Batea

The gold pan that we have access to these days has not changed a great deal throughout the world. However in South America and the East Indies they used a pan that looked like the lower part of a sphere known as an Asiatic ladle. The batea however, and some other variations can some times be found and although they are not that common anymore they do have some interesting advantages.

There used to be certain places in Mexico and in the south where miners liked using bateas instead of gold pans. The batea looks like a cone that comes to a point at the lower end. It is not exactly sure how this pan came about but it seems that it was first built with wood. The primitive Indians in South American did not have a lot of skills in metals work except for those that involved silver and gold. These kinds of metals were not appropriate for tools and wood and stone were the main materials the early miners used to make their tools out of. It is possible that the first batea was made out of pieces of wood that were shaped by stone.

The interesting thing about bateas is that they work very well when the person handling them knows how to use them. They are used a bit differently then gold pans though. In order to get the sticks and pebbles out it is done in a similar way as with the gold pan by stirring and sorting. When the sand has the same type of consistency though, the job becomes different though. The prospector does not have to do a lot of swirling until the sand that is concentrating is down to about one cup. The batea is instead moved up and down sharply in order to suspend the sand in the water. When this is getting done, the silt and the lighter sand will float off with the current of the stream or it will need to be poured out if there isn’t enough water.

After you are left with around one cup of sand, you will then need to start swirling the batea in a very similar way you would do so with a conventional gold pan. Then the sand that is lighter is separated from the black sand and the gold and it then needs to get pushed off the side with your hands. Just a small amount of water is needed for the last operations and you will need to be careful that no black sand or gold gets out of the pan at the same time. When the concentration has been completed, the gold and black sand then needs to be washed over the side inside another container.

Just like with gold panning, the batea can be used on top of the water or below the surface of the water. This type of tool has a couple advantages that are worthwhile talking about. One is the fact that it has high sides that are around three to five inches and this lets the prospector bounce the sand higher without fear of losing too much over the sides. Another advantage is that it has a very small middle section in which gold values get concentrated into easily without having to go the long distance of the edges of a gold pan.