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with this last end on the ground, and the other raiseda foot and a half: across the board are nailed three piecesof rough cloth, about a foot wide, and at distances ofa foot; and at the upper end is placed a kind of bas-ket made of rods. The sand is shovelled into the basket:water thrown on it washes the sand through, the stonesremaining : the earth and lighter parts of the sand arecarried down to the bottom of the board, while the par-ticles of gold, and the heavy black and red sands alreadymentioned, are detained by the rough cloths, which,when they appear covered, so as not to be able to detainmore, are taken off and washed in a tub of water, thennailed on again, and the process continued till a properquantity of this richer sand is obtained. In some places,instead of cloths, skins with the hair or wool on areused; and in others, notches are made across the board.The richer sand thus detained is put into a vessel some-what like a boat, which is gently shaken in water, in thefame manner as the fan in winnowing corn, till thelighter grains rife to the top : these being carefully pouredoff with the water, the agitation is repeated so long asany grains, of a different colour from the rest, are foundto rife. No further separation is to be expected by thismethod, and the gold, of which some particles beginnow to be distinguishable by the eye, is extracted fromthe remaining matter by mercury, as described in the fol-lowing article.

Gold bedded in stones may frequently be separatedfrom great part of the stony matter on the same principle,the stone being previously reduced to powder. In thelarge way it is beaten in mills, under water, by largewooden stampers armed at the bottom with iron, an irongrating being commonly fixed at one side of the troughor pit, through which the finer parts are continually

washed