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Re: (TFT) Gold
I read all of this. Its all quite interesting, and though I haven't
done as much detail on my worlds (in this way, that is) I find it
interesting how you take the real world and put it into the game.
On Jul 26, 2010, at 12:40 AM, Jay Carlisle wrote:
Anyone still bothering to read my crap after... ???!!!, should be
aware of my rants about games pulling unlimited resources outta thin-
air.
Gold is possably the worst offender... although the whole exp. pt.
system makes blood a MUCH worse offender IMHO.
...
Anyhoo, here's a lil' gold research.
To reach California from the East, pioneer emigrants had to get
their wagons over the Sierra. In 1844, the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy
Party followed the Truckee River up into the mountains. At the head
of what is now called Donner Lake, they found a low notch in the
mountains and thus became the first overland emigrants to use the
pass.
Wagon trains that followed (the Donner Party in noteable exception)
struggled over the pass (see Heinleins discription in Time Enough
For Love) and made their way down the rough western slope of the
Sierra to find Greenhorn Creek a likely place to camp and rest
before the last brusing leg of the journey into the Sacramento Valley.
When the cattle wandered from this campsite in search of better
feed, the emigrants often found them several miles away grazing
peacefully in a meadow that came to be known simply as the grassy
valley.
In an intresting example of place nameing, a group of settelers
decided to linger in 1849, with the contingent from Boston
sucessfully panning for gold along Wolf Creek in the lower end of
the valley (Sutter's Mill having been discovered the previous year).
A store was opened and settelment began, with an attempt to call the
area Boston Ravine.
By this time the first hordes of gold seekers were coming over the
passes and abandoning ships in San Francisco and other ports to
reach the area and many were directed to "Grass Valley" instead of
Boston Ravine.
As the area developed into a true town an attempt was made to call
it Centerville but again outlieing communities failed to catch the
change and shortly the town bowed to the inevatable and became Grass
Valley.
At this time, the emigrants believed that gold originated in
streambeds; logical owing to Marshall's American River discovery and
their own lack of knowledge.
Little did they know the heart of California's gold lay beneath the
solid rock of this region.
In late 1850 a ledge of gold-bearing quartz (occuring between
hanging and foot walls) was discovered on Gold Hill.
Gold here was so plentiful that claims were limited to 100 square
feet to try and prevent demonetization with over two million dollars
taken out within a few feet of the surface.
As deeper veins came to light several water-driven stamp mills were
in operation by 1852, but the majority of claims proved disastrous
failures for want of knowledge of both geological conditions and
proper recovery methods.
Below the surface the fractured and twisted lodes were easily lost,
meaning no mine produced continually.
A tragic example is that of Michael Brennan, a man of education and
refined sensibilities sent from New York to superentend operations
of the Mount Hope Mining Co, on Massachusetts Hill.
At first quite sucessful, a series of setbacks lead the man to
poision his imeadeant familly in his home with Prussic acid and to
leave a suacide note expressing regret that he couldn't take his
mother and sister (still in europe) along with him.
Litigation colsed the mine but almost imeadeatly after reopening a
wide vein was struck mear feet from where Brennan had given up.
On the other side of the ridgeland in the Deer Creek watershed over
the fall of 1849, the wash of ages was plundered, and it was a poor
miner who could not pull a pound of gold per days work with a pocket
knife, but by early 1850 the surface gold was all gone.
(See aluvial diamond fields and their assoication with volcanic
calderas)
...
MUCH more but Jay's starting to get a touch of a beer-buzz and I'll
have to pick this up later however, if you care about this kind of
thing google "miners candel stick" and tell me why THAT tool wasn't
in somebodys equipment list. =====
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