Special Visit To The Incredible 16 to 1 Mine: Part 3 - Milling Gold & Last Of The 0 Level
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- čas přidán 13. 08. 2019
- This video starts where we left off exploring the 0 (zero) level and we proceed as far as we can on this level… In the next video in this series, Duane shows us a fantastic map of the 16 to 1 Mine and does a great job showing where we’ve been and where we’re going. Of relevance to this video, you can see how much farther the 0 level extends beyond the caved section where we were blocked from exploring. There is still a lot of gold back there!
Duane’s comment about mining the “Compromise” was a reference to the Compromise raise, which resulted from a compromise between the 16 to 1 and the Alleghany Mining Company to establish a clear boundary between their competing properties. The 16 to 1 drove the Compromise raise along their side of the line between the 300 and 700 levels and, as luck would have it, almost all of the high-grade gold ore in this zone ended up on the side of the 16 to 1 Mine.
The main part of the mill was abruptly closed in 1997. However, as you heard, the high-grade ore is still being processed in the bottom part of the mill to this day…
As mentioned previously, I have to spread the history of this mine over at least several videos because it is so lengthy. So, here is the next segment, which, again, quotes from the excellent “Gold Mines of the Alleghany-Forest Mining District” by Raymond W. Wittkopp and Wayne C. Babros:
“In 1911 Johnson sold the Tightner to J.M. O’Brien, Arthur De Wint Foote and associates of Grass Valley for $500,000, payable over a period of years, and moved to Berkeley. During January 1918 he died in Albuquerque, New Mexico of tuberculosis, probably complicated by silicosis.
During 1908 Tom Bradbury persuaded his brother Theodore (“Cap”) and Cap’s San Francisco friend, Yeates Lawson, to join him as partners and drive a new tunnel further down slope, at the present mill level. This was the main adit into the mine for 58 years and is still used for air circulation. Tom and his young nephew, C.A. Bennett, surveyed the crosscut. They ran out of funds and optioned the property to a partnership of Wilson and Vander-Beugle, who drifted north and discovered $100,000 in high-grade. However, Wilson stole the proceeds and ran.
At the Tightner Mine, according to an interview with A.D. Foote in Mining and Scientific Press in 1922, during the period 1911 to 1918 when O’Brien and Foote ran the mine, it produced $1,700,000, with about $400,000 more for others (i.e., H.L. Johnson). During the same interview A.D. Foote stated,
‘We had an experience that was delightful for a time. It was rather interesting. Driving north on the vein, we struck a bunch of quartz about 30 feet wide and perhaps 100 feet long. We stoped up on the footwall getting indications of gold. In fact we milled about 5,000 tons which went $2.49 per ton. Then in putting up a raise from the stope, we ran into coarse gold, and worked to the hanging wall over the former stope of poor quartz, taking out $750,000 in gold in a space less than 100 feet square. Some of it was so rich that we had to cut it up with chisels to get it to the mill…We found numerous bodies that yielded $75,000 to $100,000 in the course of three years.’”
Bear in mind, that the dollar amounts mentioned above were when gold was selling for less than $20 an ounce!
In the next video, we will see the lower workshop, a great map of the mine and then we’ll head into the main underground workings of the mine - where we won’t be coming out again for a while!
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Our guide on this tour, Duane, has a CZcams channel of his own in which he has posted videos he has taken in mines where he has worked. It can be found here: / @muleskinnermining8661
For more information on the Sixteen to One Mine or even to buy physical gold or stock shares from the company, one can visit their website at: www.origsix.com/
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All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so adjust those settings to ramp up the quality! It really makes a difference.
You can see the gear that I use for mine exploring here: bit.ly/2wqcBDD
You can click here for the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines: goo.gl/TEKq9L
Thanks for watching!
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Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them - nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.
These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that colorful niche of our history is gone forever.
I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!
#ExploringAbandonedMines
#MineExploring
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If your going on a guided tour you want a guide like Duane. Not only having the knowledge but enjoys telling you about it.
The difference in the timber is oak vs softwood (fir, pine). The softwoods will expand when wet and the cellulose opens up so much that fungus can penetrate. With oak when it’s wet it swells and the cellulose gets tighter and won’t let anything penetrate it. Hardwood is becoming harder to get and way more expensive and just isn’t cost effective to use so they just use softwoods now.
Wow, some very interesting mining machinery of yesterday, big thanks to Duane. More please.
I love this stuff. Thank you. I used to work with slurry pump salesmen. With the mining industry, every punctuation mark is replaced with F* or S*. Every time there's a mining disaster, I get glued to the story because it feels like those miners are family.
It's such an eye-opener to hear a real miner say whats happened in the mine, and what the parts are called and why certain things were worked in a certain fashion. Thanks for taking us along once more.
Duane is a gold mine of information. Fantastic series!
Thanks for another amazing installment of this mine series. You are a very lucky guy to get such a detailed description of the whole process and a amazing guide
Amazing video friend thank you and please keep the great videos coming friend from Scotland 😊🎉🎉
Hi, I am thoroughly enjoying watching these episodes, it really interests me to see the actual process of how the gold is extracted and milled then refined, so cool. You can see that he is really passionate about what he does. Thanks for sharing, I can't wait till the next one. x
That’s an awesome place and just imagine the amount of gold still in there. I would love to work for Duane, just to listen to him talk about the history alone is worth it. Heck I’ll even crawl thru the manhole into the ball mill just to hear him talk. Thanks for sharing
Incredible series. Enjoyed this immensely. Thanks for the tour Duane!
The best explanation of a mill I have ever seen! This guy's knowledge is incredible!
Thankyou for the video work.Big shout out to your guide.I have been in the 16/1 Mine and have personally met Mike Miller.I still remember the day going down into the
Wow, Gets more awesome every week. Kudos out to Duane. Nobody can beat this series
That is the most comprehensive, detailed tour I have ever seen. The mine & equipment are all just impressively
What a great thing to be given a tour like this. Great information and historical information as well. Thank you to the mine and mine personnel for doing this and letting us get a glimpse into their world.
Such a great place for so many reasons. Thank you for sharing it for everyone
The amount of engineering and sweat equity that went in to building out this mine is astonishing.
Great video. Lots of excellent information given first hand; can't beat that. Thank you!
“Gly”: Now that’s a big spiral classifier! The one we used at our gold claim was only 24” in diameter. They work well for recovering coarse gold but like he said you really need a shaker table to recover the flour gold.