“Good for him! He wouldn’t do for mining. Besides, there’s mother. He’s better off where he is.”
“Where do you sleep, Tom?”
“Upstairs. I have a pair of blankets up there, and a pillow, and I don’t need anybody to make my bed.”
“I suppose I ought to have a pair of blankets.”
“I’ll buy you a pair. There’s a chap going to leave to-day, and we can buy his. Now come out and see the mines.”
Leaving the hotel, Tom led the way to the mining claims. There was a deep gulch half a mile distant, at the base of which ran a creek, and it was along this that the claims were staked out. They were about twenty feet wide, in some cases more. Tom led the way to his, and showed Grant the way he worked. He used a rocker, or cradle. A sieve was fitted in at the top, and into this the miner shoveled the dirt. Tom rocked the cradle with one hand, after it was filled, and poured water on the dirt from a dipper. Gradually the dirt was washed out, and if there was any gold it would remain in small gleaming particles mixed with black sand.
“Isn’t that rather a rough way of working, Tom?” asked Grant, after his tour of inspection.
“Yes; I have been thinking of getting what the miners call a ‘long tom’—no pun intended.”
“What is that?”
I won’t give Tom’s answer, but quote a more accurate description from an English book published in 1857: “A ‘long tom’ is nothing more than a wooden trough from twelve to twenty-five feet long, and about a foot wide. At the lower end it widens considerably, and the floor of it is a sheet of iron, pierced with holes half an inch in diameter, under which is placed a flat box a couple of inches deep. The long tom is set at a slight inclination over the place which is to be worked, and a stream of water is kept running through it by means of a hose. While some of the party shovel the dirt into the tom as fast as they can dig it up, one man stands at the lower end, stirring up the dirt as it is washed down, separating the stones and throwing them out, while the earth and small gravel fall with the water through the sieve into the ripple box. This box is about five feet long, and is crossed by two partitions. It is also placed at an inclination, so that the water falling into it keeps the dirt loose, allowing the gold and heavy particles to settle to the bottom, while all the lighter stuff washes over the end of the box along with the water.”