n Little Creek that did not yield half-a-dollar or more to the
panful, thus enabling the digger to work out gold-dust to the value of
about twenty-five dollars, (five pounds sterling), every day, while
occasionally he came upon a lump or nugget, equal, perhaps, to what he
could produce by the steady labour of a week or more.

Many of the more energetic miners, however, worked in companies and used
cradles, by means of which they washed out a much larger quantity of
gold in shorter time; and in places which did not yield a sufficient
return by the pan process to render it worth while working, the
cradle-owners obtained ample remuneration for their toil.

The cradle is a very simple machine, being a semicircular trough,
hollowed out of a log, from five to six feet long by sixteen inches in
diameter. At one end of this is a perforated copper or iron plate, with
a rim of wood round it, on which the "dirt" is thrown, and water poured
thereon by one man, while the cradle is rocked by another. The gold and
gravel are thus separated from the larger stones, and washed down the
trough, in which, at intervals, two transverse bars, half-an-inch high,
are placed; the first of these arrests the gold, which, from its great
weight, sinks to the bottom, while the gravel and lighter substances are
swept away by the current. The lower bar catches any particles of gold
that, by awkward management, may have passed the upper one. Three men
usually worked together at a rocker, one digging, one carrying the
"dirt" in a bucket, and one rocking the cradle.

The black sand, which, along with the gold, is usually left after all
the washing and rocking processes are completed, is too heavy to be
separated by means of washing. It has therefore to be blown away from
the gold after the mass has been dried over a fire, and in this
operation great care is requisite lest the finer particles of gold
should be blown off along with it.

The spot fixed on as the future residence of our friends was a level
patch of greensward about a stone-cast from the banks of the stream, and
twice that distance from the lowest cabin of the colony, which was
separated and concealed from them by a group of wide-spreading oaks and
other trees. A short distance behind the spot the mountains ascended in
steep wooded slopes, and, just in front, the cliffs of the opposite
hills rose abruptly from the edge of the stream, but a narrow ravine,
that split them in a transvers