Above Placerville was Weber Creek, site of the camp above, where
running water made "panning" easier than at "dry" diggings. A simple
bowl or pan, half filled with dirt, was held in the current; large
stones were picked out by hand as the stream carried off the earth. At
last you had left only a little heavy sand—and gold.
At Mormon Diggings on the North Fork of the American (below) cradles
were early in use-crude boxes on rockers, with at one end a coarse
sieve and at the other small cleats. Four-man teams worked the cradles:
one man dug; another carried; a third rocked the machine up and down;
the fourth kept water running through. The gold caught against the
cleats at the open end. Nuggets above one-half ounce went, not to the
team but to the finder.
