The actual time favorable for mining during the year is very limited, the greater proportion of which is spent in preparations. Some of the river companies spent five, and one six months’ time, in making their canal, dam, and other preparations for two months’ mining, in September, October, and November. Much time is lost during the excessive heat of the dry and the storms of the rainy season, and more in the profitless, but arduous labor of _prospecting_. Then much time must be spent in removing, in purchasing provisions, in building houses, &c. If all the days of actual _mining_ were set down, they would not, I think, amount to more than seventeen weeks in the year. Much was anticipated, at the commencement of the last rainy season, from the use of the submarine armor in working the channels of the rivers. Much money was expended, and much time lost in making experiments, but to little advantage. In every instance where they were tried on the Tuolumne, they were soon abandoned as useless. The experiments tried near me were made by an old Georgia gold miner, and one who had been accustomed to the use of the submarine suit, which he had worn in recovering some treasures from a ship sunk in the Mississippi. But he never accomplished any thing with it at the mines. In addition to the cradle, which has been always in use in the mines, the North Carolina rocker and the Long Tom are used to advantage upon the placers where the gold is very fine. These are both, however, made on the same general principle as the simple cradle. The principal difference is, that they are larger and longer. Before closing this chapter of miscellanies, I will endeavor to guard you against some moral evils--or I might better name them _immoral influences_--to which you will be exposed.