You may have seen footage of, or even have taken part in, the act of panning for gold. Small specks of the metal that have been washed from the mother lode can be found in the bed gravel of some rivers. Using a shallow bowl some of the gravel can be swilled around so that the less dense rock spills from the bowl, leaving behind the higher-density gold. You can try your hand at it at certain theme parks.
The ancient Greeks had a different method. They would use a sheep’s fleece as a naturally occurring fine sieve to capture the flecks of gold from running water. They then simply had to shake out the ‘golden fleece’ to obtain the precious metal. It has been suggested that this was the origin of the tale of Jason, his Argonauts and the Golden Fleece. (The story can be found in any good book on ancient mytholog y.)
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