Each mill is loaded with a sack full of ore and approximately a cup of mercury and topped up with water. The milling process takes four to five hours to crush, grind and extract the gold. At the end of the process, the mercury-gold amalgam is obtained and the mercury is burnt off with a blowtorch to leave the gold button. In that same village was a gold shop, which bought the days’ taking of the miners.
The whole process—from digging the ore, milling and amalgamating, and purifying the precious metal—took place with hardly a semblance of safety.
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