Something for the beginners to consider

[Allan]

Do you know what density really is? I know it means (simplest form) heavy, but have you ever felt it.
My definition of a nugget -
Drop your small piece of gold, let it fall about 30cm into the palm of your other hand. It hits your palm at about 12 km/h.
If you feel the density behind it, then to me it’s a nugget, not just a sliver of gold.
By doing this you have now felt density and should realise it means a bit more than ‘just heavy’ and it doesn’t have to be large, you just have to feel it.
So when I use the word nugget you will know what I’m talking about.

I dare say the more experienced members are well aware of where I’m heading with this?

If I appear in anyone’s opinion to be condescending, tending toward a bit of a smart-ass or otherwise, please say so. Otherwise I will come back in a week or 2 and take my definition of density a little further.

I invite comments, please.

[Rowdy]

It's this density which causes gold to drop out of the flow of a stream as it is about 19 times heavier than the water that is carrying it downstream.
I think that some nuggets are rounded and smooth because in a similar circumstances to to dropping the gold through air into your hand gold dropping through the water and hitting rocks etc will smooth and round them.
For years I thought that gold was only round smooth from being in situ and bumped by rocks passing by in floods etc but as this also happens it is not the only event that smooths rounds the gold nuggets.
Years ago I was standing beside the Murrumbidgee when it was in flood and the ground was literally shaking and the noise of rocks being tumbled down stream by the water was surprising. This action would also grind and also cause gold to bed down further into cracks and crevaces in the river bed.
Rowdy