but there’s still gold in Cabarrus County

Gold atomic number 79, chemical symbol Au has been among the most precious substances since recorded history began. Its history stretches back further, as it is believed all surface gold was delivered to Earth billions of years ago by asteroid impacts when the planet was still molten.

Much more recently, it has sparked several gold rushes in the United States, the first of which started in North Carolina in Cabarrus County.

It’s a familiar story to Cabarrus residents. John Reed owned a farm in what is now Midland. In 1799, his 12 year old son, Conrad found a shiny yellow rock in Little Meadow Creek while fishing. Not knowing what it was, John kept it as a convenient doorstop. He later sold it to a jeweler for $3.50 a week’s wage at the time.

The rock, it turned out, was a 17 pound gold nugget worth $3,600. Reed discovered his error and began mining at the site. He went on to be a rich man, and the gold rush took off, not to slow until California Gold Rush began in 1848.

The big rush may have passed, but people still find gold at Reed Gold Mine today.

"We love it," said Shannon Wilson, of south Charlotte, who came with his family to Reed Gold Mine on June 9. "It’s cheap entertainment. We get to walk the mine, walk <a href="http://www.cheapjerseys11.com/">cheap jerseys</a> the field and check out some of the equipment. It’s a good way to spend a Saturday."

"It’s very fun, very cool, very pretty," said Jim Lazar, who also came with his family on June 9.

Reed Gold Mine panning expert Norman Long walked around the trough showing people the techniques of panning.

"It’s a very dense metal," he said as he instructed Mary Peyton and Parker Handley and their nanny, Cathy Simpson. "Take a solid bottom pan, add water to the dirt and any gold even dust will try to race to the bottom of the pan in about one second."

Long has been at Reed Gold Mine for 32 years, and he knows a thing or two about gold mining.

He’s worked with both underground and placer or surface deposits in both North and South Carolina, placer deposits in Nevada and a little in Georgia.

"I got the gold fever in 1981, and I’ve had it ever since," he said. Then he let out a laugh. "I just need one big nugget and then I can retire."

As he walked along the dimly lit corridors <a href="http://www.cheapjerseys11.com/">http://www.cheapjerseys11.com/</a> of Reed Gold Mine, he pointed out tell tale signs of gold.

Underground gold is most commonly found in veins of white quartz. Long said veins oriented southwest to northeast are a good sign, and if they’re tilted 45 degrees, that’s an even better sign.

"There was a lot of earthquakes, a lot of volcano activity here, creating faults and movement of rock and bringing the gold to this particular section," he said of the quartz veins inside the mine.

When miners search for gold on the surface, they look for quartz veins poking out of the ground, structures called quartz outcroppings. The Morgan Shaft at Reed Gold Mine is an example. The miners tested the vein, found it contained gold and followed it down 50 feet until the vein turned parallel to the surface.

That was a long time ago. The days of serious mining in North Carolina have largely passed, but big names still hunt for the elusive metal.

"The number one tool to use is a gold pan and a shovel," he said. "That’s going to tell you more than anything else. You can get all the fancy equipment that you want. It’s not going to help you if you cannot dig in the creek.

He said he has his areas in Mecklenburg and surrounding counties, but like most gold hunters, Ambrose wouldn’t say where they are.

"It’s top secret," he said, but "the history of gold in Charlotte is a good one. There’s plenty of gold out there if you want to look for it."

Long said there also is plenty of gold in Cabarrus County.

"From what I hear and what I see each year, if I put it all together, including what we bring out, you could comfortably say $50,000 $60,000 worth of gold that I know about is coming out of Cabarrus County randomly," Long said.

"Two years ago on the Cabarrus County line a 5.2 ounce nugget was found," he said, referring to a find near Rowan County. "It brought $6,000 for that Sunday afternoon."

He said people go out to panning spots in the county all the time, but it’s hard to tell.

"A lot of them are very eccentric," he said. "It’s like having your favorite fishing hole a lot of it’s very quiet.

"If I walked up out of this creek today with a pocket full of gold and someone asked ‚how’d you do?’ ‚I didn’t find anything’ that’s just the way it is."

When hunting for gold, creeks are a good bet. Long suggests looking for areas where the creek suddenly increases in speed, then decreases again, like an hourglass formation.

"Any gold near that vacuum, as the creek erodes and the mud lets go, it’ll have enough speed to go through that notch but not to continue on the other side," he said. "The water’s too slow."

It’s not the weight that makes gold sink to the bottom, but the density. Gold is 19 times as dense as water, so it resists movement more than anything else in the stream.