Abandoned mines.

i went to a few very old abandoned mines. The trash was horrendous like a rubbish tip. Found small bottles which looked like it had mercury in it.

Did the old timers use this stuff to test for gold?

Mercury will pick up gold. In the gold rush era they would run a slurry of crushed ore over a tray of mercury and the gold would go into the mercury. Or it can be out in a pan to pick up the gold. The mercury can be heated and burnt off to leave the gold. The creeks around Adelong are full of the stuff and you can see pools of it in bedrock rifts in the bed of the creeks.

Mercury is very toxic. Don't handle it or get anywhere near the fumes if it is heated.

If you have the mercury in the bottles it may contain a lot of gold. I believe you can put it in a hollow in a potato and cook it in a fire (in a metal pot). The mercury should disapate through the potato leaving the gold behind. I have not tried it myself and are not advocating you rush off and try it. You should research it thoroughly before attempting it .

Tributer

Harbinger of Doom here (again).

A Prospector just died in Victoria from Mercury Poisoning and it was discussed in brief in one of the local publication's last issues. I'm going to assume that he sat downwind one too many baked potatoes trying to vaporize the mercury. Be sure to retort the mercury before putting it into the potato. You need to carbonize your spud in the process.

Mercury Poisoning is a horrible way to go. It can cause the brain to swell and madness to ensue (... hat makers used mercury back in the 1800s as part of the fur-to-felt curing process and regularly inhaled the fumes due to poor ventilation - hence the concept of the Mad Hatter in "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland". The term used today is known affectionately as "Mad Hatter Syndrome"). Just remember that it vaporizes at room temperature and not to work indoors with it.



A lot of Africans still use Mercury for gold recovery.

A chap tried to sell me 20 kilos of the stuff that he'd found at Sofala during the drought a few years ago. When he first saw it, he thought someone had tossed a mirror into the Turon River. Mercury can be somewhat valuable but ONLY if it's very clean and free of inclusions. Since mercury sticks to gold, it's ALWAYS a bad idea to stick nuggets in your mouth when you dig them in order to clean them. Because mercury is heavy, it will make its way through the soil to reach the lowest areas where nuggets often sit. So putting a nugget in your mouth when it is found near old workings can be a really bad idea. The stamper plates from the Crushing Batteries at most goldfields were almost always coated in mercury.

I found a gold filling when detecting and put it into my nugget container. Within about a week, all the nuggets turned a very dull brassy-silver color. I had to burn off the mercury residue in order to return them to their original state.


Here's an interesting video on the subject:

A chap tried to sell me 20 kilos of the stuff that he'd found at Sofala during the drought a few years ago

Nero i know someone who after some, the bloke didn't leave a contact number or something did he?
Regards

Interesting stuff Nero.
Isn't mercury also absorbable through the skin through handling not just as an evaporated gas?
Probably not a real good idea to eat fish or drink (boiled?) water from these old gold areas either I supppose.
Detectist

I'm after some mercury if anyone finds some for sale. Yes it is absorbed through the skin and I wouldn't trust any gloves either. In chile they squeeze the amalgam through a chamois which some of the mercury comes through and leaves the gold behind. It still has some mercury in it which they burn off.

Dicko..

freshwater wrote:

A chap tried to sell me 20 kilos of the stuff that he'd found at Sofala during the drought a few years ago

Nero i know someone who after some, the bloke didn't leave a contact number or something did he?
Regards

You know, I think he did but it was so far back that i couldn't find his details if I tried. If I come across them during my current Spring Cleaning, I'll message you with his details. The odds of having a bit of gold locked up in all that mercury are probably quite high. The bucket was sure plenty heavy!!!!

Detectist wrote:Isn't mercury also absorbed through the skin through handling not just as an evaporated gas?
Probably not a real good idea to eat fish or drink (boiled?) water from these old gold areas either I supppose.

I suppose a Google Search could clear that up but I'm not certain. My mother told me it was (and mothers always seem to be right) but I've seen scientists handle it only with latex gloves. As Dicko has pointed out, it could probably come through the microscopic holes in the latex.

Yah, I never eat fish from rivers that have seen mercury and cyanide extraction for that reason alone.

Detectist wrote:Interesting stuff Nero.
Isn't mercury also absorbable through the skin through handling not just as an evaporated gas?
Detectist

Mercury is much more deadly if you inhale the evaporated metal. When burning off, stay well away. From memory when handled it enters through your sweat glands?? but definatly not as deadly handling it than getting a gut full of it....
Curley

My mate told me a story, although I forget where he got it from, first hand story or from a book, of the bucket of mercury left in a creek at a papua new guinea gold field. Many years after the gold had ran out this bloke was tramping up the creek, sometime after world war 2 I think, looking for where the old mines or diggings were. I think he was a digger (no pun intended). He stumbled across a rusted bucket in the creek that was mostly embedded in the wash and decided to have a look in it. What he saw suprised him. The bucket still contained several litres of mercury with a gold shean on top. He promptly dug the bucket out of the creek, refined the mercury at some later stage back at his camp and got several ounces of gold for his trouble. The theory was repeated floods, papua is a wet area as we know, had deposited the fine gold in the bucket over many years. Whether this is true or not it is still a fantastic story. I still look for the rusted bucket every time I walk a creek because hey, you just never know. I reackon that mercury can be a friend and is not as toxic as people think as long as you give that metal the little repect that it deserves.

Gday


I have never used Mercury myself and dont know a lot about it, except for what I have read, while on a friends lease he had been using mercury and I noticed that some of the pieces were hard set and there were some blobs of still fluid mercury left in the riffles as well.

When I enquired about the hard pieces I was told that the mercury goes hard when it is full of gold particles so of course the penny dropped about how people spoke of "amalgam" and how that sometimes it is found in goldfields areas dropped by prospectors.

Sometimes I have found pieces of what appears to be lead but it is hard and not soft but about the same colour as lead, silver grey, its possible that in some case these pieces that are found could be amalgam and not lead as you would think, I have a ball that I found in the area of an old mine that is about the size of a ten cents piece, too big to be a musket ball, no hole in it so its not a sinker, it is a bit soft like lead and the same colour, perhaps it might be a ball of amalgam?.

Also I have heard that platinum nuggets can also be found, they are usually quite small but are also silver grey in colour but are harder of course than lead so not easily scratched.

I do know now that mercury is poisonous to the touch and the fumes are worse, as a kid I remember breaking open a thermometer and playing with the mercury, rolling it about in my hand and dropping it on the cement to see the pieces splatter about, that would probably explain my state of mind as I got older now I know what to blame.

cheers

stayyerAU



cheers

stayyerAU

nero_design,

"A Prospector just died in Victoria from Mercury Poisoning and it was discussed in brief in one of the local publication's last issues."

I am very interested in Mercury poisoning, having handled it a lot as a child making pennies into two shillings and generally treating it as a plaything. Could you please give me more details of the poisoning in Victoria, so I can read about, thanks .
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

stayyerAU,

I have found a lump of very soft lead once at Castlemaine. I discarded it, but I am going back to the area in March and I will try and find it again. Very interesting, thanks.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jigalong.

There are hundreds of these old abandoned mines in western australia.

I have a fascination with them. Does anyone know how to find out about the history of them?

I detected a lump of what seemed like lead but didn't feel like lead and definately looked like a nugget. I hit it with the blow torch back at camp and got the lead beads melting off and it left spots of a bright yellow deposit on the charcoal from the fire that I put under it.

I came to the conclusion that it used to be a bullet given the lead and what I assumed to be sulphur as the yellow bits as found in gunpowder. Interesting..

Dicko..

ah yep I remember that bit...very odd. one of those bits that if you found it at night you're smiling til you get a look at it in daylight

Jigalong wrote:nero_design,

"A Prospector just died in Victoria from Mercury Poisoning and it was discussed in brief in one of the local publication's last issues."

I am very interested in Mercury poisoning, having handled it a lot as a child making pennies into two shillings and generally treating it as a plaything. Could you please give me more details of the poisoning in Victoria, so I can read about, thanks .
Jigalong.

Jigalong, though not in Victoria, this incident (see below) is MUCH closer to home. You might find this reference to be of interest since it occurred nearby. This may also be the brief article that I was looking for and I have simply assumed that it occurred in Victoria due to the origins of the publication. I do remember reading the original information to my wife and telling her it was in Victoria so perhaps there's two incidents after all.

_____________________________________________________________

REF: No. 2 - Autum 2010 Eureka Echo (PMVA) Official Journal (Volume 29).
Page 19 refers to the following:

"There is not a lot of detail at this moment except that a prospector from
NSW who had been prospecting for three weeks in the Reedy Creek out of
Eldorado has died, possibly out of mercury poisoning. A timely reminder
for all prospectors if you must use mercury, be very careful."

Bill Gleeson - Branch President.
_____________________________________________________________

.

Don't forget a lot of large calibre rounds have tin and small amounts of zinc and antimony in them as hardeners and if heated the lead runs off leaving the other materials which often yellow when heated

"Jigalong, though not in Victoria, this incident (see below) is MUCH closer to home. You might find this reference to be of interest since it occurred nearby. This may also be the brief article that I was looking for and I have simply assumed that it occurred in Victoria due to the origins of the publication. I do remember reading the original information to my wife and telling her it was in Victoria so perhaps there's two incidents after all."

Thanks for clarifying that nero_design. I will take a look.

Jigalong

Birdman wrote:There are hundreds of these old abandoned mines in western australia.

I have a fascination with them. Does anyone know how to find out about the history of them?

a good source of info on a lot of the old mines can be found on a program called geoviewer form dept mines

http://search.doir.wa.gov.au/search?q=geoviewer&site=search_dmp&client=search_dmp&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=dmp_search&filter=0&as_dt=1

its on this page

Dont know about mercury going hard when full of gold,unless it has coated a larger bit.It takes on a pasty appearance when full of finer stuff.If there is too much mercury in relation to the gold content,tilt the amalgam and a lot of the excess will run off in the same manner that has excited many a young boy,with the gold bearing pasty stuff left behind.This can then be given the chamois treatment to further reduce the mercury content of the amalgam,it is then ready to retort.Make sure that when you are performing these tasks that the mercury/amalgam remains under a layer of water and that any container of the stuff also has a layer as well.Forget about spuds and blowtorches etc,get a retort.

I would stay clear off the use of it, if you have micron 1000 (= 1mm) and below classified material from the fields, bring it to someone who owns a shaker table and keep any risk from yours and your family’s health. Shaker table are today’s tools which make the use of mercury obsolete in small size operation as they recover exactly the size type formerly recovered by using Mercury.
Of course the industrial mines still are processing respectable amounts of mercury in their operations. The effort to recover any decent amount of micron gold by setting up garage style Laboratory’s stays in nor relation to the risk

Also have a keen eye if you go detecting around old mines. You will run into it.
Cheers All-AU

I am still trying to access some more info, hazmat related stuff but I have attached a link to a msda sheet http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/96252.htm
cheers Tim
Ps just remember this stuff is accumulative when it enters the body it never leaves

Our good friend Mercury is only lethal if you in hail the fumes when heated, So don't do that! Couple of old guys I know down in Melbourne their both in there 90's drink grog and
smoke like there's no tomorrow and are fine. They used Mercury on a daily basis for near on 30 years, "In their hands every day for 30 years"
So which part is hard to understand!
I'm not saying everyone is the same, Maybe 1 in 10 million, don't quote me but it will be LOW! may have an adverse reaction to Mercury? Which pretty much goes for anything we eat or come in contact with!!!!!

Someday, mate
Mercury gives of fumes at room temperature. I have seen a film demonstrating it. The fumes as well as direct contact with the skin can cause mercury poisoning via ingress through the skin tissues. It's not a pleasant thing to have happen to you.
Just ask James101 about his mate John who I also know.

Mercury is bloody dangerous except in the hands (Gloved of cause) of experienced users.

We have grown up and learned a lot more about it in recent years.

Irresponsible comments such as yours give people the wrong idea.

Like I stated, some people may be allergic to it! I've used it and still use it with bare hands, that started 20 years ago, my old mates 40 + years later who also used it with there bare hands are also fine? Do you smoke? Some people get cancer from that stuff, others don't! I could go on and on about this sh#t, Mercury ingestion, maybe if you eat big sharks on a daily basis! Such a crock!

P.s. You should be more concerned with the Radioactive dust on your computer screen?

manicnut wrote:My mate told me a story, although I forget where he got it from, first hand story or from a book, of the bucket of mercury left in a creek at a papua new guinea gold field. Many years after the gold had ran out this bloke was tramping up the creek, sometime after world war 2 I think, looking for where the old mines or diggings were. I think he was a digger (no pun intended). He stumbled across a rusted bucket in the creek that was mostly embedded in the wash and decided to have a look in it. What he saw suprised him. The bucket still contained several litres of mercury with a gold shean on top. He promptly dug the bucket out of the creek, refined the mercury at some later stage back at his camp and got several ounces of gold for his trouble. The theory was repeated floods, papua is a wet area as we know, had deposited the fine gold in the bucket over many years. Whether this is true or not it is still a fantastic story. I still look for the rusted bucket every time I walk a creek because hey, you just never know. I reackon that mercury can be a friend and is not as toxic as people think as long as you give that metal the little repect that it deserves.

the story your mate told you is just that, you will not see the gold sheen in mercury, as the mercury will absorb the gold and completely cover it, once the mercury has absorbed as much gold as it can it will turn into a putty like substance.

also remember that copper will also be absorbed into mercury, so mercury you find may also have copper in it as well.

Koeh, you took the words out of my mouth.Fair dinkum, how many times does this have to be said.Handled correctly mercury is a very effective goldrecovery tool,handled in the wrong way its deadly.Yeah, Someday,it will not kill you today or tomorrow but like asbestos it will get you in the end.Mad as a Hatter,why is that.Read the readily available info.And for the second time,get a retort.

Retort, or Nitric acid for the final stage YES. But where or how did the gold coated button of amalgam originate? Would love to skip steps!

someday wrote:Our good friend Mercury is only lethal if you in hail the fumes when heated, So don't do that! Couple of old guys I know down in Melbourne their both in there 90's drink grog and
smoke like there's no tomorrow and are fine. They used Mercury on a daily basis for near on 30 years, "In their hands every day for 30 years"
So which part is hard to understand!
I'm not saying everyone is the same, Maybe 1 in 10 million, don't quote me but it will be LOW! may have an adverse reaction to Mercury? Which pretty much goes for anything we eat or come in contact with!!!!!

I use Mercury ..... as long as the guide lines are meet for it's use there are no prob's!
cheers James 101

hi james
i fully understand use and saftey of mercury but am having trouble sorcing it have you got any sigestions.
pete

Go to your local Chemist and tell them why your needing it straight off, I'm making a Mercury switch for a bomb!!!! Make sure their not busy? If no luck go to another Chemist!