n might dig for days without adequate results and then of a sudden
run into a rich pocket. Or he might pan out an immense sum within the
first ten minutes of striking his pick to earth. No one could tell. The
fact that the average of all the days and all the men amounted to very
little more than living wages was quite lost to sight. At first the
methods were very crude. One man held a coarse screen of willow branches
which he shook continuously above an ordinary cooking pot, while his
partner slowly shovelled earth over this impromptu sieve. When the pots
were filled with siftings, they were carried to the river, where they
were carefully submerged, and the contents were stirred about with
sticks. The light earth was thus flowed over the rims of the pots. The
residue was then dried, and the lighter sand was blown away. The result
was gold, though of course with a strong mixture of foreign substance.
The pan miners soon followed; and the cradle or rocker with its
riffle-board was not long delayed. The digging was free. At first it was
supposed that a new holding should not be started within fifteen feet of
one already in operation. Later, claims of a definite size were
established. A camp, however, made its own laws in regard to this and
other matters.

Most of the would-be miners at first rather expected to find gold lying
on the surface of the earth, and were very much disappointed to learn
that they actually had to dig for it. Moreover, digging in the boulders
and gravel, under the terrific heat of the California sun in midsummer,
was none too easy; and no matter how rich the diggings averaged--short
of an actual bonanza--the miner was disappointed in his expectations.
One man is reported saying: "They tell me I can easily make there eleven
hundred dollars a day. You know I am not easily moved by such reports. I
shall be satisfied if I make three hundred dollars per day." Travelers
of the time comment on the contrast between the returning stream of
discouraged and disgruntled men and the cheerfulness of the lot actually
digging. Nobody had any scientific system to go on. Often a divining-rod
was employed to determine where to dig. Many stories were current of
accidental finds; as when one man, tiring of waiting for his dog to get
through digging out a ground squirrel, pulled the animal out by the
tail, and with it a large nugget. Another story is told of a sailor who
asked some miners resting at noon where he could dig