? West cliff Co. Lead crystals

I collected some chunks of heavy metallic pyrite looking rocks from a dump site northeast of Westcliff Co. last fall. Some of the cubic crystals are silver and some are more golden color. What the dump looks like is what the ground looks like when arsenic is used to extract gold so I question if the dump is all processed matterial that was left there. Ihope someone has actually been there and can identify what the stuff really is. I tried to take photos but it really can't capture a good enough pic to help. I recently saw a sample in a museum just like mine, and it was labeled Lead Crystals. That's fine and good, but is it safe to handle? I like giving mineral samples to my relatives, but question if it is safe to do that with these samples. Any feedback would be great.

Diane,
I am not familiar with any method using arsenic to extract gold. Could you point me to information about this?

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Maybe there was an intended reference to a CN- leach someplace?

Diane, the "more golden" crystals are probably pyrite (iron sulfide) and the silver are probably galena (lead sulfide).....neither of which is harmful....unless you grind them up and eat them.....which will probably give you indigestion. Just wash them off and pass them on to whomever you like with no worries. If the ground around the dump is yellow or reddish it is the result of the pyrite decomposing and the iron staining the ground. Not to worry....I know of no gold recovery technique, either historical or contemporary that uses arsenic.

Don

Rock, my bad. What I meant to call the leaching was cyanide.

Don and Evan, You are probably right, and that's exactly what I thought I was collecting when I was there, since what I read about the area confirmed the prescience of both pyrite and galena. I didn't give it another thought till I saw a specimen just like mine labeled Lead Crystal in a small museum in West Bend Ia. The fact that the large pile we collected these from was nothing but that. It was like whoever was mining in the area didn't want those particular minerals and they were separated from whatever they were mining. The pile was easily the size of a house. Not like any dump pile I've seen before. Strange for sure, and very easy pickings. I'm going to go with you're feelings on this. Thanks.

They may have stockpiled the ore for later. Maybe prices dropped, and they had set it aside for the future, which never came before the mine closed.