344 TiMEHRI. 



the larger ones, who designate them *' Pork knocking" 

 Companies — a very unpoetic name, seemingly derived 

 from their habit of wandering or " poking and knocking" 

 about the bush for the purpose of working other people's 

 claims on the sly. There is no doubt that a lot of this 

 sort of thing is carried on, and that gold is frequently 

 stolen or smuggled from one placer and sold to another. 



In the early days of the Gold Industry the " tom" was 

 the only instrument used for washing gold in the colony, 

 but now, since the working of a sluice is thoroughly 

 understood, it is seldom seen except in the possession of 

 some small Company. 



A sluice consists of a series of long narrow trough-like 

 boxes, fitting into each other telescope-fashion. These 

 boxes are generally from tvvelvj to fourteen feet long 

 by sixteen inches wide, and lapering to fourteen at the 

 ends. In the bottom of < ach box or " dol" as they are 

 usually called, two riffle': (narrow sticks nailed on brac- 

 kets so as to form a rough grating) are placed about 

 a foot apart and in the spaces between them or " checks'' 

 the quicksilver that catches the gold is distributed. The 

 first and last boxes r^spe6lively are known as the water 

 and waste (or motlier) "dols," the former being a sort 

 of aquedu6l, and tie latter passing off the worked sand 

 and gravel into a ong canal or tail-race. 



The number of men required to work a sluice depends 

 upon the number of boxes of which it is composed, each 

 box requiring two men to spade, thus if a sluice consists 

 of four boxes ther.; are eight men, and if of five boxes, ten, 

 and so on, with the addition of one and sometimes two 

 men at the tail-race, to keep it from becoming blocked 

 with sand. These, with a foreman and two boys on the 



