motion, holding the dish level at first, but gradually inclining it to the side on 
wliich there is a little groove in the rim, allowing the water to overflow, after which 
all the upper coarser material is scraped off with the hand. This process is 
repeated several times, until only a small quantity of fine, heavy dirt is left, when it 
is finished by dipping the side of the dish under water and carefully floating or run¬ 
ning off all the lighter matter; the gold being so much heavier, if present, it will 
hang back on the dish or in the little ledge in the rim. When this is sufficiently 
reduced, if no gold is visible to the naked eye, a glass can Ik* used, and if any 
specks are visible it proves that gold exists in the neighbourhood, and further 
prospecting should be done up stream. This washing is very simple when once 
the knack is acquired, but the knowledge of the class of country to prospect and to 
be able to tell bottom when obtained arc matters of experience. 
Owing to the scarcity of water in this country washing is rarely possible, so 
that “ dry-blowing ” has to be resorted to; in this process two dishes are re¬ 
quired, and often a coarse riddle. The dirt is first either sifted, or the large 
stones picked out ; then, having chosen an airy position, the operator places an 
empty dish at his feet whilst the full one he raises above his head, gradually dis¬ 
charging its contents in such a manner into the one on the ground that the wind 
carries away to one side, beyond the dish, all the dust and lighter material. This 
process is repeated several times, and the larger stones picked out, until the dirt 
is reduced to a small compass, when the dish is shaken much in the same way 
as in washing, and the upper lighter material either brushed off with the hand or 
blown off by the month, when the gold will be found at the bottom of the dish. 
This process, of course, is not nearly so perfect as washing, and a great deal of 
the fine gold is lost; but when water is scarce it has proved a good substitute for 
washing, and is generally employed on the goldfields of this Colony. 
Although gold is often found in payable quantities in highly Metamorphic 
country, where mica slates, mica, and hornblende schist replace the clay slates, still 
there is always a character about it that a gold-digger of any experience would never 
pass over, although it is impossible to attempt to describe. It may, however, be taken 
a.s a general rule, that gold in payable quantities is very rarely found amongst hard 
crystalline granitic rocks, and when it does occur is associated with a great deal of 
pyrites. Another thing to be noticed is that all rocks which run in straight lines 
and break into flaggy pieces are not slate, and all other rocks that are'not slate 
need not necessarily lie either granite or basalt, as seems to be a verv general 
idea. J 
Stream tin is prospected for much in the same manner as alluvium gold, the 
only difference being that it must occur in much larger quantities to make it pay, 
and that being so much lighter than gold it is much more difficult, to save and 
separate from other minerals. The class of country in which it occurs is generally 
of a more highly altered character than that which carries gold, the rocks being 
more granitic in character, the tin being mostly derived from veins in the soft 
white granite dykes themselves, whilst the surrounding country is generally hard 
and rocky. ° 
Lodes are either found by tracing up the fragments derived from them in the 
stream beds until no more is met with, when we know that we must be near the 
lode, the fragments increasing in quantity and size as the lode is approached ; or 
by finding the outcrop of a lode themselves, across the country, when they may bo 
tested directly. With most of the minerals, the metal or ore predominates in 
quantity over the vein stuff, which may be quartz, flux or spar, caleite, Ac., when 
they are then called lodes, but when, as with gold, the earthy matter is in the 
greater proportion, they are called reefs. Lodes are often covered at the surface 
by a cap of oxide of iron (irou hat), which can generally be traced with ease for a 
considerable distance at the surface; hut the nature of the lode can only be 
