Puddling is on the same principle as tin-dish-washing, only on a much larger scale. Great wooden tubs are filled with the dirt and fresh water, and the former is chopped about in all directions with a spade, so as to set the metal free from the adhesive soil and pipe-clay. Sometimes I have seen energetic diggers tuck up their trowsers, off with their boots, step into the tub, and crush it about with their feet in the same manner as tradition affirms that the London bakers knead their bread. Every now and again the dirtied water is poured off gently, and with a fresh supply, which is furnished by a mate with a long-handled dipper from the stream or pool, you puddle away. The great thing is, not to be afraid Of over-work, for the better the puddling is, so much the more easy and profitable is the cradling. After having been well beaten in the tubs, the "dirt" is put into the hopper of the cradle, which is then rocked gently, whilst another party keeps up a constant supply of fresh water. In the right hand of the cradler is held a thick stick, ready to break up any clods which may be in the hopper, but which a good puddler would not have sent there. There was plenty of water near us, for a heavy rain during the night had filled several vacated holes, and as there were five pair of hands, we hoped, before evening, greatly to diminish our mud-heaps. Now for an account of our proceedings. Two large wooden tubs were firmly secured in the ground and four set to work puddling, whilst Frank busied himself in fixing the cradle. He drove two blocks into the ground; they were grooved for the rockers of the cradle to rest in, so as to let it rock with ease and regularity. The ground was lowered so as to give the cradle a slight slant, and thus enable the water to run off more quickly. If a cradle dips too much, a little gold may wash off with the light sand. The cradling machine, though simple in itself, is rather difficult to describe. In shape and size it resembles an infant's cradle, and over that portion of it where, if for a baby, a hood would be, is a perforated plate with wooden sides, a few inches high all round, forming a sort of box with the perforated plate for a bottom; this box is called the hopper. The dirt is here placed, and the constant supply of water, after well washing the stuff, runs out through a hole made at the foot of the cradle. The gold generally rests on a wooden shelf under the hopper, though sometimes a good deal will run down with the water and dirt into one of the compartments at the bottom, and to separate it from the sand or mud, tin-dish-washing is employed.