Dry blowing explained

Dry blowing is a method to extract gold particles from dry soil without the use of water. A machine specialized to use this method is known as a dry blower. It is a form of winnowing.

Methods

• One method is to pour dry soil from a height into a pan, allowing the wind to blow away finer dust. The denser gold particles to fall into the pan.^[1]
• Alternatively, the prospector would use one pan and throw dirt up into the air and catch it.^[2]

See also

• Sluice box

Notes and References

1. http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-1_u-103_t-269_c-890/success-of-early-mining-methods/nsw/hsie/gold-/australian-mining Swirk: Success of early mining methods
2. Web site: Geology.com: Gold Prospecting - Alluvial & General . 2009-10-26 . 2010-01-22 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100122073603/http://geology.com/publications/getting-gold/gold-prospecting.shtml . dead .