What is it about lode?

The old-timers sought it… the elusive “vein” that meant untold riches.

Placer vs. lode... placer has separated and is re-deposited; lode is still in place.

But the majority of prospectors who flocked to the Black Hills during the rush of 1876 had no more idea of what they were looking for than the modern-day greenhorn!

We’ve talked about “nuggets for the pickin’,” and the very first to the Hills might have seen that after a “gully washer” of a rain. A smart prospector, however, would have looked for the source or lode, doing one of two things… both a promising way to pursue lode gold.

The first and most labor intensive method we see still visible near almost any free milling lode mine that existed in the Black Hills. They will have one common factor. The gulches leading to the mine were placered, with digs going off to each side of the drainage. What were they looking for?

Think about it. As they dig up the drainage they occasionally encounter an area that has more gold. They would expand their hole sideways to recover as much as possible. If good gold recovery continued so would digging!

Now what would happen when they continue digging and recovery keeps improving? Maybe they’d eventually encounter evidence of the source, the lode!

Now if you’re digging up through a drainage and the gold stops, you’d best look further to see if the rock formation has changed? Your source, or lode, might be right under your nose!

So, placer mining often resulted in lode mining!

Now this wasn’t always the case! Maybe the source is at a distance, or maybe they found lode first and the placer mining happened later.

The other possibility for discovering lode is a surface outcrop which, ideally, has visible gold! More than likely though, that surface outcrop was crushed down to a fine powder, panned and showed gold.

These days, a lot of old mines have small to large dumps that appear to be lode ore. Historically, these dumps may have been left for many reasons including low-grade ore and low gold prices that did not justify processing; the mine shut down for lack of money, an accident, lack of local processing, etc. etc.

These dumps, however, are classified as placer by the U.S. Forest Service. The rock is no longer “in place” in the lode! It makes sense, just took us by surprise the first time we were told.

So which came first? Kindof like the chicken and egg question… but that one’s been answered! All we know is that stories of the old-timers often told of following a placer deposit quite often led to discovery of the source.

Another story we often read is of a vein “pinching off” and being left, only to have another miner digging feet further and finding a bonanza! I took the opportunity to photograph a quartz vein to give you a visual of how this might happen.

You can see that although the vein travels from top to bottom, it pinches off to almost nothing at points then “blows out” again. If you imagine this being gold-bearing quartz, the pay would be pretty frugal when it narrows.

So goes the story of lodes… a placer might get you there!

Congratulations this week to Autumn and Dave, pround owners of two placer claims!