How gold is mined in Africa

One African, the owner of mining for gold mining, for a moderate fee, led us (me and my friend) as colleagues to his gold mine and showed how they do it in Africa.

An abundance of people immediately catches the eye, with 80-90% of them either resting or chatting, well, or unoccupied by any work. Only a small group of people work hard, and after working for a short time, it stops. From everywhere you can hear the hubbub, fun, laughter, work is more like a party than hard labor.

Before we were taken to the mine, there was a slight hitch, I suppose that the children were still working there, but they were driven out of there in advance. This is just my guess, I can’t say for sure.

This is how the general career plan looks like. In the left career, mainly women work, and in the right, men. Men do more difficult work - they throw gold-bearing sands on the device, which is connected to a water popmy.

The device has a sprung bunker, where sand is poured, which muscular guys shake with their hands. The pump pumps water from a puddle, erodes sand and carries away light particles that do not contain gold, and gold settles on rubber mats called "Canadian moss."

Most of the people in their careers are busy with something like this:

The leaky sleeves of the pumps are stretched everywhere, water whistles from everywhere, hoses periodically pop off the nozzles and fountains form, which amuse many around. Fountain!

This guy twisted the rags and coated them with clay, and then put it all on his head. Why does this hussar need such a hat? I don’t know, maybe she is protecting his head from the heat.

Women have more patience, accuracy and less power (although, looking at African women, I would argue who is stronger here), and therefore it was they who were instructed to bring the concentrate settled on Canadian moss in trays. They are engaged in this work in the left quarry, so as not to interfere with the peasants, and the water in their career is more muddy. If you look closely, you can see that they have plastic bags on their heads, it can be seen that it is difficult to wash dirt from the hair.

Instead of special trays, ordinary basins for washing clothes. Although they sometimes come across, if you look closely:

In my opinion, one of them is even pregnant.

Soil is separated from large stones with the help of such a high-tech device. It is curious that throughout the country I have always seen the same design of this flushing. Apparently, one person (I suppose that, most likely, white), for lack of the best materials at hand, constructed something similar on his knee, and then the Africans began to copy this design thoughtlessly, like the Chinese of machinery and equipment. And yes, they also copy iron devices for washing gold and do not strive to improve it even once.

When the concentrate is washed on the device and brought to the tray with the diligent hands of local women, the gold is separated using mercury. Mercury sticks together particles of gold, then it is evaporated over a fire, and only gold remains in the form of such balls. They are more weighty than lead. In this form, it is sold to outbid. I don’t think that they are refining it in their conditions or smelting ingots.

This is how gold looks when refined (it was already washed by me).

As a specialist, I’ll briefly tell you that everything is done absolutely wrong, after such mining there remains a lot of under-extracted gold. Labor is unproductive - can you imagine how much you need to pay salaries to all these workers? Passage of the quarry is extremely illogical, the rock mass moves back and forth twice, which leads to a loss of time and money (washed sand and ephel are merged and crumble back into the quarry, from where they are moved outside the quarry). At times it’s cheaper to use an excavator, industrial equipment and disperse all these loafers. Rather, they, of course, are not loafers, they just don’t know a more technological and proper working out. Most likely, many pillars are skipped. I am sure 200% that if you repeatedly wash the dumps of these handicraftsmen, you can still extract a lot of gold.

Gold ... Perhaps the most useless thing in the world!

An element born in the hearts of dying stars. How many workers will fall ill and die from malaria in the tropics, and from tuberculosis and cold in the far north, before it is brought into the light of day? Who knows what sea of blood has been and will be shed by people throughout history in attempts to appropriate a piece of the yellow devil? More than one television show will be filmed about Alaska, Guyna and other places and shown on the Discovery dining supper plankton. But in the end, what? Most of it will be put into deep vaults, where, most likely, it will push the global economy, another part will become an adornment of the ring finger of men and women who unsuccessfully put on rings in a sign of union of hearts. And only a small part (10%) of it will go for really necessary things - in medicine, industry and science. It does not make people's lives better. It would be better if you collect all the miners involved, miners, jewelers, robbers, etc., including me - and just put on comfortable shoes, then humanity would get rid of the problem of corns forever!

Oh yes, I digress, it's time to go discover a new field!