When the foreman has selected a place, he orders all the men to it, and they go with twenty pack-mules, which carry the sand in _alforjas_, or raw hide sacks, to the place of washing, which is up on the bluff, probably a mile or more distant from the spot where the sand is obtained. It happens occasionally that the foreman rides long distances on the beach, and sometimes he will order the sand to be obtained ten miles from the washing-place. The sand must, of course, be very rich, to pay for such transportation, but the beach-sand at times in the sunlight is said to be actually dazzling yellow with gold. The purpose of going upon the bluff to wash it, is to get fresh water for washing; for the sea-water is not so good, nor can it be obtained conveniently. The richest dirt is that the farthest down on the beach, so still weather and low tide are the best times for getting it. When a rich place is discovered low down on the beach, great exertions are made to get as much of the sand as possible before the tide rises. When high tide and storm come together, little can be done. The sand, having been separated from all clay and soluble matter by the action of the sea, is very easily washed, and all collected in a month can be washed in two days in a sluice. _Mining-Ditches._--The placer-mines of California would yield very little gold, were it not for the numerous ditches which supply them with water for washing. The auriferous districts are very dry in summer, and in some places there is not a spring nor a brook within many miles. The artificial ditch supplies the want. The ditches are made by large companies, which sell the water by the "inch." An inch of water is as much as will run out of an orifice an inch square, with the water standing six or seven inches deep in the flume over the orifice. The depth of water over the orifice is called the "head." The orifice is usually two inches high, and as long as necessary to give the amount of water desired. Nobody wants less than ten or twelve inches for mining: a "sluice-head" is about eighteen inches; a "hydraulic-head" is from forty to two hundred inches. The water, however, is not measured accurately. Of course the amount which runs through the orifice will depend to a considerable extent upon the "head," which is usually greater in the morning than at night. At sunrise there may be fifteen inches head, and at sunset only three. The water collects during the night, and is exhausted during the day. The price of water is in no place less than ten cents an inch per day; in some places it is forty cents; the average is about twenty cents.