The use of mercury in mining is outdated, using it today would be like picking cotton by hand when modern farm equipment will do a better job, and collect more cotton much easier.
I live in a mining area, occasionally I see those new miners also who have no idea what they are doing trying to use mercury to recover gold, something they read about, trouble is most of them really do not even know how to properly use or prepare the mercury or the amalgam sheets to collect the gold, they will use old dirty UN-distilled mercury which really does not amalgam well with gold, and then many will do stupid things like trying to recover gold squeezing out excess mercury in the Chamois leather, and burn off the mercury from the amalgam wad in a potato, or skillet, putting toxic fumes in the air and condensing the mercury in surrounding area contaminating every thing around the site (the stupid old miner tricks), yes it will work, but so will getting off of your new combine and begin picking cotton by hand, trouble is the miners who do this have no clue of the danger they are putting themselves in, or they just do not care, what is worse they either do not know or care about all of the other people they can be poisoning by releasing mercury into the environment.
Over hundreds of years ago miners did dump tons of mercury into our streams and rivers, using it in sluice boxes, and on amalgam plates, and even in panning, much of that mercury is still in our streams and rivers still poisoning people today, one and a half century’s later.
Yes mercury is a natural element and can even be mined in some places where mountains even ooze the liquid metal from the rock, but in our river and especially in our air it is very dangerous, yes it has always been in our air and always will be, volcanoes, or forests fires can put tons of its toxic fumes into our air, where it can circle the globe about twice.
There is really no use for mercury in mining nowadays, there are such better and safer methods of recovery, their is no use for it in recovery or refining of precious metals, but sometimes in recovery they do have to deal with it, like in dental waste, but when we do we should only do so after having a good understanding of it dangers and how to deal with it properly, suggesting burning it in a potato is just plain nonsense and a deadly stupid idea, even worse than picking cotton by hand when you have proper, safe and modern methods, today, if it had to be done a retort properly used to distill and condense the mercury back to the metal can keep you from poisoning yourself and others.
I had a major ordeal with mercury since I have joined the forum, it cost me dearly, almost cost me my home and everything I have worked for my whole life, it even almost cost me my freedom, I came close to going to prison, had all kinds of EPA, DEQ, detectives armed federal agents and marshals come to my home waking me to search though my property, home, barn and lab, I still have about 20 pounds in the barn, and showed it to them, they used sniffing tools to search everything for mercury fumes including my home and shoes, I have never spilled a drop of it anywhere, so the only place their equipment detected mercury was when they asked me to open the storage bottle I had in the barn, no telling what kind of trouble I would have gotten into if that machine, would have detected a trace of mercury out side of the bottle anywhere on my property, they most likely would have condemned my property and charged me for a million dollar cleanup, if that machine would have as much as chirped.
I was guilty of stupidity, trying to mail a few pounds of mercury to another member who needed it in a mercury operated vacuum pump for his lab-work, I really did not think that much about it, I have dealt with mercury my whole life, had plenty I collected over the years, I could send him some to help him out, and even asked how to package it, what I did not know was the laws, and how serious of the trouble you can get into when it comes to if shipping mercury, well I packaged up 17 pounds, it was in the cold snow here at the time, but when it arrived at a heated UPS station, well as you know mercury expands, what I did not figure on, that it being a heavy metal liquid would expand and force its liquid out of even a tightly closed bottle cap, and out of the sealed plastic bag and out of a screwed shut plywood crate, spilling a dimes size drop of mercury out onto a conveyer belt in a hot UPS center, they shut down the UPS station, brought in Hazmat teams and air conditioning equipment, and law enforcement, UPS shut down the shipping center replaced all of the equipment in the station and UPS sued me for the Hazmat cleanup, replacing and re-machining all of the equipment in the plant, including upgrading the electrical and new transformers and other electrical equipment, the plants down time, disruption of shipping, and employees wages and so on…
http://www.cantonrep.com/news/x286841182/Ohio-EPA-investigates-reports-of-mercury-spill-at-UPS#axzz2VyivC130
I even had UPS detective call my local sheriff telling them I had guns and did not like cops, they wanted a sheriff escort out to my property, to ask me questions and these city detectives were afraid to come talk to an ole country boy, this call to the sheriff was also in my local news paper.
And if you do not think the government is not watching this forum, or has access to everything you have ever written on this forum, even in your private email or on the phone, think again, I know for a fact there were detectives on the forum, posing as members, even going so far as to try and set traps for members who were discussing mercury, even asking to buy some, and they had copies of my private emails and phone calls. I wouldn't be surprised if these government officials do not check out a few of the topics we discuss here on the forum like nitric acid, or selling gold and paying taxes.
Well I guess I just cringe when I see mercury discussed on the forum.
And I also cringe at the thought of some dumb miner burning mercury in a potato, for a tiny bit of gold which could have been acquired easier and better with another more modern method.
