Chap. 21.] HOW GOLD IS FOUND. 103 



from a distance, the workmen have all the appearance, not so 

 much of wild beasts, as of birds upon the wing/^ Hanging 

 thus suspended in most instances, they take the levels, and 

 trace with lines the course the water is to take ; and thus, 

 where there is no room even for man to plant a footstep, are 

 rivers traced out by the hand of man. The water, too, is con- 

 sidered in an unfit state for washing, if the current of the 

 river carries any mud along with it. The kind of earth that 

 yields this mud is known as "urium;"^^ and hence it is that 

 in tracing out these channels, they carry the water over beds 

 of silex or pebbles, and carefully avoid this urium. "When 

 they have reached the head of the fall, at the very brow of the 

 mountain, reservoirs are hollowed out, a couple of hundred 

 feet in length and breadth, and some ten feet in depth. In 

 these reservoirs there are generally five sluices left, about 

 three feet square ; so that, the moment the reservoir is filled, the 

 floodgates are struck away, and the torrent bursts forth with 

 such a degree of violence as to roll onwards any fragments of 

 rock which may obstruct its passage. 



When they have reached the level ground, too, there is 

 still another labour that awaits them. Trenches — known as 

 ^' agogse"*' — have to be dug for the passage of the water ; and 

 these, at regular intervals, have a layer of ulex placed at the 

 bottom. This ulex'*^ is a plant like rosemary in appearance, 

 rough and prickly, and well-adapted for arresting any pieces 

 of gold that may be carried along.. The sides, too, are closed 

 in with planks, and are supported by arches when carried over 

 steep and precipitous spots. The earth, carried onwards in 

 the stream, arrives at the sea at last, and thus is the shattered 

 mountain washed away ; causes which have greatly tended to 

 extend the shores of Spain by these encroachments upon the 

 deep. It is also by the agency of canals of this description 

 that the material, excavated at the cost of such immense la- 

 bour by the process previously described,'*^ is washed and car- 



*5 Or as Holland quaintly renders it, " Some flying spirit or winged 

 devill of the air." 



*s Magnesian carbonate of lime, or dolomite, Ajasson thinks. 



*' From the Greek, dywy?). 



*^ It does not appear to have been identified ; and it can hardly be 

 the same as the Ulex Europaeas of modern Natural History, our Furae 

 cr Gorse. 



*3 That of sinking shafts, described already in this Chapter. 



