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| ‘In new ground holes are sunk of every shape and of every size, with a distance of six or ten feet betwixt each hole. They sink till they come upon what is called the bottom, and if they see the bottom is good they commence immediately to tunnel as fast as they can... Having bottomed our hole (the bottom is generally pipe-clay), we pick up a good deal of gold - suppose four ounces - ... Picking the gold up thus we call ‘nuggeting.’ ...Having now come to the bottom, we begin to drive a tunnel about four or five feet in height and width, throwing all the dirt we dig out at the mouth of the hole as useless, with the exception of a few inches of stuff taken off the bottom, which we wash. We tunnel on in this way till we can go no farther, owing to meeting with other men’s tunnels. The ground having been then all wrought, we wash all our stuff and find another hole.’ |
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