08-99.html

NEXT MEETING REGULAR MEETING IS Thursday August 5, 1999:

MEETING MINUTES FOR JULY: Meeting called to order at 7:35 pm;
No meetings minutes read;
No Treasures report read;
Hayden wrote letters to OIM clubs about different people from other clubs that thought they had permission to work on the Starduster claims.
SB1152 passed and now provides penalties to people that prevent access to your claim.
WDFW came out with an addendum to the Gold and Fish book.
2 guests were present;
10.8 grain gold nugget went to Jon Aldritt in the gold nugget drawing.
chip #881 was drawn for 20 grains of gold. Christy Lundquest was not
here to claim her gold, so it will be 30 grains in August.
Meeting adjourned at 8:43 pm.

PAPY OREWASHER’S ADVENTURES

by Gary Klier

    On and off over the past year I have had the opportunity to carry on a e-mail conversation with Carol Berg from the Blue Bucket Mining Company in bend. Carol and Her Husband Les are Members in the High Desert Treasure Club in bend. In July that just finished acquiring a claim near Austin Junction just east of John Day City. They had planned a Club outing on the Claim the second weekend in July. After leaning this I ask if it would be all right if I came out and joined them. I was a little curious to find out more about this club east of the Mountains.
    They told me that they would be going up Thursday morning, and I decided to join them up there.
    I found their club to be very friendly and active. They were a great bunch of people. The claim has had a long history of different commercial mining operations, including the Chinese. It was claimed that the largest nugget in the bank at Baker city came from this claim. Still with all the previous work that was done, this claim still hold a lot of potential.
    I enjoyed my weekend with this Group very much.
    If you happen to be in the Bend area and need mining supplies stop by the Blue Bucket Mining Company and Carol will help you get outfitted with what you need.
They are located at:

Stop by and say hello, and tell them that Papy Orewasher sent you from Portland.

INSTRUCTIONS TO BUILD A GOLD PROBE

Directions for building of your own handheld electronic hole probe:

by,. DAN CAREY

Parts needed:

Tools needed:

Worktime:

PLEASE READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE STARTING>>>>>THERE ARE HINTS WHICH MAKE THINGS GO EASIER.

Directions:

Note...
    For those who have a bench grinder .... I ground the pipe "fiat' at the mating area where it meets the AMPROBE shell ....... this created a "fiat" which was more accommodating as a mating/bolting surface. By doing this it also ground away the bolt holes and wire hole on the mating wall of the pipe facing the shell leaving a "open slot"
    The bolts and wires passed thru the slot easily ..... and the unit still was "rigid" I put a little RTV around the slot for waterproofing. Also, you can make a power saver option...by installing a mini-Push Button switch in series with the red battery wire ..... Switches can be bought at Radio Shack. This will allow you to set he sensitivity of the thumbwheel only once..and then use the P/B to activate the power ...... saves wear and tear on the thumbwheel switch.
    Those that want a "light" can buy a 9V mini lamp and install in the case. . wiring in parallel with the circuit card. Or use a White L.E.D. with appropriate series resistor. Experiment, its fun!!!!
    Mine works super... 1/2 to 1" for coins in the dirt hole...deeper for bigger items!!

Halide Leaching and Recovery

By Dr. A.K. Williams, PhD.
San Pedro, Costa Rica

Introduction:
The group of chemicals known as halides is composed of the elements fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. We will ignore fluorine because it does not dissolve gold. The elements listed above are in order of their molecular Weights, density, cost, and reactivity. Chlorine is the lightest, cheapest and least reactive while iodine is heaviest, most expensive, and fastest reacting. Iodine is classified as a rare element. There are no ores containing iodine. It is obtained primarily from extracting seaweed, hence, the high cost.

    Chlorine was the first commercial gold extracting agent. In the late 1800’s it was introduced on the market as "DuPont Mining Salts". Although I have no direct proof, I’m sure that this was nothing more than sodium hypochlorite, the stuff that Clorox is made from. It as used by taking ore and chlorine and agitating them in a "Pachuca Tank" or rotating the mixture in lead-lined barrels. This method fell into disfavor with the discovery that cyanide extraction was cheaper and easier for the untrained miner to use. The usefulness of various extraction techniques for the production of gold is attested to by the fact that at the present more than 80% of the world’s gold production is obtained by chemical extraction.
    In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in halide extraction of gold. Partly because of a better understanding of the process but mostly because of the bad rap that cyanide has received at the hand of the do-gooders, zealots and ignorant crusaders. I understand that there is at least one commercial company are selling a sort of "magic" proprietary chemical that only they can provide at a cost that knocks my socks off. Let me give you a truism about chemistry, MERLIN THE MAGICIAN DIED. THERE AIN’T BEEN NO MAGIC SINCE!!! You can do the same thing in your carport or out in the mountains. All you need is a little information that average Joe Beer drinker just doesn’t have ready access to. I am going to give you (I hope) all the information you need to do it. So, stay with me.
    If you will read through all this stuff which, I know, is more than you ever wanted to know I think you will eventually agree that you will have learned some principles that you can use to great advantage. I really hate to see folks trying to follow a cookbook recipe to the point that when something goes a little wrong it wrecks everything. I'm going to try to give you enough information so that if something unexpected happens you will be able to deal with it rather than panic.

Leaching:
O.K., I hate to try to explain the principle of oxidation/reduction or "redox" because I have never been able to put it into words that anyone can understand. But, we have to try to get at least a rudimentary understanding of this or you will never really understand what is going on in gold extraction or any form of metallurgy. There are three ways to look at redox. Oxidation is:

    Now I know that doesn’t mean much to you but it is important. For example when you recover mercury from a solution of nitric acid which you have used to clean some amalgamated gold you usually simply hang a piece of copper or aluminum in the clear solution and mercury plates out on the copper and drips to the bottom of the vessel. In this case the copper is reducing the mercury in mercuric nitrate to mercury metal and oxidizing the nitrate to copper nitrate. When something is reduced something also has to be oxidized, they are simply the opposite of each other. This is how a battery works. In the case of metals, which are cations, that is they carry positive charges, the pure metal is the reduced form. That is, iron metal is the reduced form of iron. The rust that is on it is it’s oxidized form because it has combined with oxygen to make iron oxide. If you take iron oxide and put some rust remover (reducing agent) on it you remove the oxygen and reduce the metal back to pure iron. Now, halides are not metals. In fact they are the opposite. They carry negative charges and are anions. So, In their elemental form they are oxidized. Just the reverse of metals.
    Why is all of this important to you? Because if you are going to use these chemicals you must be able to use them. If you want to store iodine, it is much better to store it in its reduced form so that it won’t evaporate. And, if you want to dissolve gold with it, it must be in its elemental or oxidized form. To summarize, you must be able to shift the iodine (or other halide) from its oxidized to reduced form. I’m going to tell you how to do it.
    When you want your halide in it’s elemental or oxidized form, simply add a little Clorox bleach. If you add an excess, Iodine will precipitate from the water solution and settle to the bottom as pure elemental, blue, iodine. If you want to dissolve the iodine, you must reduce it. This you can do by adding a little Red Devil Lye dissolved in water. The blue iodine will begin to go in solution so that the solution will first turn bright blue and upon addition of more Lye it will become colorless as all of the iodine is reduced to sodium iodide. Hey. Great! Now we know how to convert/handle it. As my son tells me re computers, you can make it do what you want it to do. Now you have control.
    Now for a couple of facts re iodine. Elemental (oxidized) iodine will not dissolve in water. So if it won’t dissolve, how are we going to use it? It has another characteristic. It will dissolve in solutions of sodium iodide. I didn’t do it, it just works that way. That fact gives us our way to dissolve gold. We will pursue that a little later.
    I should say that there are differences in the way the halides behave but they are very minor differences. For example, chlorine and bromine will not precipitate from solution when oxidized. That makes them a bit more difficult to handle and recover, as we will see later. I am simply using iodine as my example.

Recovery of the Gold:
    Now we have our ore with a nice red-brown solution of iodine and, hopefully, a whole bunch of dissolved gold in the solution. We can’t sell it that way. Got to get it out and make it look like gold. First we have to get rid of all the material that we have been extracting. This can be done in a number of ways but probably the most Basement way is to filter it. Depending on the scale that you are working you can use a coffee filter in a funnel or a piece of canvas in a 20 ft dia. tank. Anyway, filter it and try to get a rather clear solution. Remember that the solution must still be red-brown. If it isn’t, you have left your gold behind in the filter. This is why I insisted on your being able to oxidize or reduce at will. KEEP IT RED-BROWN.
    Once you have your red-brown solution free of material, now, you can let it go colorless or make it go colorless by addition of the Lye solution. Your gold will now slowly settle to the bottom as a black powder. Or, you can filter the solution through a fine filter to recover the gold. Great, we got a whole bunch of gold but if we lose that iodine we are still going to be in the hole. Remember, at this point it don’t look like iodine but it is still there. By this time you probably have a pretty good volume of liquid with the iodine in it. If its more liquid than you want to deal with simply dump in an excess of Clorox , let the iodine settle to the bottom, pour off most of the water, add some Lye solution and you have your sodium iodide in a concentrated solution which is the way you want to store it anyway. Ready for another extraction.
    Of course, no one is going to buy that black powder from you. " Sure it’s gold, anyone can see that! Take it somewhere else"! To make this stuff look like gold again simply smelt it. I assume most of you know how to smelt. If not, please contact me.
    Hey guys, It ain’t brain surgery. You can do it as well as me. Please let me know how it comes out or if you have problems.

The other Two Halides:
    Now, I have talked almost entirely about iodine. 99% of what I said about the use of iodine applies to both chlorine and bromine. The significant differences are; The price as discussed previously. Solutions of chlorine are colorless so you cannot rely on the color to tip you off as to the pH of the solution. With chlorine you will have to use an pH indicator dye which will not be readily available, or (would I leave you with that problem?), you can use your nose instead of your eyes. You will have to add oxidizer to maintain a little chlorine smell coming off the extraction. So, what oxidizer do I use?
    Same as with iodine. You use chlorox. However, chlorox. is very weak and you would have to use great volumes of it to maintain some chlorine in solution. You should use the stuff that chlorox. is made of, sodium hypochlorite. This is a solid, white powder which in a 5.0% solution is chlorox. This chemical can be obtained at any chemical supply. Now if you can’t or won’t go to that effort there is still another alternative. You see, we never leave you hanging without another way to skin the cat. Almost as good as sodium hypochlorite is our old friend, swimming pool chlorine. This is calcium hypochlorite. It works very well. It just doesn’t dissolve very well. Again, we never leave you without a way to escape. Just add a little lye solution and it will go right in. You have converted it to sodium hypochlorite. Don’t add too much, just enough to put it in solution.
    Remember chlorine is very slow. You will have to maintain this system for several hours to a day or more. Like all of the halides, if you allow the solution to go acid, the chlorine will rapidly boil off and if you are close by will be extremely uncomfortable. Bromine and iodine are not so bad. They are not nearly so volatile and will give you a little more time to rectify the situation by addition of a little lye water.
    If you are extracting with halides, in particular, chlorine where you have no visual reference as to what is happening, you should have some hydrochloric (muriatic) or sulfuric acid at hand. If your reaction should start to slow down and you are sure you have an excess of halide in solution you might have to add a little acid in order to liberate the halide from it’s salt form in order to keep sufficient free halide to ensure a good extraction. If you can keep the pH at say 8.5 you will be about right.
    If chlorine production should get out of hand, you probably should have some solution of sodium thiosulfate on hand. It can be bought from any chemical supply. This is the stuff that tropical fish freaks use to treat tap water to destroy chlorine. You will need much more than they use however. This is a good way to neutralize any solution you wish to dump. Your neighbors will probably appreciate your thoughtfulness.
    Just a little about bromine. It’s a bit expensive so we are not going to throw it away, right? Bromine is rather nasty stuff to handle in its elemental form. It is a liquid, which is sold sealed in 1-LB glass ampoules. When you break the container you have to use it or contain it some other way. It has a way of fuming right through the tightest bottle-cap type seals. The only way you might do it successfully is to seal around the cap with hot paraffin. Let’s don’t do it that way. Always an option, right? Since we are rather knowledgeable about oxidation/reduction we can handle it in a more sophisticated way. We can buy it in its reduced and cheaper form, sodium bromide. After all, we know how to convert it to elemental bromine; it just takes a little Clorox, right? After all, that’s what we are going to store it as anyway. When Clorox is added and the bromine oxidized to its active form, like iodine; it exhibits a distinctive color, deep red. We are now a bit smarter than the average bear.
    Now that we can jump around in redox reactions like a monkey in a fig tree let me add just one final "consejo". Whatever you decide to do with these extractions, please. Read the above several times until you are certain that you understand it well enough to control the reactions. It’s not hard, use common sense, and if thing start to go sour don’t panic, fix it.

Sites And Gem Locations in Washington State

By Steven H Draper
Here's a list of old treasure sites, old forts, old battlefields, and gem-stone locations in Washington State:

Asotin County:

Lost Treasure
Twenty miles south of Clarkston on the Snake River is where the Lost Shovel Creek gold Mine is located, in the county of Asotin.
Lost Treasure
Buried on the banks of the Grande Ronde River by the town of Mountain View is $43,000 in silver and gold coins. The location is around five miles west of county road 129.
Ghost Town
There are only a few buildings that are still standing today to see from the ghost town of Jerry. In its heyday this town was a booming horse town. Located six miles southwest of Clarkston off of county road 12.

Benton County:

Lost Treasure
On the north side of the Columbia River at Plymouth and west of the toll bridge, bandits threw three chests full of gold bars into the river. In 1911 one of the chests was dredged up but the remaining two remain at the muddy bottom of the river.

Chelan County:

Ghost Town
On State 97 just north of Blewett Pass and around nine miles southwest of Cashmere, is the ghost town of Ble-wett. There are only a few cabins that to be seen today from this booming mining town in the We-natchee Mountains.
Gem Location
On Redtop Mountain which is between the towns of Blewett and Liberty off of the US 97 highway in the county of Blewett the gem hunter can find Blue gem agate at four different sties on the mountain.

Clallam County:

Lost Treasure
A treasury agent by the name of Victor Smith in 1861 stole $9,000 in gold coins and buried them inside of a strongbox along the banks of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, near Port Angeles on State 101. Also two miles west of Port Angeles there have been large numbers of American double eagle gold coins that have washed ashore after storms which probably are coming from a nearby shipwreck.
Lost Treasure
At the northwestern tip of the state by the Straits of Juan de Fuca on the Ma-kah Indian Reservation is Near Cape Flattery. Relies and coins have been found by treasure hunters that most likely are from the Spaniard settlement here dating back to 1792.

Clallam County:

Lost Treasure
During certain times of the year the timbers of an old ship can be seen at Cape Alava which is on the Pacific Ocean at the northern end of Olympic National Park. Silver coins dating back to the late nineteenth century and artifacts have been found by treasure hunters at this time of the year.
Gem Location
The gem hunter can find about seven different sites in the county of Clallam to hunt for jasper, agate, porphyry and beach pebbles along the beaches between the cities of River Jordan and Sooke.

Clark County:

Fort
On State 500, several miles from the city of Vancouver is Fort Vancouver. The fort was built in 1824 and served for twenty years as headquarters for the British Hudson Bay Company. At its peak the fort had twenty two buildings and many smaller ones around them, then when the area became part of the American territory in the mid 1800's the fort fell into ruin.

Cowitz County:

Lost Treasure
There is a lost gold mine that is known as the Lost Swank Creek Gold Mine located in the area of Ostrander off of US 5 in the county of Cowitz.

Franklin County:

Ghost Town
The ghost town of Grange City was a river town that was destroyed by floods. The town was located where the Snake River and the Tucannon River meet which is around twelve and a half miles west of Delaney.

Garfield County:

Lost Treasure
Near the town of Penawawa along the banks of the Snake River a prospector buried two hundred pounds of raw gold during an Indian attack. After the attack, he was unable to locate the spot where he had buried the gold.
Ghost Town
Nine miles west of the town of Clark-ston on the Snake River is the ghost town of Silcott. This was a thriving riverboat town until it burned down in the year 1885. Rebuilding of the town began after the fire but was soon abandoned altogether.

Grant County:

Lost Treasure
Outlaws in the year 1879 buried around $30,000 in gold bars inside of a cave on Sentinel Mountain which is in the Saddle Mountain Range, three miles southeast off Beverly off of county road 243.
Gem Location
Near the city of Wenatchee off of US 2 and across the river from the "Fowler's Rock Shop" the gem hunter can find opalized wood.

Grays Harbor County:

Lost Treasure
There have been numerous amounts of bottles and artifacts that have washed ashore north of Taholah on the Quinault Indian Reservation that date back from a late nineteenth century shipwreck on Cape Elizabeth.
Ghost Town
On state 12 twenty Six miles northwest of Chelalis is the ghost town of McCormick. Over one dozen ruins of logging ghost towns can be found along the fifty three mile stretch between the towns of Chehalis and Raymond.
Town
The ghost town of Brady existed in the late nineteenth century as a gold mining center. Today there are only a few building still standing to see. Located on the Satsop River and opposite of the town of Satsop, fourteen miles east of Aberdeen on state 101.

Barber Pacific County:

Gem Location
Along the banks of the Wilapa River in the county of Harbor Pacific and near the town of Lebam off of US 101 the gem hunter can find chalcedony clams.

Jefferson County:

Lost Treasure
There are three treasures that wait to be found in the area of Port Towsend off of county road 20 in the county of Jefferson. On the banks of Discovery Bay there is $80,000 in stolen money robbed from a British paymaster. In the Hammond orchard in the town of Port Towsend, Harry Sutton the saloon owner buried $11,000 in gold coins and in the same orchard a jeweler by the name of S.S. Buckley buried a fortune in jewelry and money sometime during the 1860's.
Gem Location
Near the city of Joyce off of county road 53 the gem hunter can find agate.

King County:

Ghost Town
The ghost town of Newcastle, which is on US 5 north of Renton is one of the many coal towns that have been abandoned over the years. All of the towns have buildings still standing to see today.
Ghost Town
Three miles south of Buckley off of state 5 is the ghost town of Bumett. After World War II this coal mining town was abandoned. There are buildings still standing to see today.
Ghost Town
The ghost town of Satkum is ten miles east of Mary's Corner off of US 5. This day; to the east of Salkum you will find the ghost towns of Mayfield and Rifee.

Kittitas County:

Lost Treasure
The Lost Swauk Creek Gold Mine is four miles west of Liberty and south of Mountain on Swauk Creek.
Fort
Fort Flagleer is on the north end of Marrowstone Island, opposite Port Towsend. During-the 1890's Fort Fla-gleer was established along with Fort Worden and Fort Casey to protect the access to Seattle and Tacoma which continued until the end of World War 1. This spot is reported by treasure hunters as a prime location for bottle hunting.
Gem Location
Blue gem agate can be found in the county of Kittitas near the town of Liberty, off of US 97.

Klickitat County:

Gem Location
Off of State 97 near the town of Goldendale the gem hunter can find carnelian.

Lewis County:

Gem Location
Chalcedony clams can be found in the county of Lewis off of county read 33 between the cities of Chehalis and Raymond.

Okanogan County:

Lost Treasure
A wealthy cattle rancher by the name of Chief Smitken, buried $18,000 in gold coins before he died in the year 1918 by the St. Mary Indiana Mission in Omak which is off of State 97.
Ghost Town
On the Salmon River by Granite Mountain, seventeen miles northwest of Okanogan is the ghost town of Conconully. This town served as the county seat until it burned down in the year 1892. The following year the town was rebuilt and abandoned in the y ear 1915. Mining and logging buildings still stand today to see.
Fort
Fort Okanogan is on the Columbia River across from Rocky Butte. The fort was built in 1811 and in 1874 it was destroyed by Indians during an attack. There are many treasures that are believed to be buried on and around this fort.
Gem Location
Off of county read 30, between the cities of Okanogan and Twisp the gem hunter can find ammonite.

Pend Oreille County:

Location
Off of State 20 in the county of Penal Oreille the gem hunter can find garnet, muscovite and beryl.

Snohomish County:

Ghost Town
The ghost town of Gold Basin is near county road 92 and thirty one miles east of Marysville. In its day this was a booming gold mining town. The ghost town of Silverton is also nearby Gold Basin.

Spokane County:

Ghost Town
On the Little Spokane River and state 2 highway is the ghost town of Milan. This lumber town is twenty-four miles north of Spokane and only recently was the town abandoned when the sawmill closed down.

Stevens County:

Lost Treasure
At Robbers Roast which is between Fruitland and Adams Mountain there are many treasures buried that were put there by the numerous outlaws who frequented this area for many years. Nearby on Stensger Mountain a band of renegade Indians buried a wagon-load of gold ore in 1853.
Gem Location
Off of US 195 near the city of Colville in the county of Stevens the gem hunter can find calispell, muscovite, beryl and garnet.

Walla Walla County:

Ghost Town
The ghost town of Wallula which is near the junction of the Columbia and Walla Walla Rivers, was a mining and cattlemens river town that was very prosperous in its day. The town is fifteen miles southeast of Pasco.
Ghost Town
In the ghost town of Attalia there are a few buildings that are still standing today to see. This was once a railroad town and is located on the Columbus River and State 395, close to Fort Walla Walla.
Lost Treasure
On the site of the old Collins Roadhouse there is a treasure buried that had been put there by outlaws. The roadhouse was the headquarters for the freight and stage lines and is just of Uniontown, off of State 195.
Battlefield
Steptoe Battlefield, on May 17, 1858 was the scene of a battle between the American Army and the Indians. The Americans suffered great losses this day due to the fact that those of the soldiers that sought refuge in the hills nearby were tracked by the Indians and then killed also.

Yakima County:

Lost Treasure
There is a lost Spanish gold mine on the northern slope of Mount Adams which is near the head of the Lewis River.

WEB PAGE ADDRESSES:
NWMPC Web Page:
http://www.Geocities.com/Yosemite/Gorge/6503/
NWMP Ore/Wash Gazette Newsletter:
http://www.Geocities.com/Yosemite/Gorge/7278/
OIM Web Page:
http://www.grantgg.com/-oim/

NEWSLETTER SUBMISSIONS:
Submissions to newsletter can be sent to Gary Klier at 8433 SE Lambert Street, Space #139 Portland, Oregon 97266.
E-mail address: glk@grpmack.com (day time) or gklier@juno.com (evenings and weekends)
Deadline for articles is the 15th of the month.

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