es;" partly, I suppose, from their shape, and
partly from the rocking motion to which they are subjected. These
machines were being roughly constructed of dealboards. Later in the
day I watched one of them at work, and had the process explained to
me. Four men were employed at it. The first shovelled up the earth;
another carried it to the cradle, and dashed it down on a grating or
sieve--placed horizontally at the head of the machine--the wires of
which, being close together, only allowed the smaller particles of
earth and sand to fall through; the third man rocked the cradle--I must
confess I never saw one so perseveringly rocked at home; while the
fourth kept flinging water upon the mass of earth inside. The result of
this fourfold process is, that the lighter earth is gradually carried
off by the action of the water, and a sort of thick black sediment of
sand is left at the bottom of the cradle. This was afterwards scooped
out, and put aside to be carefully dried in the sun to-morrow morning.

I can hardly describe the effect this sight produced upon our party.
It seemed as if the fabled treasure of the Arabian Nights had been
suddenly realised before us. We all shook hands, and swore to preserve
good faith with each other, and to work hard for the common good. The
gold-finders told us that some of them frequently got as much as fifty
dollars a-day. As we rode from camp to camp, and saw the hoards of
gold--some of it in flakes, but the greater part in a coarse sort of
dust--which these people had amassed during the last few weeks, we felt
in a perfect fluster of excitement at the sight of the wealth around
us. One man showed us four hundred ounces of pure gold dust which he
had washed from the dirt in a tin pan, and which he valued at fourteen
dollars an ounce.

As may be imagined, the whole scene was one well calculated to take a
strong hold upon the imagination. The eminences, rising gradually from
the river's banks, were dotted with white canvas tents, mingled with
the more sombre-looking huts, constructed with once green but now
withered branches. A few hundred yards from the river lay a large heap
of planks and framings, which I was told were intended for constructing
a store; the owner of which, a sallow Yankee, with a large pluffy
cigaretto in his mouth, was labouring away in his shirt sleeves.

Bewildered and excited by the novelty of the scene, we were in haste to
pitch our camp, and soon fixed upon a loc