Gold extraction Wikipedia
History. The smelting of gold began sometime around 6000 3000 BC. According to one source the technique began to be in use in Mesopotamia or Syria. In ancient Greece, Heraclitus wrote on the subject. According to de Lecerda and Salomons (1997) mercury was first in use for extraction at about 1000 BC, according to Meech and others (1998), mercury was used in obtaining gold until the latter