The good book

Hi all i have a little book called Prospectors guide,tenth edition1980,i had lost this book for months and now have just found it this book is great ive been lost with out it,as im looking for indicators,
ive been working the hills and gullies above some old shallow alluvial workings there is no sign of reef works and there are no reefs on any maps ive spent about 3 to 4 days without a sniff of gold,
i was in a gullie that branchs off from the head of the old workings and and got a little ground noise and i had a little dig and i found some green/blue slate there was no sign of this slate on the surface also this colour slate is on the mulluck heaps but the whole area around has yellow/orange looking slate, i went back to the spot yesterday and with my 14 inch mono i had it in sens/smooth and it appeared there was a line of ground noise where i found the green/blue slate,but theres not much quartz close to the slate
am i on the right track may the reef be close to this slate,will this slate run in a line for many metres or will it be like an intrusion,most this info would be in the book i mentioned ive just found it so will be reading it again and again i was just after some real world experence in this matter
regards sean
ps good info will be rewarded with half the loot.............

Gollstar,
I reckon, "maybe" you should prospect instead of detect, if there is no indercators with the detector go get a hand auger and drill a few shallow holes and drop the soil into bags and mark on the bags thier location. Take the bags to water and pan off the bags, any colours will tell the pending outcome, good ruck!!!

Wow sounds interesting. I was just reading from "Prospecting for Gold" by Ion Idriess (which I scored on ebay for $20 bargain) about the difference betweeen a fossicker and a prospector. It sounds like you could be onto a good thing there. Let us know how you go..

Dicko..

Hey gollstar you realise that the reef could be long gone. Yes alluvial in the gully sometimes means reef higher/ law of gravity etc but not always. If the old timers dug the gullies around they would have had a good look for the source too and as authere suggested they would have used the pan. The green/blue slate colour is the colour of the bottom on bedrock by the sound of it hence being on the top of the mullock heaps and the colour of the hole you dug. The surrounding yellow/orange slate has probably had minerals oxidide (ie iron) being exposed to the elements.
Dont want to rain on your parade but there are lots of possibilities. 4 days is a good look.
Good luck
Cheers
Curley

thanks for the replies, calamari i also have the same book,
auther i was thinking of doing just that after having a go with the beeper
first,curly i thought the same thing but i have found 2 little nuggets one 2 grams the other 2.7 grams on the heaps after moving a few branchs they wernt worn or anything so i believe they didnt move too far
also i always think in reef lines, if theres a reef on one hill there may be another on a hill to the north or south just ready to give up the next welcome stranger it may not be 2 inches deep it may be 2 foot it may be 10 feet there has to be reefs that have'nt shed so much of a speck of gold yet but they may in another 100 000 years or so i just would like to hurry them up a bit,
also i like to think the reef shed its gold during a period of intense weather and has been itself covered over with sediment, yeah four days and no gold i am wondering if i am wasting my time,theres about 6 different hills with xx gullies, to give it a real going over ill need to spend another 10 days,remembering that a gold bearing vein may be as little as an inch wide,
also my mum had a book about motivation ill relate it here there was a dude in america in the old gold rush days who was so certain that he was on to gold and wanted to sink a shaft or a drive but didnt have the finace so he went back to his home town and asked everyone for a loan everyone helped him, so he raised alot of money for machinery etc so he sank the shaft and and was finding good gold at first then all of a sudden they lost the gold they kept digging but nothing he then sold up and walked away broke the people
who he sold the mine and machinery dert cheap struck the lead or vein three feet from where he stopped,the story is called three feet from gold,the first guy to start the mine eventually made millions some other way,
Thanks for your replys