22 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB VOL. Xlll. 



funeral. His grave was dug about a hundred yards from 

 his hut in a grove of enormous sugar pines, and marked 

 by a rough erection of planks. The survivor was so 

 utterly miserable, that he came into the Camp one 

 morning when I was there, said he could stand the 

 solitude no longer, and that he had made up his mind to 

 leave his location for ever. Poor old man, he seemed 

 quite broken and shattered, and utterly unable to take any 

 fresh interest in life, too miserable to remain and yet 

 miserable to go, though he had a good bit of money laid 

 by down in San Francisco. 



It may be of interest to describe the difference between 

 sluicing and hydraulicking. In sluicing, the water in the 

 stream is simply diverted and led along flumes in such a 

 way as either to drain the water ofl' some bed of gravel, 

 or to make the water by its own force wash away banks, 

 or beds of gravel. 



Hydraulicking is using water under pressure. Water 

 is taken from the stream far away up the vallev, and led 

 along, with as slight a (\dl as possible, either in an oi)en 

 ditch or a flume, until a height of some hundreds of feet 

 above the valley is attained. The water is then conveyed 

 straight down into the valley in an iron pipe of consider- 

 able dimensions. At the end is a peculiar nozzle, 

 commonly called a "giant," which is so arranged that by 

 means of levers it can be pointed in anv direction when 

 the water is turned on. 



The force of the water is almost inconceivable. A jet 

 is thrown for hundreds of feet, and whole hill sides can 

 by this means be washed down into and along the stream, 

 leaving the gold deposited in the crevices of bed-rock, or 

 in the " riffle-stick " cavities of the flume. It is used 

 either for clearing away the gravel in the bed of the 

 stream, where often the deposits of gold on the bed-rock 

 are very rich, or for moving great masses of ancient 



