“Just feel the heft of it!” Those were the words that lit the fire that created a prospector. Before I tell you what took place, I have a desire to tell you when and where it took place.

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.

It took me awhile before I finally got a nice mellow signal. My nugget turned out to weigh in about two dwt (pennyweight). Over the next few hours, we all picked up a few more nuggets apiece.

After a short time, the tailings pile can get very large, and can actually block the downstream end of the sluice box.

The nugget sat there in plain sight, though it was covered in dirt, while hundreds of people had passed that way every day.