It's still pretty easy, Chips. Depending on the land, (whether it's federal or not), you can still stake a claim, or buy one, or take over one somebody forgot to file a renewal on. It's difficult from that point on.
Lead messed up a lot of them, but mercury did more damage. They used mercury to separate the gold from the minerals, then burned the mercury off, leaving the gold. Liquid mercury isn't that bad for you, but in vapor form it'll make you go insane and attacks the central nervous system. It was pretty common for the small time miners to sit up wind from the campfire and use a shovel to boil off the "Quicksilver". I don't think it worked all that well from a safety standpoint. There were many grand elaborate insane asylums built in the later 1800 - I think I might know why, lol.
The rules are good as long as they are used as guidelines and not politics.
Don't get too down on the wackos - they want to mill to open, too.
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