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.
- Alternatively, the prospector would use one pan and throw dirt up into the air and catch it.
References
- Swirk: Success of early mining methods
- "Geology.com: Gold Prospecting - Alluvial & General". Archived from the original on 2010-01-22. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
See also
| Extractive metallurgy | |||||||||
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| Metallurgical assay Non-ferrous extractive metallurgy | |||||||||
| Mineral processing (by physical means) |
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| Pyrometallurgy (by heat) |
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| Hydrometallurgy (by aqueous solution) |
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| Electrometallurgy (by electricity) |
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| Co-products | |||||||||
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