BOOK VIII 



B — Bowl-like depression. C — Handles. 



Sand mixed with particles of gold is also washed in a tray, or in a trough 

 or bowl. The tray is open at the further end, is either hewn out of a 

 squared trunk of a tree or made out of a thick plank to which side-boards 

 are fixed, and is three feet long, a foot and a half wide, and three digits 

 deep. The bottom is hollowed out into the shape of an elongated bowl whose 

 narrow end is turned toward the head, and it has two long handles, by which 

 it is drawn backward and forward in the river. In this way the fine sand 

 is washed, whether it contains particles of gold or the little black stones from 

 which tin is made. 



The Italians who come to the German mountains seeking gold, in order 

 to wash the river sand which contains gold-dust and garnets,^* use a fairly 

 long shallow trough hewn out of a tree, rounded within and without, open 

 at one end and closed at the other, which they turn in the bed of the stream 

 in such a way that the water does not dash into it, but flows in gently. 

 They stir the sand, which they throw into it, with a wooden hoe, also 

 rounded. To prevent the particles of gold or garnets from running out with 

 the Ught sand, they close the end with a board similarly rounded, but lower 

 than the sides of the trough. The concentrates of gold or garnets which. 



^*Carbuncidus Carchedonius — Carthaginian carbuncle. 

 Agricola in the Interpretaiio as granat, i.e., garnet. 



The German is given by 



