 |
| ‘With the operation of cradling you are perhaps already acquainted: for the sake of others, however, I shall here describe it as clearly as I can. The instrument is about six or eight feet long, with its head covered with a coarse sieve, and its foot perforated with a hole. To work this machine close to a stream or a water-hole it requires four men - one to dig, another to wheel, a third to rock, and a fourth to keep dashing the water on the earth to effect the sifting process. The sieve prevents the coarse stones from falling into the cradle, whilst the water gradually softens and washes away the earth, which is carried away by the foot of the machine, leaving the particles of gold mixed with sand behind some small cleets which, at given intervals, are nailed across the bottom all the way down. When all the earth is washed away, the rocker and the washer cast their longing eyes into the sieve to see if there be a “nugget” too large to get through the holes, and, if not, the sieve is displaced, and the stones thrown away. This is the process carried on from “morn till dewy eve”’. |
Return to Mining Techniques