diggers, dissatisfied with gains that seemed to the new prodigious,
retired further and further back, and began to grope in the terraces
on the sides of volcanic hills, and among the detritus of extinct
craters. Here the harvest was rich, and as the crowning effort of the
gold-passion, unassisted by machinery, they actually in some cases cut
away the sides of the hills! 'My own impression is,' concludes our
informant on this subject, 'that, both in California and Australia,
the chances of individual enterprise, and even of small companies, are
decreasing rapidly; but that when the mines so wrought have ceased to
pay, capital and machinery, directed by science, will receive
profitable employment for ages to come.'

The wash-pan we have mentioned may be of tin, if not required to be
used with quicksilver, otherwise of copper or wood; but of whatever
material made, it should be some 15 inches in diameter at the top, 10
or 11 at the bottom, and 5, or 5-1/2 inches deep. The manner of using
this is learned only by practice and observation, and consists in a
peculiar motion, by which the heavier substances sink to the bottom
and remain there, while the soluble and lighter parts are washed out.
The principal use of the wash-pan is in rewashing the partially washed
'stuff' taken from the rocker, and in prospecting to ascertain by
trial the value of a new place.

This rocker, or cradle, may be made of half-inch softwood, and
consists of a trough 10 inches deep, 18 inches broad, and 4 feet long,
closed at the broad end, and open at the other; with a transverse bar
at the upper part, two feet from the broad end, to receive the tray.
This machine is placed on rockers, like a cradle, and deposited so
near the water that, when at work, the man who rocks with his left
hand may be able to reach the water with a small tin baler, provided