California Gold Rush: A Journey of Dreams and Disasters

When it comes to gold mining during the California Gold Rush, what many people visualize is a gold miner hunched over at a river panning for gold with a tin pan. For placer mining, which is the practice of separating heavily eroded gold from sand or gravel, gold panning is just one of the methods. In this video, Kathy explains the use of a rocker (or cradle) and also Long Toms during the Gold Rush. While these methods were more effective, they were a lot more environmentally destructive. Learnin