I think I am not.
In my last I inclosed a small sample of the gold dust, and I find my
only error was in putting a value to the sand. At that time I was not
aware how the gold was found; I now can describe the mode of collecting
it.
"A person without a machine, after digging off one or two feet of the
upper ground, near the water (in some cases they take the top earth),
throws into a tin pan or wooden bowl a shovel full of loose dirt and
stones; then placing the basin an inch or two under water, continues to
stir up the dirt with his hand in such a manner that the running water
will carry off the light earths, occasionally, with his hand, throwing
out the stones; after an operation of this kind for twenty or thirty
minutes, a spoonful of small black sand remains; this is on a
handkerchief or cloth dried in the sun, the emerge is blown off,
leaving the pure gold. I have the pleasure of inclosing a paper of this
sand and gold, which I from a bucket of dirt and stones, in
half-an-hour, standing at the edge of the water, washed out myself. The
value of it may be 2 dollars or 3 dollars.
"The size of the gold depends in some measure upon the river from which
it is taken; the banks of one river having larger grains of gold than
another.
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