We’re not really complaining, though, about two days of inclement
weather compared to what the rest of the country is experiencing!
The last several weeks have been spent on a prospecting
venture of another sort, but I have had an opportunity on those nicer days to
do a little panning, see a little gold.
Our Iron Creek project progresses and weather may still allow
us some mining this year. The trommel
has met safety standards for a small scale operation and Bob is certified as an
experienced miner, so things are happening that at least get us closer and
closer.
We’re hearing, indirectly, that a court case has ruled lode
claims are allowed over placer, but not vice versa. We had heard rumblings of this before and it
makes sense, to a point. If you have to have discovery, it’s pretty easy to
either find gold or not find gold by placer mining. Proving discovery for lode
is a lot more difficult, involving sampling, crushing and assaying. The obvious
exception would be to find visible gold in ore… an experience we’ve had only a
few times through our prospecting ventures!
What I find really ironic about that is we have a few lode
claims with proven gold. Those same lode claims have old dumps, both ore and
waste. To process those dumps we would need to file a placer claim, thereby
voiding our lode claim? Some things just baffle the mind!
An apology to all those out there reading…
blackhillsgoldmines.com has expired. We hope to get back up and operating, but
we’ll keep blogging until that happens!
