After having found a lead of gold, he excavates upward and downward the ravine, being careful whilst progressing along, to watch the several meanderings of the lead, which are likely to occur even in very short distances.
The miner never need be long at a loss to determine whether there be gold in the place where he is prospecting. If gold exists only in moderate quantities, the pick will generally detect it by occasionally throwing out into view pieces of gold, even when they are quite small. In digging in dry ravines, the miner, after having arrivd within a few inches of the rock where he expects to find gold, tries the earth by washing some of it. If he finds no gold, all of the earth above this place is thrown away as useless. He then continues to dig downward, trying the dirt at short intervals, till he finds gold in his washings. He then is careful to save and wash all of the remainder that lies above the rock, and even to pick off a few inches from the top of some rocks that are loose and open enough to receive gold in some of their crevices, carefully saving and washing the whole.
In some instances in dry ravines, where slate rock occurs, it is decomposd into clay, to a considerable depth, from the vast amount of time elapsd since it has been placd in its present situation. Where such decomposition has occurd, it is useless to penetrate downward into it, in search of gold, as the gold was deposited most generally in a strong iron deposit, previous to the decomposition of the rock. This strong iron deposit is formd of soluble iron, amongst which the gold is mechanically entangld and there held, unless the iron becomes again soluble and leaves the gold to settle down by gravitation into the decomposd rock below. Cases of the second solubility of the iron do not often occur in dry ravines.
_Mode of Searching for the Second Variety._
It is more difficult to point out a successful mode of searching for gold of the second variety than either of the other two. Yet notwithstanding the difficulties attending it, some hints may be given, useful to the miner, who has previously become in some degree acquainted with the philosophy of running water and the nature of tertiary deposits.