g scrub, one foot high
and six wide, thus taking up exactly half of our house. Upon this we
spread a plentiful supply of dry grass to form our common bed. Our
working tools and other gear found place underneath, and with a few
roughly made stools and the empty "Old Tom" case for a table, our
mansion was complete.

It was not yet night when our work was done, and some of us strolled
about to obtain any information available. This was not as satisfactory
as we could have desired. Very many had been disappointed, gold was not
found in sufficient quantities to pay, and prospectors were out in every
direction. It was early yet, however, to condemn the diggings, and the
grumblers and the disappointed are always present in every undertaking,
so we comforted ourselves, and sought dinner and the night's sleep we
were so much in need of.

The usual requisites for a digger are, a spade, pick, shovel, long Tom
or cradle, and a wide lipped flat iron dish (not unlike an ordinary
wash-hand basin) for final washing.

The long Tom consists of a wooden trough or race, twelve to fifteen feet
long and two feet wide; its lower end is fitted into an iron screen or
grating, fixed immediately above a box or tray of the same size. To work
the machine it is set so that a stream of water obtained by damming up a
little of the river is allowed to pass quickly and constantly down the
race, and through the grating into the box at the other end.

The "stuff" in which the gold is supposed to be is thrown into the race,
where, by the action of the current of water, the earth, stones, rubbish
and light matter are washed away and the heavy sand, etc., falls through
the grating into the box. As frequently as necessary this box is removed
and another substituted, when the contents are washed carefully by means
of the basin. By degrees all the sand and foreign matter is washed away,
leaving only the gold.

The cradle is very similar to what it is named after, a child's swing
cot. It is simply a suspended wooden box, fitted with an iron grating
and tray beneath into which the "stuff" is cradled or washed by rocking
it by hand.

It takes considerable experience of the art of finding gold to enable a
man to fix on a good site for commencing operations. There are of course
instances of wonderful luck and unexpected success, but they are very
much the exception, and form but a diminutive proportion of the fortune
of any gold diggings. We hear of the man w