Bad Air in Caves

One other thing that is very dangerous is what is known as bad air. Bad air is mixed in with poisonous gasses. In some cases this is caused due to a deficiency in oxygen since it has probably been lying in a certain spot in the shaft for a long amount of time. The problem with this is that it cannot be smelled or felt, it simply makes you lie down or sit down and go to sleep; in other words you can die.

In the past the old miners had a custom of carrying a canary bird with them when they went into the shaft. It was said that as long as the bird continued singing, the air in it was supposedly fine, however if the bird stopped singing the miners said it was an indicator to move out as quickly as they could.

There are not a lot of weekend prospectors now a days that would be willing to take a bird along with them. When going on your weekend adventure, it is highly suggested to take another person along with you. This way if you are going to be getting into a shaft the person that goes in can have a rope that is tied on his body, and the other person stays outside with the other end of the rope. Obviously this is done for precaution and to indicate to the person outside that the person inside is fine. If the person outside starts yanking on the rope and sees that there is not a response, he will be able to hightail the rope upwards and get some help. Obviously the person that is outside should not by any means dare go inside the mine to get the person inside, never ever do that. The only thing that will happen if you do this is that both of you could end up dying and there would be nobody to help you out. 

There are some lost mines, probably more before then now. And there are probably people in the past that found a good amount of gold, and never told anyone where it was and disappeared. Don’t be fooled though of what a lost mine looks like because it does not have any similarity to a normal abandoned mine. A lost mine is very different from an ordinary mine and is most likely very hidden, most likely has a lot of bush covering it and probably consists of a hole in the ground.

There are a few interesting things about looking for abandoned mines though and exploring them, that is if you are not interested in finding actual gold. Remember that in the past the miners were probably not as meticulous and careful about how they searched for gold. In abandoned mines it is possible to sometimes find admirable gemstones in the debris. A lot of abandoned mines also contain space age minerals such as platinum, tantalum and beryllium amongst others.

If you are interested in finding gold, some of the clues you will want to look for are:

• In young growing mountains, specifically if the mountain has quartz.

• Look along the streams that are already existent and look in places where the currents slow down or where they change their direction.

• Make sure to check out for fault lines and outcrops and look in the gullies and ravines that are under them.

• Look in disappeared stream beds and try to picture where the stream beds could have been in.

• When you find this, make sure to dig until you get to a layer that will stop the downward settling of the gold.

• You can also search out for concentrated layers of ruby or black magnetic sand. 

• You can use previous mine locations to guide you, however it is not recommended to continue digging around in old mine tailings.

• And obviously, don’t get frustrated if you do not find what you are looking for on the first try. It’s not as easy as one would think and it’s not like everyone else hits the jackpot on the first try.