3962

Canada ~ Vancouver,Vancouver County - No Date - Washing Gold Photograph :

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Photographic Images Start Price:125.00 USD Estimated At:250.00 - 500.00 USD
Canada ~ Vancouver,Vancouver County - No Date - Washing Gold Photograph :
A miner works a sluice box. Photograph measures 9”x7”, black single matte 12”x9 3/4”, high contrast, and the focus is sharp. The bottom of the matte reads, WASHING GOLD, VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUMS. Edges and corners of the matte have some wear. No photographer identified. The reverse of the matte provides a lengthy description of working placer deposits. One of the five paragraphs provides a description of the photo presented here. “This prospector in Vancouver having found by panning, a promising bed of gravel alongside a stream, has built a ‘grissely’ so that he can wash more gravel in a day than can be done in a basin. A little below the surface he finds the gravel. Loosening it with the pick, seen in the center of the photograph, he places a pile of it in the upper end of the short sluice box which is supported on the wooden horse. On the far side of the apparatus, close to the stream, he has dug a little pit in order to have a pool of water convenient. He dips up the water and pours it on the pile of gravel in the sluice box, thus washing it onto the A-shaped grating at its end. This grating is made of iron rods which allow all the small particles to pass through while the large stones fall down on the both sides. Below the grating is another sloping sluice box through which the water and mud escape. Strips of wood are fastened diagonally in the bottoms of the sluice boxes and the particles of gold on account of their weight are caught and held in these grooves or ‘riffles’ and are not washed away by the running water.”