Gold

[mnaz]

First question: Why is gold worth so much hard currency? It has a sheen to it. And it's rare. It's extremely rare, scattered in sub-miniscule flecks within parts of the earth's shallow crust. Yeah? What else? Gold has a practical side. It is used for electrical contacts in phones and computers, since it conducts low voltage electricity reliably, immune to corrosion, magnetic fields, or extremes of heat or humidity. Astronaut's visors are coated with gold film to repel the sun's rays. Elasticity is key. One troy ounce of gold can be hammered into a 250 square foot sheet, or pulled into a fifty-mile long strand of wire. Extraordinary. But gold's practical use is fairly recent, and stands at less than 15% of all usage.

What are we left with? The aforementioned sheen. People assign gold tremendous worth, with a curious sort of mystical reverence.... no compelling reason in particular. Some even clamor for a return to the gold standard in uncertain times, to tie money to a 'stable' fixture; never mind that gold is a commodity, riding its own niche tides. In the King Midas legend, a curse turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink. A lesson on the folly of avarice? More likely, it's a reminder that gold is only a metal. If the bottom drops out, what is the point of gold?

I have a mild recurring nightmare, scattered throughout my desert passage; that of massive open-pit mining complexes, of mighty liquidations of landscapes, terraced to an unrepentent scale, prominent and bleeding, visible across long, holy stretches of quiet. I can't see it, though I suppose there are worse things. Gold is damn near invisible to me; same as a convincing reason to covet it. I read about a famous mine near Carlin, Nevada, which taps gold ore in the form of pyrite. No microscope has been able to detect actual gold particles; a puzzle which went unsolved for decades until Russian scientists observed gold film, a millionth of an inch thick, wrapping onto surfaces of pyrite, in hidden alternate layers, like uneven tree rings.

But invisible treasure turns the greased gears of commerce, if the numbers crunch just so.... numbers which can be fearsome. Cortez mine in central Nevada, for example, processes nine-thousand tons of ore daily, and recently poured its ten-millionth ounce of gold. I happened on its concussive glory one day when I crested an amber rise; a spidery, thick complex of steel and heavy fuel, remaking a battered horizon in the image of its shareholders. Some old-timers welcome the jobs. Others shake their heads. Not all miners approach a hillside in the same way.

It was not so long ago that I crossed paths with a man named Red. He was a Depression-era prospector, well-versed in life's subtleties, who used to pass by an open-pit juggernaut in later years on his trips into town. He couldn't fathom such a frontal assault on living earth.

His claim was a one-man labor of love. He placer-mined for decades after his wife passed, using his modified dry washer, taking what he needed. That was life's secret, he used to say-- figuring need from want. He was an innovator, a junk genius, with galaxies of spare parts around his cabin, from which he fashioned equipment of the trade, operable by one man, such as a hole digger and an ore cart processor, built from spare timbers and scrap steel. He was at peace in his canyon, and he passed it on to the occasional stray visitor. He got the rhythm of it. He studied spareness more closely and noted plenty. He planted fruits and vegetables, and knew where to find native herbs and plants. He studied Indian petroglyphs, and the stars.

Red used to have a routine, if such a thing is possible in fine, arid light; a breakfast of coffee, mush, and bacon, and then a long, slow dig toward sundown. It was hard labor, but for a quick exit to serenity at a moment's notice, to lie in the sun for awhile. His well water was tainted with arsenic, so he carted drinking water in from a spring near the mesa, perhaps a mile distant. He noted a vision or two in those early days, reflected in subtle rock contours from time to time. Loneliness should take its place in line. There is always plenty of work to do.

He used to lay back in front of his cabin when the stars came out, on his favorite chair, one of the first recliners, leaking stuffing through its brown vinyl. He tried to hear the wind, and what it was up to. He had a reliable telescope, trained to the sky, to pierce the fickle wind currents. He knew the constellations and nicknamed them. He was fluent in the desert's hidden language.

(edited for grammar, etc.)

[gypsyjoker]

He was fluent in the desert's hidden language

beautiful, what a beautiful life he lives. Happy I got to meet him in your writing.

going to take a pass on the nightmare cause all I came up with was this appocalyptic daymare of mine

*************************************

And people assign it tremendous worth, inside a curious sort of mystical reverence.... no compelling reason in particular.

Trying not to get into an irrelevant ramble when I use to haul gold bricks and silver bars.

For me the mystical quality of gold was its density? Its weight. A brick the size of a paperback book, barely able to pick it up with my fingers.

I have a recurring nightmare, though mild so far,

Me too, but more like a daymare,

Appocolyptic, the bottom falls out, the center can not hold, the phones go dead, and the children burn the town down.

Good stuff mnaz, I have hardly scratched the surface hear, be back with more compulsive scribbling

Just a fast read, I caught the bit about the arsenic, but what about the cynanide run off from the mining process for the gold?

William Jennings Bryan that crack pot politician made some great political speeches

Nothing to do with all this just a cut and paste. What I am really looking for was some thing about the cyanide wash I think it is like a water cannon they aim it right at the exposed wall where the gold is and they blast away. I suppose they are very careful to collect the run off. I have not done my homework this just a jagged piece of memory from some TV documentary .

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/

The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.

We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!
The gentleman from Wisconsin has said he fears a Robespierre. My friend, in this land of the free you need fear no tyrant who will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand as Jackson

stood, against the encroachments of aggregated wealth
It is difficult to quote Jackson as a hero when you know he was a butcher to the Cherokees.
And of course this one
From his most famaous speech

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

Things we all ready know. Listen to Mohammed's Radio

[mnaz]

thanks for your reply, joker....

Yeah, I didn't even mention the tailings, awash in toxicity.... cyanide, mostly, I think. Maybe I'll add that into my mild rant. Some of the old mining camps up in the Sierras are ticking toxic time bombs, as I understand it. I couldn't find any references to major tailings problems in large corporate operations here in the US. But here's an Australian reference:

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press295.htm

"Red", the miner, is loosely based on an actual prospector I know of, recently deceased, who lived on his claim and worked it slowly for decades, from the Depression era right up to the '80s, when the BLM became his "nightmare", suddenly declaring him a "squatter", and ordering him to leave (the battle for the claim is ongoing). It would be interesting to go live for awhile at one of these old camps.... meet up with the past...


ps...
Really, I haven't even touched the biggest nightmare confronting the desert, its impending reception of high-level nuke waste from the entire country, at Yucca Mountain.... of course, with the long, and often lonely distances that such waste will transported across, I guess we all can share a part of that nightmare. Politicians and power brokers love the desert.... such a convenient dumping ground....

[mtmynd]

Gold. That stuff makes 'real purty' jewelry.. shiny and glittery. But I think it's pretty cheezy when used for jewelry. I'd much rather it be used for space travel.

Your story about "Red" reminded me of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" for some reason - crazy ol' coot dancin' a shoutin' upon discovery of gold... happy-at-last type of thing... that didn't last.

Good read... thanx

[abcrystcats]

Something fun for you, if I have the patience to transfer it, this evening -- a story of a pyrite "gold" mine circa 1918:

"Barton Gulch Mining Company needed an assayer, and I was off. I took the train from Salt Lake to Butte. Butte was a busy place, easily the largest mining town I had ever seen ....

Barton was a gold mining promotion, started about six months before. Stock in the gold mine had been sold extensively, mostly to farmers in the Dakotas and Nebraska. There were two adits on opposite sides of a mountain, both following the vein and planned to meet in ore. The ore was gold in pyrite. The pyrite was concentrated in a new flotation mill at Barton Gulch, the concentrate to be shipped to a smelter in Butte. About 250 men were employed in all.

Mr. Kenneth Matheson, a 1911 graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, had taken over the management about a month before and had sent for an assayer: me. The previous assayer had been fired before Matheson's arrival. I was not told why.

Even with my little experience, I could sense something strange about the situation. As assayer I was watched as if by hawks, and was carefully told nothing. The equipment was adequate; Matheson had bought new assay supplies, and I soon began to turn out results on mine and mill samples.

The assay results were most strange. There were plenty of pyrite and chalcopyrite samples, but they contained very little gold. I was ordered to keep absolute silence about the results and to report them only to Matheson. The mill heads ran something like forty cents a ton. Most of the mine samples were similar but a few assayed well up to half an ounce of gold, or ten dollars a ton. I checked myself again and again, but always with the same results. Drifts and stopes continued to be opened in the mine and the mill ran noisily day and night, all on this impossible ore. I tried to talk to Matheson and asked him whether he was following up the few good mine assays he had, but he was like a clam ....

There were many visitors; delegations of stockholders, but I was under strict orders to tell them nothing. One had found underground a particularly spectacular large piece of pyrite which he planned to display in a bank in Sioux City as a reassurance to stockholders. He wanted it assayed to display the assay result with it. I assayed it at forty cents a ton, which I reported only to Matheson as I had been ordered. It was thrown on the dump.

After less than two months, things reached a climax. There were many meetings of stockholders in Virginia City, and talk of a court trial of the still popular promoter. Then came the announcement. We were to shut down. All work was to stop immediately. The stockholders lost everything they had invested. Matheson had somehow raised the money to meet the last payroll by negotiating a loan. I was paid off and left for home.

A year later Matheson told me more of the story. The talented promoter, who was a most impressive man and probably sincere in his belief in the gold mine, had built Barton Gulch into an entricing proposition. Much stock was sold and the development was started quickly. The first assayer could find little gold and the promoter had him fired as incompetent. However, some stockholders were suspicious and forced the employment of an experienced mine manager: Matheson. He carefully tested my assaying for many days. He mixed some ore samples of a good grade from around Butte with the almost worthless ones from Barton Gulch. I had consistently reported the correct assays on the bogus ore samples, finally convincing him that the rich looking Barton Gulch pyrite was actually barren. Then he had the thankless job of convincing the unfortunate stockholders and shutting down the mine. The promoter was tried in a Virginia City court. The trial was held after I left, but I believe he received little or no punishment for his mistake.

My first graduate job .... had shut down the last sizable mining operation to ever operate in the Virginia City district. I looked for another job.

-- from my grandfather's autobiography --

[Zlatko Waterman]

Red is the story, "Gold" is the essay, and there's still a seam between them ( a golden seam?).

Don't get me wrong: your workmanlike prose easily supports the opening paragraph's theme. But I'm curious whether you've read ( and studied) Abbey's use of landscape, panning in ( and across) to human traffic dotted on the bones of landscape in "Desert Solitaire", one of the best of his books.

The lean, spare landscape word-painting of J.M Coetzee also evinces some of the same virtues I always find in your writing.

If I were your editor ( presumptuous as that might sound at the moment), I would encourage you to cut a pathway between the two halves here, so that the tributary could carry magic ( palpably present) from the one to the other.

I edited this book of short stories, rather rigorously:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... s&n=507846


in which Barbara's strategy, in this excellent collection of stories set in Latin America, was to craft brilliant fragments ( as we see in the Gold/Red story of yours here) which, nevertheless, seemed to dangle a bit.

We worked out a compromise, did a little "fusing", and a very strong set of "magic realist" pieces was the result.


Strong writing of yours once again, with many felicitous moments in both halves.


--Z

[mnaz]

Cecil.... When I think of gold jewelry, the whole "bling" thing comes to mind.... ouch........ And 'Red' is the environmentalist/philosopher sort of miner.... I wish I could have met him. I had some questions for him. Thanks for looking in.

Laurie..... incredible story! Form your grandfather's descriptions, I'm not sure how complicit Matheson was in the whole mess, why he felt compelled to take out a loan to pay people, etc., and I'm left wondering if the Barton promotion was more of a scam than a "mistake".... Interesting stuff. Very. Thanks for taking the time to post this story. The world of mining, like any other, has had its share of scams and false alarms.... I'm thinking Leadville, in Death Valley.... Hardin City, Nev.....

Zlatko..... You're right. Two "movements" to this piece of scribbling. They should either be separated, or "bridged" in some sort of more effective way, though it escapes me at the moment. I'm really trying to hint at two main themes, here.... a basic questioning of gold's unquestioned intrinsic worth, and a polar-opposites sort of contrast drawn between a corporate mine's search-and-destroy methods vs. a certain measured reverence of the hill and nature in general, found in many old-time prospectors.... I like the direction(s) in which I headed, though less than fully realized, or sorted, to this point, I guess.... Food for thought, no doubt. Thanks, Z. Your comments are most valuable.

[gypsyjoker]

His inaugaration address, we all went on about it. I found it curious that no one commented on his "safe clean nuclear feul" initiative. Yeah boy, Yucky Flats, there is an Excedrin headache waiting to happen. I don't want to ramble about corporations but I can not get my head around them. They are eternal? Immortal, unlike mere people. So this half life of a couple million (billion) years, we can trust them they will be around to keep an eye on things about a hundred years from now. Yeah cecil use the gold for space. But I got visitor from a ufo the other night and he/she/it/them told me that they had the earth barricaded. No one leaves the solar sysem. We can built a life boat and hide out on the moon but that is it. Have you ever read A Canticle For Leibowitz?

Z I am lost
I read the cool grandfather autobiography but have not made the link yet. My head like a helium baloon today.

[hester_prynne]

Definately liked this Mnaz...both stories/parts. The value of gold question, and Red, (who for me is the answer to the question), are very rich for planting.

I've romantic notions of gold myself. Indeed it shimmers, indeed it's a prize, a lottery, a ticket out of poverty, the hobo of luck, ahh gold, the pure whiskey smell at the idea of it.......

I've always thought that a stash of gold would be good to have, because I've always thought that gold is the basic money, from which all other money comes.......
Am I wrong?

Great stuff Mnaz.
Damn fucking good.

H

[Dylan Wiles]

His claim was a one-man labor of love. He placer-mined for decades after his >>>Best paragraph.


Mighty fine Naz. Mighty fine.
Love
D