Gold Seeker

Gold was and is a metal most sought after.

It is very valuable but because only very small amounts are found in any ore.

Ore is simply the natural solid material that a metal like gold or minerals like zinc get extracted from. Basically rocks, more ore less.

When mining or searching for gold great care must be taken or it may escape detection and be lost.

Gold Panning was the way of the old miners. Horace J. West was a miner of a hundred years ago and he said that a miner -

"crushes his ore thoroughly and places it in the pan with water; then, with a motion easy to learn but hard to describe, he swirls the water around, allowing a little of it to escape at each revolution carrying with it the lighter material until finally he has a little black sand and perhaps a few grains of yellow substance, which is gold." from the book The Miners Guide printed in 1921 Horace J. West

There are many things that look like gold to a beginner looking for the big find. But here are the tips given by Horace West

"gold will beat out thin under the hammer just as lead would, while most other substances resembling gold will crush to a powder under the hammer. Pure gold is soft and the point of the knife will scratch it deeply. "

Back in the day gold was distinguished from all other metals by testing it in these three ways:

It is yellow
it may be flattened with the hammer
it is not acted upon by nitric acid, a poisonous acid- if the color would change when coming in contact with the acid it was not real gold.

These days you can tell if gold is real or fake

If your skin gets discolored by turning green or blackish where the gold jewelry is worn, such as your finger, then the jewelry is not real gold.
Drop the ring in a cup of water. Real gold is heavy and will sink, fake gold floats