The lure of panning for gold
I’ve only tried gold panning once, while on a trip to Alaska. I think if I lived their, I’d be hooked. Our gold-panning guide took us to a small stream where much gold had been found in the past, gave us some easy lessons, and let us go. Panning is fairly simple. Simply put, you fill about one-third of a small plate-sized pan with likely material, place the pan slightly beneath the surface of the stream so that it fills with water, then use a “swirl and dump” motion to concentrate the heavy gold in the bottom of the pan and discard the remainder. I caught on quickly, and managed to come out with a few flakes of aurum. See the photo. There’s so much uncharted territory in our largest state that surely there’s lots of undiscovered gold. What a life that would be! Of course, it’s darned cold up there, and not much else to do but fish for salmon or cater to tourists. Maybe California would be easier…
If you want to learn more about panning for gold you might try
http://www.keeneengineering.com/pamphlets/howpan.html or
http://www.icmj.com/GoldPanning.htm
I’ve included a photo of my pan during the great Alaskan gold panning expedition:
