Chapter 147: [Daily Income]

There are many so-called gold-mining machines in this era, but in fact most of them are not easy to use. Many are even the products of the fantasy of folk scientists, the kind that Wang Duoyu is ecstatic about.

After all, at such a historical stage when scientific and technological development was relatively young, everyone, regardless of whether they were professionals or not, wanted to invent something, and some people did succeed.

Compared with those Wang Duoyu-style gold panning machines, the ore washing trough may seem simple, but it is actually very efficient.

This was also the case in the original history. The use of ore washing troughs was a turning point in the gold rush. People abandoned the primitive gold panning plates and various flashy gold panning machines and began to use homemade ore washing troughs in large quantities.

Since then, ore wash troughs have become increasingly popular and are still frequently used in the 21st century.

Ma Shao explained in detail the construction of the ore-washing trough, and then people started to work, cutting wood, building buildings, and constructing the ore-washing trough.

During this period, Ma Shao continued to explore the river using a metal detector and then marked the results on the map.

A shallow beach.

"Shulang, make a note. There may be very rich gold mines nearby. Give priority to mining." Ma Shao said without turning his head, holding the detector.

The vertical wolf following behind immediately made a mark on the map and marked a number "2" next to a section of the river, which means "very rich".

"This section seems to be less." After walking a little further, Ma Shao looked at the indicator of the fan's steady speed.

Shulang immediately marked "0" on the map, which means "less gold mine", or the detector did not respond.

The two men repeatedly explored and recorded along the river in preparation for the next gold rush, and were accompanied by several guards.

"It would be great if this detector could be a little bigger and more sensitive." After a day's work, Shulang couldn't help but sigh.

"First of all, we need better batteries," Ma Shao replied.

"Better batteries?"

"Yes, batteries are a big problem." Ma Shao said sincerely. Even before his rebirth, humans faced difficult-to-break bottlenecks in battery technology.

"So the detector can't be improved?" Vertical Wolf sounded a little disappointed.

Ma Shao laughed and said, "In fact, even if it is improved, it is useless. Do you really think this thing is used to explore gold mines?"

People didn't quite understand.

You were just using the detector to detect gold mines, why are you now saying that this is not used to detect gold mines?

Ma Shao continued, "In the final analysis, we were lucky to have hit this high-quality gold mine. The detector is just a secondary auxiliary tool, which is better than the human eye, that's all."

"The so-called 'rich gold deposits' or 'less gold deposits' detected by this tool only refer to the shallowest gold deposits, not the actual gold content."

"Maybe the place marked '2' on the map is just a few grains of gold stuck between the pebbles, while the place marked '0' is ten tons of gold buried deep underground."

After a pause, he continued: "So, just use this map as a reference, don't take it too seriously."

The wolf then asked, "If metal detectors are not suitable for detecting gold mines, what should we use to detect them?"

"Well...geology." Ma Shao didn't know much about geological exploration, so he mentioned it vaguely.

I don't know if there is modern geology these days…

Half a month later, a large ore washing trough was built, and the westward team's gold panning work officially began.

Compared with serious geological exploration, metal detectors are obviously not very meaningful, but they are still a rare tool for the rough manual gold mining industry of this era.

In history, California gold prospectors basically relied on God's blessing to find gold.

In contrast, the Apaches on the westward march at least had some reference provided by metal detectors. Although they were not very accurate, they were at least more reliable than God.

In addition, the efficiency of the ore washing trough was far superior to that of the gold panning plate, so as soon as the gold panning work started, the logging camp immediately entered a state of rapid wealth with daily income of tens of thousands of gold.

Literally means making a fortune every day.

The workers dug bucket after bucket of mud and sand from the river and poured them into the ore washing trough, and then let the water flow along the slope of the wooden trough to impact the mud and sand in it.

After repeated scouring, most of the silt returned to the river with the water flow, while the gold and a small amount of soil were stuck in the wooden boards of the ore washing trough.

Then the workers remove the mud and sand with extremely high gold content and do further manual gold panning to obtain relatively pure gold.

Most of it is gold sand like sand, which is a handful of golden gold when held in your hand.

There are also larger pieces of gold nuggets, which are as big as a finger or even a baby's fist. There is no need to wash such large pieces of gold, you can just pick them up with your hands.

One day in July.

Ma Shao was counting the results of the first week's gold mining, with a large scale placed in front of him.

It was midsummer and the forest was hot and humid. Even though he was wearing only a pair of shorts and his feet were soaked in water, he still felt stuffy.

However, the sultry heat could not offset the pleasure brought by gold.

"Seventy-nine and a half kilograms!" This was the result of his final count.

Nearly eighty kilograms of gold, converted into US dollars, is about US$50,000.

Of course, the real number should be less than 50,000 US dollars. After all, the specific purity of the gold has yet to be determined, but it should be around 30,000 to 40,000 US dollars.

Eighty kilograms of gold, this is the income from the first week of gold mining.

On average, the daily income exceeded 10,000 grams of gold, which was undoubtedly a "daily income of 10,000 jin".

"Wow, this is more profitable than selling arms." Du Tiao exclaimed.

"This is not making money...this is picking up money!" said Shulang.

"It's just a small scene." Ma Shao smiled, "We will pick up money like this every day in the future. It won't take long for us to get used to it."

He was right. The California Gold Rush produced hundreds of tons of gold for the United States in ten years.

From the founding of the United States to the eve of the gold rush, the total gold production in the approximately seventy years was only a few dozen tons.

Compared with hundreds of tons, the 80 kilograms mined by Ma Shao and others are just the beginning.

Even if they only mined one percent, which is a few tons of gold, it would definitely be an astonishingly huge sum of money.

"Great Chief, how should we spend this gold?" asked Shulang.

Ma Shao thought for a moment and said, "First, we need to melt all the gold we produce and make it into gold ingots. If people see a large amount of gold sand and nuggets, everyone will doubt that we have a gold mine."

Du Tiao said, "I think it would be better to just mint gold coins, our own gold coins... For example, Apache gold coins!"