ore

Imagine that you are a Victorian gentleman with a reasonable income and a mid-life crisis. You hear about a gold strike somewhere in the far corners of the earth (to you, at least). In hopes of turning your bourgeois into gorgeois, you pack up your things and say "Toodle-oo" to the missus. What’s the first thing you buy to prepare for your new adventure? A book, naturally! Specifically, you want Charles G. Warnford Lock’s Practical Gold-Mining.

James Marshall, a foreman at Sutter’s Fort near Sacramento, accidentally discovered gold in January 1848 while building a sawmill. His discovery sparked the California Gold Rush. Approximately 300,000 people from across the country and around the world flocked to the region, hoping to make their fortunes. These gold-seekers were called the “Forty-Niners,” since the majority of them arrived during 1849. This book, by historian and nature writer Stewart Edward White, tells the story of California before, during, and after this pivotal period.

A new process for refining gold and silver from various ores is described for the first time in English in this text. The amalgamation process was invented by Baron Ignaz Edler von Born (aka Inigo Born), and after a trial of the process was conducted in front of observers in Schemnitz, Slovakia, the book describing the process was published in 1786. It was then translated by Rudolf Erich Raspe, a ne’er-do-well who was originally from Germany.