The weekend here in the Black Hills was enough to quicken the heart of any prospector… balmy spring weather (at least for South Dakota) has snow melting and creeks swelling! Flood warnings are issued for the plains area of the state and today they are forecasting a possibility of rain, which would further thaw the winter’s accumulation of snow.
We satisfied our spring prospecting enthusiasm with a test run of the trommel Jim has built in his shop for our summer mining project.
The test run consisted of a small quanity of his panning tailings from the Tinton region and a bit of our Iron Creek tailings.
Bob was impressed by separation of fine material on the vibrating screen and great classification for any type of material which can be accomplished by this dual-barreled trammel built by Jim. This system would be great for any clay-rich area such as Rockerville, known for its clay-rich bench gravels.
We were further assured of the system’s efficiency by recovery of a small piece of gold! Jim is going to be accepting orders for all types of prospecting equipment, primarily sluices and trommels, in the near future. This trommel will be available for inspection and demonstration in his shop setting quite soon.
Great care has been taken by Jim and Bob on riffle design, based on Clarkson’s gold tracer article.
We should have further news regarding the permitting process later this week and will relay that information in next week’s blog.
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