ed through the holes of the sieve and settled
behind the slats in the trough, and the stones and large lumps in which
there was no gold were caught in the sieve and thrown away. After a
certain number of buckets of earth had been run through in that way, the
settlings behind the slats in the trough were put in a milk-pan and the
water was allowed to run in the pan and the fine earth and sand would
float on the top of the water. You would let that run off.

After a few operations of that kind you would see the yellow scales of
gold on the edge of the sand. You would continue that process until
there was but a little of the sand left; then you would take it with you
when you went to the tank and warm it by a fire to dry the sand; then
with your breath you would blow away the sand and have the gold, which
you carried in a buckskin bag, which was the currency of the country, at
$16 per ounce, and at the mint in Philadelphia was worth $18.25. I have
carried three hundred buckets in a day, and at twenty-five cents worth
of gold in a bucket, it would amount to $75, $25 to each man for his
day's work, which was frequently the average. In those days all it cost
for a party of three for capital to start mining was about $15. Then you
had the chances of striking a pocket. That was a cavity in the rocks
where gold had settled. In the course of ages, and where the strong
currents of the streams, when the rivers were high, could not reach it
to wash it out, I have known a person to take out $800 of gold in less
than an hour. The first miners, when they found gold on the banks of the
river, thought if they could only dig in the deep holes of the bed they
would find chunks of it, and they went to a big expense, and those who
had money hired laborers to assist in constructing raceways at $16 per
day, to change the current of the river; but when they had effected
their object and dug there they found no gold, for there was nothing to
prevent the strong current from carrying it off; but I knew a party to
draw off the water and expose the bed of the river, where there were
rapids, and they were successful, and the gold had settled down between
the crevices of the rocks, and the currents could not disturb it.

There were some other kinds of diggings discovered different from the
river mining, called canons, one I know of, called the Oregon. It was
described like a tunnel, deep down in the earth, where a party of three
persons from near our