3 pcs replaced by Lisa Lee who did her usual terrific job. Colorful, busy scene. interlocking with 88 figure pieces, more figs than comparable Pastimes; back stained. Artist is Currier & Ives.
Unlike hard rock mining, which extracts veins of precious minerals from solid rock, placer mining is the practice of separating heavily eroded minerals like gold from sand or gravel. The word placer is thought to have come from Catalan and Spanish, meaning a shoal or sand bar. The word entered the American vocabulary during the 1848 California Gold Rush, and when gold was discovered in Alaska and the Canadian Klondike in the late 1890s, the gold-seekers who rushed northward brought with them various placer mining technologies. By far the simplest was the prospector’s pan that worked by swirling a combination of water and gravel or sand and allowing the lighter, rocky material to spill out. Relying on the fact that gold is heavier than sand and rock is the principle used in all placer mining operations.