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Early Gold Mining Techniques

Photograph of a gold pan containing gravel and placer gold.

Panning

See a modern-day prospector show how to pan for gold.

Detail of a sketch of an arrastre.

Crushing the Ore

Find out about the different ways miners crushed the ore to get the gold.

Detail of a black and white photograph showing a man cleaning the plate of a stamp mill.

Extracting the Gold

Learn how mercury and cyanide have been used to separate the gold from the rest of the crushed rock.