"Not often, you can't. It don't lie around the ground like twenty-dollar gold-pieces! Some o' the richest placers ever found have the gold ground down so fine that it ain't much bigger'n grains o' dust.
"Well, havin' nigh filled the pan, like I said, you take it to the river, an' squattin' down, you hold it jest below the surface o' the water, one side a trifle higher 'n the other, so the water jest flows continual over the lower lip o' the pan. Then you give it a sort of rockin' an' whirlin' motion, so,"—he illustrated with his hands, Owens smilingly doing the same, "lettin' the lighter mud flow out over the top.
"You keep on doin' that, without stoppin', for ten minutes or more. By the end o' that time, you're rockin' pretty hard, for the heavier stuff has got to be flicked out; but you've got to mind out, for if you go too hard, the gold—if there is any—will go out, too.
"Then you stop, pick out any pebbles in the bottom, lookin' at 'em hard—for they might show color—an' rock an' whirl the pan some more. If you've done it right, when you're through, there isn't more'n a handful o' sand an' grit at the bottom. You look at that as closely as you know how, an' if here an' there's a little speck o' yellow, you've found color. That's gold. You spread that handful out in the sun to dry an' blow away the lighter part. What's left is gold."
The Prospector of To-Day.
Gold-bearing stream of Western Canada being panned for dust.
Courtesy of the Grand Trunk Railway.