Chapter 2

Adrift: 2

"Mr. Mack?"

"Jimmy?"

"I need some advice."

"How can I help?"

I took out my little vial of gold. "I need to find a way to market this."

"Where on earth? Jimmy?"

"Out of the river."

"You're kidding?"

"No sir."

Mr. Mack took out the Financial page from the Grand Rapids Press and studied it for a bit.

"Ah." He stuck a finger on Metals and followed it down to Gold. "$430.50 today, Jimmy. I have to go to Grand Rapids tomorrow. Do you want me to see what I can get for this?"

"Yes sir."

"You pay my gas and I'll do what I can."

"Yes Sir."

"Do you know how much is here?"

"Yes Sir ... five ounces, more or less."

"I just happen to have a balance beam scale, Jimmy. Shall I weigh it?"

"Please."

The scale ... an old Ohaus ... was taken down from the shelf and dusted. The tray was slung and the scale zeroed. The gold was poured onto the little tray and the balancing began. The beam started centering at the one forty three mark. Fiddling with the 0.001 bar ended up with 149.998 and the beam was balanced.

"Just a little more than five, Jimmy." He took out his Texas Instruments calculator, "Not half an ounce more but more than a quarter."

The gold went back in the test tube.

"How much for the Ohaus?"

"The box says 36.99, Jimmy. Do you have more?"

"Yes sir."

"Jimmy, I'll bring back two thousand dollars and you keep the scale ... and I keep my mouth shut."

So, I took the Ohaus home and Mr. McKinnon took the gold to Grand Rapids ... and my sister took the boat up the river ... by herself. To be sure, it's Canadian gold ... not that Canada has anything to do with it.

Gold ... it's being made every day. Volcanics and earthquakes concentrate it. Science says surface gold is the result of asteroid strikes ... that during the formation of the planet ... when there was a lot of debris in space, hunks of the Big Bang collected free gold and deposited on the planet when the planet was still collecting bulk. Science claims that the gold the planet came with is all down at the core because it's so heavy ... they also say the core is iron. Personally? I think science doesn't have a clue. Remember science was adamant that man would never fly.

The Feds tell us that every mine has a different flavor of gold so they can analyze it to see if you stole it from an existing claim. I'm pretty sure that's a crock of crap put in place to make sure the government gets theirs ... and so the rich keep you from getting yours.

There have been at least five major ice ages in the Earth's past (the Huronian, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan, Karoo Ice Age and the Quaternary glaciation). Outside these ages, the Earth seems to have been ice-free even in high latitudes. The Quaternary is the CURRENT ice age ... the one that's not over yet. Every few eons the ice comes back ... and removes the evidence of the last ice cap. Geologists are such fun ... recent is five million years. Man is less than recent.

All that ice weighs a lot ... and there's a range of angle that substances can assume past level. Ice is about 23 degrees ... Ice is a flowing solid ... or at least that's how I understand it. As the ice gets deeper it gets heavier and spreads (flows) because it's exceeded it's angle. The spreading, along with the weight causes the edges of the ice to scrape ... down to and past ... sometimes ... bedrock. Scientists call that scraping scour ... like a scouring pad. It's past scrape ... that shit gets right down to the 'nitty gritty'

The rocks and the gold gets ground up and pushed along by the ice. When the ice melts the gold falls out ... it's heavy so it falls out first. the gravel falls on top ... along comes a river and the water gathers the gold and deposits it anywhere the speed of the water no longer supports the weight of the gold. It's dropped in place.

Because it's placer gold and not from a recognizable 'Lode' there's no provenience ... no body knows where it comes from. We know it's from Canada ... but we're not telling because they might want it back.

Before the Canucks take the Pentwater River gold back, June is DEE TERM MINE D to get her share ... first! Just saying, here.

I now have a very accurate scale and June has been up the creek ... so to speak ... gathering gold ... she doesn't know how much ... exactly ... because I have the scale ... and she don't.

Ever see "Treasure of the Sierra Madre"? My Dad loved it ... we had it on film and used to watch it every Friday night. Ok Ok Ok ... Treasure of the Sierra Madre: (Thank you Wikipedia I fixed your spelling errors.) (Jimmy didn't have Wiki ... me ... the author did.)

"Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Curtin (Tim Holt), cheated out of promised wages and down on their luck, meet old prospector Howard (Walter Huston) in the Mexican oil-town of Tampico. They set out to strike it rich in the remote Sierra Madre mountains, searching for gold. (Wait, Wait, Wait!. You left out the part where Dobbs buys a piece of the Lottery after he begs a peso. He wins and Dobbs and Curtin use that money to outfit their prospecting.) (You also left out how they take their cheated wages from their old boss.)

"They ride a train into the hinterlands, surviving a bandit attack en route. In the desert, Howard proves to be the toughest and most knowledgeable; he is the one to discover the gold they seek. A mine is dug, and much gold is extracted. Greed soon sets in, and Dobbs begins to lose both his trust and his sanity, lusting to possess the entire treasure. Dobbs is also unreasonably afraid that he will be killed by his partners.

"A fourth American named James Cody (Bruce Bennett) appears, which sets up a moral debate about what to do with the new stranger. The men decide to kill Cody, but just as the three confront him with pistols and prepare to kill him, the bandits reappear, crudely pretending to be Federales. (This results in a now-famous quote about not needing to show any "stinking badges.") After a gunfight with the bandits, in which Cody is killed, a real troop of Federales appears and chases away the bandits.