Like all metals, gold is insoluble in a water.  Gold does however exhibit the distinctive properties that in the presence of cyanide ions, it dissolves in the presence of oxygen (or air). This transformation was reported in 1783 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, but it was not until the late 19th century, that the reactions were exploited commercially. The expansion of gold mining in the Rand of South Africa began to slow down in the 1880s, as the new deposits being found tended to be pyritic ore. The gold was difficult to extract from such ores.
In 1887, John Stewart MacArthur, working in collaboration with brothers Dr Robert and Dr William Forrest for the Tennant Company in Glasgow, Scotland, developed the MacArthur-Forrest Process for the extraction of gold ores. By suspending the crushed ore in a cyanide solution, up to 96 percent gold was extracted.
The process was first used on a large scale at the Witwatersrand in 1890, leading to a boom of investment as larger gold mines were opened up. In 1896, Bodländer confirmed that oxygen was necessary for the process, something that had been doubted by MacArthur, and discovered that hydrogen peroxide was formed as an intermediate.
The method known as heap leaching was first proposed in 1969 by the United States Bureau of Mines, and was in use by the 1970s.