It requires some practice. The gold keeps to the bottom of the dish,

by its own weight. At last there is only a little half-moon

of sand or fine gravel in the bottom lower edge of the dish --

you work the dish slanting from you. Presently the gold,

if there was any in the dirt, appears in `colours', grains, or little nuggets

along the base of the half-moon of sand. The more gold there is in the dirt,

or the coarser the gold is, the sooner it appears. A practised digger

can work off the last speck of gravel, without losing a `colour',