ABSTRACT
Although the Romans mined gold in Wales – notably at Dolaucothi in South Wales – its low yields of only a few ounces meant that Welsh gold never attracted mining on a commercial scale. There were also legal obstacles. Prospectors for Welsh gold had first to obtain a licence from the Crown Agent; then, if a successful strike was made, a lease to mine had to be obtained that involved the prospector in legal negotiations with the owner of the land. For this reason, Wales never experienced anything like the gold rushes of California in the 1840s, Victoria in the 1850s or the Klondike in the 1890s. Nevertheless, there was considerable interest in Welsh possibilities when Arthur Dean, a consulting engineer for a firm interested in lead mining, found a quartz lode rich in gold at the Cwmheisian mines near Dolgellau in Merionethshire in 1844. This led to exploration of the Mawddach Valley of Merioneth by prospectors and some successful strikes in the 1850s and 1860s.1 Since the late eighteenth century, miners had possessed a new chemical tool to simplify the tedious washing procedures hitherto employed in gold extraction. Previously huge amounts of fuel had been used in melting the ores in order to extract silver and gold. In 1786 the Transylvanian mineralogist Ignaz Edler von Born (1742-91) devised a better method of extracting gold and silver from Hungarian copper ores. He found that the precious metals could be easily separated by adding mercury to the crushed ores to form nuggets of silver and gold amalgams. Born’s work was translated into English by R.E. Raspe in 1791 and was quickly adapted by British metallurgists.2
