with a wooden handle two feet long. A bucketful of the earth to be
washed is thrown into the tray, and the person who is to rock the
cradle taking a balerful of water, throws it uniformly on the mass in
the tray, and keeps rocking and washing till the gold becomes obvious.
These are the simpler implements of gold-hunting; and provided with
them, the little company of adventurers pitch their tent and continue
to dig, till they come to earth they think will pay for washing. The
next morning, they get up perhaps at daylight, for the sake of the
coolness of the hour, and pass through the sieve ten or fifteen
buckets before breakfast. After breakfast, all hands resume work till
about twelve o'clock, when they dine, then rest through the heat of
the day till three o'clock, and go on again till dark. They usually
divide the work as follows: one in the hole digs, fills the bucket
with earth, and, if necessary, bales the water out of the hole;
another takes the bucket and empties it into the tray of the machine;
while a third rocks, supplies the machine with water, and empties the
tray of the large stones. This, it will be seen, is no child's play:
your gold-hunter is no idle wanderer, but a hard-working man,
subjected to a thousand discomforts unknown in civilised life.

The quicksilver cradle is a more complicated and expensive machine,
requiring six men instead of three to work it. It is understood,
however, to save at least 20 per cent. of the metal, and indeed to be
indispensable in some places in California, where the gold is in too
fine particles to be detected by the common rocker. Quicksilver has so
strong an affinity for gold, that the minutest particle of the latter
having once touched, it is deprived of the possibility of escape; and
when the process of washing has been completely gone through, the
whole mass of gold particles will be found bound together by the
quicksilver into a compact lump, in size and shape often resembling an