Gold mining operations may be carried out by either placer mining or lode mining.

Lode
mining is also called hard rock mining.

Originally, all gold is deposited in a lode or vein filled with mineral in the rock, such as the
gold-rich veins discovered in Cow Mountain. When these lodes are disintegrated by natural
erosion, such as water flowing over the rock, placer gold is the result - the deposit of loose
surface soil or gravel that contains gold.

Extremely
rare crystalline gold occurs in
both the placer streams and
the lode deposits. Given the
earlier success of placer gold
mines in the Cariboo,
prospectors were obliged to
search for the local source of
the placer gold in hidden
lodes beneath the surface of
the earth.

The process of placer mining

Lowhee Placer Mine, Wells wpH377
involves filling a pan with the Placer miners near Wells wp956
crushed ore to separate the gold. This could be done
individually by one prospector on their own.

The process of lode mining involves the labour of many miners working together to extract
the gold from tunnels in a mountain or the earth.

The placer gold mines were a success in the Cariboo Gold Rush and started up towns like
Barkerville, Richfield, Camerontown and Marysville during the 1860s.

New prospectors, like Fred Wells were compelled to

search for the source of this placer gold in the Cariboo -
the 'Motherlode'. Coarse nuggets containing fragments
of vein quartz were discovered from Lowhee Creek and
elsewhere so it was probable there was a local source
or lode where the placers originated from, waiting to be
discovered nearby.

Entrance to a lode mine and hydraulic pumps near

Wells wp404