More than one prospector has gone into that canyon and never came out.

Then it occurred to me that the drywasher was designed by an engineer. Gotta love engineers! Those slide-rule geeks always tinker with gravity, angles, curves and flow.

At first, I tried to shift things around, but then a hand with a rock would appear, so I would stop trying to adjust my gear and grab the rock to keep things moving.

When detecting an area that has been cleaned to bedrock and you have new trees growing, always make sure you get your coil as close as possible to the tree. Why?

What also helped keep Coulterville alive was the fact that the town itself happened to be sitting on top of one of the richest veins in the Mother Lode. The ledge itself was three hundred feet wide.

The mysteries of this spot were only just starting to develop. There is nothing but very bland granite-type rocks here,  meaning no bold, favorable indicators.

There weren’t as many pieces of gold, but what I did find was bigger. As I worked my way down towards the spot that I had been working the first three days, I noticed a large crack that crossed the river.