Testing the Gold Hill Legend
By Mindy Michener
In 1857, the dream came true. Gold that would have sold for more than $14 million at today’s prices was ripped from the side of a minor mountain somewhere in the land surrounding the small town of Gold Hill , Oregon (Mayo). This was no mere placer dust; the miners came back victorious from the hills loaded with pure, solid nuggets sledgehammered directly from the rock.
Today the legendary Gold Hill gold fever lives on in father-son prospecting team Wayne and Chris Good and their local friend, Gary Michener. Michener, a fourteen-year local in the region, has been prospecting a nearby location on Gold Hill private property for years now, pulling out about four ounces in gold. His take has been mostly dust garnered via a pickaxe, a rock crusher and a genie- not the most high tech way to mine. The going was slow, but gradually Michener became convinced that there was a fantasy pocket just waiting to be found somewhere very, very close.
The lode and he circled around each other for years; he was unable to pinpoint it exactly, coming upon only frustrating traces. With the technology of the Goods, however, that all changed. Wayne is the owner of Accurate Locators, Inc., with an office in Gold Hill itself. His company provides some of the most modern equipment available today for surveying and finding underground objects, from old dumps to quartz veins to buried treasure. Michener took the big guns up to his prospecting grounds and finally, what he’d suspected was confirmed; all the conditions were right for a big pocket.
The gear Wayne Good made available works differently from standard metal detectors, which were what Michener had been relying on. Instead of sending out a signal and then sounding when a target bounces it back, his USA equipment, or “Underground Surveyor Apparatus” functions in a way that allows much more precise locating and analysis of an item and therefore, less labor wasted digging fruitless holes or finding junk (Tyson). The USAs measure differences and can be calibrated to distinguish between very specific types of matter, depending on what specifically the user is searching for. They measure the electromagnetic field of the ground, showing any variances on the computer 3D software in vibrant color (Accurate 7-8). Michener found their pulse with blanket antennas are easy to use, even for ‘old-timer’ used to more mundane methods.
Up in the densely wooded mountains of Gold Hill, Michener and the Goods tramped around on dirt roads and through poison oak, knowing the prize was just underfoot. They used pulse induction, an advanced R&D special receiver, and electromagnetic tools to target two large, potentially profitable quartz veins running down the mountain, almost directly in the area Michener had zeroed in on over time, and was able to trace gold veins with Wayne ’s specially designed vein tracer. Today, their digging has yielded even more evidence that a large pocket, retrieving a nice gold trace lies very near, waiting to be found. If the reputation of Gold Hill holds true, someday soon it will earn its name once again and Michener will finally track down the treasure that has eluded him so far. The treasure waits just out of reach, but now, not for long.
Works Cited
Accurate Locators Inc. XL16 Imager User's Guide. N.p.: Accurate Locators Inc., 2010. 7-22. Print
Mayo, Roy F. "Great Slabs of Gold." The New The New 49'ers, n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2011. http://www.goldgold.com/stories/greatslabs.htm
Tyson, Jeff. "How Metal Detectors Work." HowStuffWorks. Discovery, n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/other-gadgets/metal-detector.htm
