3i6 BOOK VIII. 



first in a buddle like the simple buddle, and afterward on an ordinary 

 strake. Likewise the latter is washed twice, first on a canvas strake and 

 afterward on an ordinary strake. This buddle, which is like the simple 

 buddle, differs from it in the head, the whole of which in this case is sloping, 

 while in the case of the other it is depressed in the centre. In order that the 

 boy may be able to rest the shovel with which he cleanses the tin-stone, 

 this sluice has a small wooden roller which turns in holes in two thick 

 boards fixed to the sides of the buddle ; if he did not do this, he would become 

 over-exhausted by his task, for he spends whole days standing over these 

 labours. The large buddle, the one like the simple buddle, the ordinary 

 strake, and the canvas strakes, are erected within a special buUding. In 

 this building there is a stove that gives out heat through the earthen tiles 

 or iron plates of which it is composed, in order that the washers can pursue 

 their labours even in winter, if the rivers are not completely frozen over. 



On the canvas strakes are washed the very fine tin-stone mixed with 

 mud which has settled in the lower end of the large buddle, as well as 

 in the lower end of the simple buddle and of the ordinary strake. The canvas 

 is cleaned in a trough hewn out of one tree trunk and partitioned off with 

 two boards, so that three compartments are made. The first and second pieces 

 of canvas are washed in the first compartment, the third and fourth in the 

 second compartment, the fifth and sixth in the third compartment. Since 

 among the very fine tin-stone there are usually some grains of stone, rock, 

 or marble, the master cleanses them on the ordinary strake, lightly brushing 

 the top of the material with a broom, the twigs of which do not all run the 

 same way, but some straight and some crosswise. In this way the water 

 carries off these impurities from the strake into the settling-pit because they 

 are lighter, and leaves the tin-stone on the table because it is heavier. 



Below all buddies or strakes, both inside and outside the building, there 

 are placed either settling-pits or cross-troughs into which they discharge, 

 in order that the water may carry on down into the stream but very few 

 of the most minute particles of tin-stone. The large settling-pit which is 

 outside the building is generally made of joined flooring, and is eight feet in 

 length, breadth and depth. When a large quantity of mud, mixed with 

 very fine tin-stone, has settled in it, first of all the water is let out by with- 

 drawing a plug, then the mud which is taken out is washed outside the house 

 on the canvas strakes, and afterward the concentrates are washed on the 

 strake which is inside the building. By these methods the very finest tin- 

 stone is made clean. 



The mud mixed with the very fine tin-stone, which has neither settled 

 in the large settling-pit nor in the transverse launder which is outside the 

 room and below the canvas strakes, flows away and settles in the bed of the 

 stream or river. In order to recover even a portion of the fine tin-stone, 

 many miners erect weirs in the bed of the stream or river, very much like 

 those that are made above the mills, to deflect the current into the races 

 through which it flows to the water-wheels. At one side of each weir there 

 is an area dug out to a depth of five or six or seven feet, and if the nature of 



