putting in.

My only connection with Sierra Nevada is I love the Sierra Nevada beers! A carton of Torpedo (24 stubbies) in Aus is US$93 !

By the way, where I live the wild dogs are much more dangerous than the drop bears 😀

 

 

 

 

 

[GhostMiner]

11 minutes ago, Macca said:

GM, I stumbled on this forum after searching for something I can’t remember and fell down the rabbit hole of this thread. i’ve become a member just to comment on your story.

An amazing tale that I’m fully invested in lol.

I’m an Aussie living in a small town of about 1,000 people and even though my grandfather was a mad prospector in a renowned NSW gold region it’s taken me 64 years to get “the bug”.

Thanks for the work you are putting in.

My only connection with Sierra Nevada is I love the Sierra Nevada beers! A carton of Torpedo (24 stubbies) in Aus is US$93 !

By the way, where I live the wild dogs are much more dangerous than the drop bears 😀

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Macca. It is great to hear from you & many thanks for reading the journal. 

[GhostMiner]

   AUGUST 8   1936

   After the crew had a good breakfast Whiskey Jack weighed the gold. I think he is our good luck charm. I knew from the test pans yesterday that the ground was getting richer by the foot. There was 12 ounces with much of it very coarse. Jack said he knew it would be there and there is likely much more. The crew couldn’t be any happier and we all thanked Jack once again for coming out to the mine.

   When we went up to the dig site we all went into the drift with Jack and took a good look at what was what. Jack said he thought the descending drift was getting close to the end and we would soon be stopped out by country. He pointed up to the roof of cracked rock and told us to place a few sets of timber as a safety. He didn’t think there was any danger of collapse but wanted to keep everyone safe. We agreed and we went to work supporting the top and sides near the end of our work. That took us all morning and we broke off for lunch down at camp. John was sharing guard duty with Sarge and Ben as he didn’t have any gravels to wash yet. The weather is extremely hot and dry with afternoon temperatures going over 110 degrees. It sucks the water right out of your body. 

   We got back up to the drift and took our turns at prying, picking, and digging the dense gravel. We were making progress at depth but were being stopped out at extending the length of our little tunnel. Jack came in and said we were near the end for sure. The only way to go now was down and it was tough ground to loosen. Jack said he had no idea how deep the pot hole would go before finding bottom and just said to keep working it. He didn’t need to give us much encouragement as we were already thinking of another big strike and working hard to get it. 

   We took a break from the work late afternoon and just sat in the shade of some trees. There wasn’t anything moving on that mountain but us because of the heat which was now over 118 degrees. We eventually got back to work and stopped two hours early as we were all spent. The bucket total was disappointing with only 64 and they were hard fought for. The good thing is I think they are very rich.

  TO BE CONTINUED ..................

[GhostMiner]

   AUGUST 9   1936

   Last night John ran out of water for the pump as he was finishing washing the meager bucket count. It comes at a time when the weighs are rich. Jack weighed up 14 ounces. This has taken our gold count to just over 900 ounces for the season. We know there are still good gravels to mine in the drift. We have decided to move the tom and our camp south to the area we scouted and pump from the big creek. This will give us all the water we need for the rest of the season but puts us closer to the main road. First a new road that takes us to the north/south running dry creek will be needed. That will provide privacy and we will let the tom run off into it and back down the mountain. The pump should be able to send water up to the tom there but we will give it a test before moving.

   After breakfast we drove the pump down to the west/east running creek and the water there is plentiful being about three feet in depth and running slowly. We layed hose up to where the tom will sit and checked the pressure which was sufficient for operation. Then it was all hands on deck to build our road in. The drive to haul buckets will be longer but won’t slow anything too much.

   We spent the rest of the day working on the new road into our future camp. We cleared brush and were able to avoid the trees. Tonight will be our last at the old camp and we plan on getting everything moved down the mountain tomorrow. Once that is finished we can get back to digging our gold. It was a long hot day. 

  TO BE CONTINUED .................

[Reg Wilson]

Many thanks GhostMiner, Not only for the fabulous saga of the journal, but for exciting memories of my own golden journey and the realization that the modern electronic gold rush needs to be recorded as well as the past.. The characters both good and bad are worthy and deserve to have their stories told.

For some time I have been working on just such a book, and thought that I had it ready some time ago, however there just seemed to be more and more material dragged back from memory and from meetings with old pals that I felt needed inclusion. The original book may turn out a little thicker, but nowhere near thick enough to tell the latest gold rush story adequately.

I really need to get this portion of the story told this year as time is slipping away.

Thanks again ghostMiner.