Deserts consist of huge deposits of sedimentary material which
have been affected by ancient ocean tides, ancient rivers,
glaciers, floods, gully washers and windstorms. They are
literally a gold mine of placer deposits. There is also an
enormous amount of gold-bearing mountainous dry placer ground
which has remained relatively untouched by large-scale gold
mining activity because of the scarcity of water required in
those locations to support wet recovery methods. Generally
speaking, dry methods of gold recovery are not as effective or
as fast as wet recovery methods. Yet, dry methods do work well
enough that they can produce gold well if the ground is rich
enough. Recent developments in dry washing equipment have made
it possible for a one or two-man operation to work larger
volumes of dry placer ground without water, and obtain good
results in gold recovery. Dry processing recovery systems
generally use air flows to do the same job that water does in
wet recovery systems. Under controlled conditions, air f