search. The rock is carried out of the holes in baskets, on ladders
of bamboo, and the water in small pails; but in the rainy season the
holes cannot possibly be kept free from water, as they are situated
on the slope of the mountain, and are filled quicker than they can
be emptied. The want of apparatus for discharging water also accounts
for the fact that the pits are not dug deeper.

[A primitive rock breaker.] The breaking of the auriferous rock is
effected with two stones; of which one serves as anvil, and the other
as hammer. The former, which is slightly hollowed in the center, is
laid flat upon the ground; and the latter, four by eight by eight
inches in dimensions, and therefore of about twenty-five pounds
weight, is made fast with rattan to the top of a slender young tree,
which lies in a sloping position in a fork, and at its opposite end is
firmly fixed in the ground. The workman with a jerk forces the stone
that serves for hammer down upon the auriferous rock, and allows it
to be again carried upwards by the elasticity of the young tree.

[An arrastre.] The crushing of the broken rock is effected with
an apparatus equally crude. A thick stake rises from the center
of a circular support of rough-hewn stones (which is enclosed in
a circle of exactly similar stones) having an iron pin at its top,
to which a tree, bent horizontally in the middle, and downwards at
the two ends, is fixed. Being set in motion by two carabaos attached
in front, it drags several heavy stones, which are bound firmly to
it with rattans, round the circle, and in this manner crushes the
broken rock, which has been previously mixed with water, to a fine
mud. The same apparatus is employed by the Mexican gold-washers,
under the name of Rastra. [Gold-washing.] The washing-out of the mud
is done by women. They kneel before a small wooden gutter filled with