that glitters. The heavy sand and iron are
separated by a more careful washing by hand and by the magnet. Of
course, all this system is very rude and imperfect,--so much so, that it
has been found profitable in California to wash over the same earth nine
times.

The gold-dust thus obtained is the only circulating medium in the
Territory, and is the standard of trade. Treasury notes and coin are
articles of merchandise. Everybody who has gold has also his little
buckskin pouch to hold it. Every store has its scales, and in these is
weighed out the fixed amount for all purchases according to Troy weight.
An ounce is valued at eighteen dollars, a pennyweight at ninety cents,
and so on. It is amusing to notice how the friction of the scales is
made by some men--particularly the Jews, whose name is legion--to work
them no loss. In _weighing in_, the scale-beam bows most deferentially
to the gold side; but in _weighing out_, it makes profound obeisance to
the weights. The same cupidity has given rise to two new terms in the
miners' glossary,--_trade dust_ and _bankable dust_. Bankable dust means
simply gold, pure and undefiled. Trade dust is gold with a plentiful
sprinkling of black sand, and is of three grades, described very clearly
by the terms _good_, _fair_, and _dirty_. The trader, in receiving our
money, complains if it does not approximate what is bankable, but in
paying us his money pours out a combination in which black sand is a
predominating ingredient. Many merchants even keep a saucer of black
sand in readiness to dilute their bankable gold to the utmost thinness
it will bear.

As might be expected, the courts were hardly opened before grave
questions arose as to the construction of contracts based on this
anomalous currency. Notes were usually made to pay a given number of
"dollars, in good, bankable dust." But the laws recognized no such
commodity as a dollar in dust. The decision of the court protecting a
trickster in paying treasury-notes worth but fifty cents for the gold
loaned by a friend, savored to the plain miner of rank injustice. To
avoid even this opportunity for a legal tender, sometimes notes promised
to pay a certain number of ounces and pennyweights, with interest at a
fixed rate. The question was immediately sprung as to whether such an
agreement was to be construed as a promissory note, or was to be sued
for as a contract to do a specified act, by setting out a breach and
claiming damages fo