How Individuals Panned For Gold During the American Gold Rush

Gold fever could be felt with all its force in 1849 when thousands of people were rushing to California to get their part of gold. People used different ways to find out gold, but panning was the most popular technique at that time and often people spent months in finding gold flakes with their gold pans.

The glitter of that ever-adorable metal didn't allow these people to quit their search, and they wanted to get more and more once they succeeded to get their first flake of the gold. They often redoubled their efforts when they didn't find anything in their several attempts especially when they succeeded to get some gold flakes in their earlier attempts.

However, they were not individuals alone, as some Govt. institutions had also realised the importance of that place and they have developed some gold mining labs in these areas that were using some other techniques to find out gold at that places besides panning.

Most of these forty-niners at California could be seen wearing long shoes and pans in their hands. Sometimes, these pans come up with some gold flakes and most of the times their efforts proved fruitless and when they got exhausted after their several attempts, they vowed to come again tomorrow to try their luck once again. It's also true that some of these miners had found so much gold that the government felt the need of establishing an official mint there.

Nowadays, plastic pans are used for panning gold, but in the past only metal pans were used for this purpose and there were certain techniques to place these pans into the water and find out the gold flakes.

Plastic pans that are used for panning these days are quite lighter in weight and they often have shallower angles that reduce the chances of gold tossing out from the pan. Similarly, slats and bars that are used today were not used in the past. Now with the help of these tools, it has become quite easier for people to separate gold from other particulars with lots of ease.

However, these earlier gold seekers were using some very good techniques in this connection and most of their gold panning techniques are still in use even after so many years. They used to place their pans at those places where water was noticeably slower and usually they picked large rocks or sandbars for this purpose. Use of tweezers and pipette was not so common in those days and these people usually separated the gold flakes from sand with their hands.

Most of these gold seekers reached here after covering long distances. They wanted to get their desired thing at any cost, and that was the major factor behind their utmost efforts in search of gold. Their determination and endless efforts often brought reward for them and there were many who had panned a good amount of gold there.



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