ish and let the clay and gravel soak
a while, then you work and rub it up with your hands, and as the clay
dissolves, dish it off as muddy water or mullock. You are careful to
wash the pebbles in case there is any gold sticking to them. And so till
all the muddy or clayey matter is gone, and there is nothing but clean
gravel in the bottom of the dish. You work this off carefully, turning
the dish about this way and that and swishing the water round in it. It
requires some practice. The gold keeps to the bottom of the dish, by
its own weight. At last there is only a little half-moon of sand or fine
gravel in the bottom lower edge of the dish--you work the dish slanting
from you. Presently the gold, if there was any in the dirt, appears in
'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of
sand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coarser the gold is,
the sooner it appears. A practised digger can work off the last speck of
gravel, without losing a 'colour', by just working the water round and
off in the dish. Also a careful digger could throw a handful of gold
in a tub of dirt, and, washing it off in dishfuls, recover practically
every colour.

The gold-washing 'cradle' is a box, shaped something like a boot, and
the size of a travelling trunk, with rockers on, like a baby's cradle,
and a stick up behind for a handle; on top, where you'll put your foot
into the boot, is a tray with a perforated iron bottom; the clay and
gravel is thrown on the tray, water thrown on it, and the cradle rocked
smartly. The finer gravel and the mullock goes through and down over a
sloping board covered with blanket, and with ledges on it to catch the
gold. The dish was mostly used for prospecting; large quantities of wash
dirt was put through the horse-power 'puddling-machine', which there
isn't room to describe here.

''Ello, Dave!' said Pinter, after looking with mild surprise at the size
of Dave's waste-heap. 'Tryin' for the second bottom?'

'Yes,' said Dave, guttural.

Pinter dropped his tools with a clatter at the foot of the waste-heap
and scratched under his ear like an old cockatoo, which bird he
resembled. Then he went to the windlass, and resting his hands on his
knees, he peered down, while Dave stood by helpless and hopeless.

Pinter straightened himself, blinking like an owl, and looked carelessly
over the graveyard.

'Tryin' for a secon' bottom,' he reflected absently. 'Eh, Dave?'

Dave only s