This ornament is about 3½ inches tall and 2 inches wide. Santa is sitting in a mining car full of large gold nuggets. He is wearing a cowboy hat pulled down low over his eyes, dark blue vest over a green shirt and red bandana. About the only things visible on his face are his long white hair, full beard and mustache. He is very happy as he seems to be saying “The Elves will be getting a raise this Christmas!” Santa is sitting on a spring so he bounces with excitement over his find. Select this link to view our Western Christmas Ornaments.
Gold Mining.
Gold mining consists of the processes and techniques employed in the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques by which gold may be extracted from earth and rock:
Gold panning is a mostly manual technique of sorting gold. Wide, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. Water is added and the pans are shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel and other material. Gold being much denser than rock, quickly settles to the bottom of the pan. The silt is usually removed from stream beds, often at a bend in the stream, or resting on the bedrock bed of the stream, where the weight of gold causes it to separate out of the water flow. The type of gold found in streams or dry streams are called placer deposits. Select this link to view our Santa in a Canoe.
Gold panning is the easiest technique for searching for gold, but is not commercially viable for extracting gold from large deposits, except where labor costs are very low or gold traces are very substantial. It is often marketed as a tourist attraction on former goldfields. Before production methods can be used, a new source must be identified and panning is a good way to identify placer gold deposits so that they may be evaluated for commercial viability. Select this link to view our Cowboy Santa.
Using a sluice box to extract gold from placer deposits has been a common practice in prospecting and small scale mining throughout history. A sluice box is essentially a man made channel with riffles set in the bottom. The riffles are designed to create dead zones in the current to allow gold to drop out of suspension. The box is placed in the stream to catch water flow and gold bearing material is placed at the top of the box. The material is carried by water through the box where gold and other heavy material settles out behind the riffles. Lighter material flows out of the box as tailings. Select this link to view our Cowboy Metal Sculpture.
Larger commercial placer mining operations employ screening plants or trommels to remove the larger materials such as boulders and gravel before concentrating in a sluice box or jig plant.
Hard rock gold mining is done when the gold is encased in rock, rather than as particles in loose sediment. Sometimes open pit mining is used, such as the Ft. Knox Mine in central Alaska. Other gold mines use underground mining, where the ore is extracted through tunnels or shafts. Hard rock mining produces most of the world's gold. Select this link to view our Cattle Skull on Wagon Wheel.