Back in the 1980s, hiking in the mountains was also a way of life

Chapter 528 Golden Nest

I have to say that Wang An's attitude when being beaten was quite proper.

Not only did he have a proper attitude, but his posture when being beaten was also quite standard. He just squatted there with his hands on his head, and with that cowardly tone, he really looked like a punching bag.

When everyone saw Wang An's behavior, they couldn't help but laugh. After everyone kicked Wang An twice, they dispersed to look for the gold mine.

After all, compared to dealing with Wang An, finding the location of the gold mine is the most important thing.

Wang An squatted there and waited for a while. When he found that those guys with urine on their hands stopped kicking him, he stood up and looked back at the mud on his buttocks.

Yes, it is mud, not soil.

The main thing is that at this moment in the mountains, due to the melting snow, there is hardly any dry place to be found.

In addition, the black soil in Northeast China is very sticky, so there is a thick layer of black mud on the soles of everyone's shoes.

After looking at the mud on his butt, Wang An ignored it and went to look for the gold mine as if nothing had happened.

Now that the approximate location has been determined, all we need to do is find a nearby river, and that’s essentially finding the gold mine.

At this point, some people may not understand why the gold nugget is not in the river, but needs to be found in a nearby river?
That's because nugget gold cannot be formed overnight, but requires a very long time to form.

How long this period of time is may have to be measured in centuries.

As we all know, the location where a river flows is never constant without human intervention.

A simple heavy rain may cause a river to deviate, which is very normal.

In other words, although the location where the gold nuggets appear is not fixed, there must have been a river at that location.

Soon, Mu Xueli found the river that had long gone astray in the valley behind two hills.

It has to be said that the river flows quite far, and the map in Wang An's hand is completely useless.

If the river is gone, what’s the use of the map?
The river that Mu Xueli found was not very wide, only about four meters wide, but whether there was gold in the sand would have to be tried to find out.

Wang An inserted the shovel into the river and found that the water was only about half a meter deep, which was not very deep.

When the shovel scooped up half a shovel of sand from the bottom of the water, Wang An discovered that there was real gold in the sand, although not much, only a few small reflective dots.

When Wang An saw this scene, he finally felt relieved.

Because the gold powder mixed in the sand is actually sand gold, and the purpose of Wang An and others' trip is mainly these things.

The reason why it is the main purpose is because there are secondary purposes.

The secondary purpose is that when the gold contained in the sand is mined by Wang An and others, it is time to smash the ore to pan for gold.

After confirming that there was gold sand in the river, Wang An asked everyone to take shovels, work in groups of two, and start shoveling sand out along the river one shovel at a time.

The purpose of Wang An doing this was actually to find a "golden nest".

Gold, because of its high density, will sink to the bottom, and even gold powder is reluctant to flow with the water.

To put it simply, although the river water is always flowing, this thing flows very slowly under the water.

Therefore, if there is a pit or a crack in the rocks at the bottom of the water, this thing will stay there and no longer flow. Over time, a lot of gold powder will accumulate in this pit or crack in the rocks, and such a place is called a "gold nest".

The reason why people who know how to pan for gold can find more gold powder is because of these "gold nests".

But if you just shovel randomly in the water, it will be like the first shovel of sand that Wang An shoveled, with only a few specks of gold powder.

Although gold can be found by panning for it in such mud and sand, the efficiency is really too low.

You can imagine that after washing out a shovel of mud and sand, all you get is a tiny bit of gold powder, one percent the size of a millet grain. Wouldn't it be very boring to pan for gold?
Therefore, finding the gold mine is the top priority of gold panning!

In this way, every time they found a golden nest, they would mark it and then move forward.

Soon, all the golden nests in this section of the river were found and marked by everyone.

In many people’s minds, gold panning means standing in the water with a dustpan and shaking it left and right to wash out impurities.

But although Wang An would also try to make money in this way, he would never do it this way.

The main reason is that if we do this, the efficiency is too low.

After marking the golden nest, Wang An asked everyone to peel the tree bark.

Feng Chengmin asked in confusion, "Xiao An, what kind of thing should I take off?"

Wang An looked at the crowd who were equally confused and answered casually, "It should be longer and wider, and there should not be a hole in the middle."

After Wang An finished speaking, everyone left.

In fact, the main reason why Wang An asked everyone to peel the tree bark was that Wang An wanted to make a few gold troughs.

The gold trough, as the name suggests, is to retain the gold powder as it slides on it.

When making a gold trough, it is actually best to use a wooden board and then manually scrape out some barbs on it. The main function of these barbs is to retain the gold powder.

Of course, because the inner wall of the bark is relatively smooth, there are few barbs after scraping, so the gold trough made from this thing will waste some gold powder, but this thing is simple and convenient.

Gold panning is something that can mobilize the enthusiasm of almost everyone and can really drive people crazy.

Just when Wang An was wondering where the gold nuggets were under the water, the people who had gone to peel the tree bark came back.

Then Wang An took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his cotton trousers, and walked into the water.

To be honest, in the Northeast during this time period, most of the outdoor water is freezing cold.

As soon as Wang An put his foot in, he immediately regretted it, mainly because it was too damn cold!
Fortunately, Wang An was young and had a strong fire. The most important thing was that Wang An had been a little irritated in the past few days, so Wang An gritted his teeth and endured in the river.

The main principle of the gold trough is to use the impact force of flowing water to wash away the mud and sand containing gold particles, and the gold particles will be hung on the bark.

After all, Wang An was very familiar with this thing, so he was quite fast.

When Wang An finished making the first gold chute and set it up in the water, everyone couldn't wait to shovel up mud and sand and put it on top.

(End of this chapter)