Day 19: "For each man who got rich by mining, Hundreds of others grew poor..." Well, I haven't decided to "try farming, the only pursuit that is sure" like the poor sap in the song "Acres of Clams," but I certainly haven't found any colour yet. In all fairness, I haven't really been trying too hard, but I figured gold-panning was a good skill to add to my repertoire. I did find a nice deposit of black sand which kept me amused for a while. It turned out to be magnetite and a small bottle of it went into my mineral collection, so the project wasn't a total bust. That said, a former neighbour turned up a few flakes in a local creek, a fact which keeps me hopeful. If you're wondering how the turkey baster figures into the search, remember that gold is heavy. It tends to settle into cracks and crevices as lighter material continues to be swept downstream. When fitted with a length of plastic tubing, the baster can be used to suck these deposits out after they've been loosened by a tool such as an old screwdriver. The small squeeze bottle is used for extracting bits of "colour" from the pan...if you're lucky enough to find any!
