Editorial Streets covered in gold

Not too long ago in this space, we noted the primitive methods of mining gold in a huge open pit in Brazil — where literally thousands of people swarmed in and out of the pit carrying sacks full of ore to the surface for treatment.

Seems that much the same kind of mining method in used in parts of China, where miners in a section of the country about 60 miles northeast of Peking take ore by hand from an old pit on a nearby mountain, pack it in bags, and bring it back to their village on their backs.

There, they reportedly spread the ore on the main street of the village to dry, and to be broken up by traffic passing over it. (The traffic, presumably, is something a little more than bicycles and rickshaws). Once dry, the ore is put into electrically driven machines that grind it between large millstones. Finally, the ore is sluiced along one of a dozen primitive wooden cribs along the edge of the village, and the gold settles out.

China generally has been making determined and apparently successful efforts to increase its gold production, and reportedly about half of it, (the country doesn’t release production statistics), comes from individual panners or from small mines owned by local governments or collectives.

While China is unusually secretive about its production of gold, there’s no doubt it has rapidly become a major contender in the world gold stakes.