"The proper capacity of a machine seems to be regulated by the capacity of the gold-saving appliances. The tables should be as wide as possible, with frequent drops, and the fine material should be distributed over the tables in a thin film. The tables are covered with plush or cocoa matting, and sufficient water supplied to keep the material clear. The material should be supplied evenly, continuously, and regularly to the tables. Care and attention are required to catch the fine gold. A disregard of the foregoing directions results in great loss, more particularly in the fine gold. Mechanical skill is required to properly design and construct a dredge, and the care of a competent mechanic is necessary to see that the machine is kept in order and economically operated. The saving of the gold, however, is what makes dredging operations a commercial success. A man skilled in these matters should be in charge of running operations. Dredges should be built of determined capacities, and should be designed to suit the conditions under which they are to operate. Careful examination and investigation of the ground to be worked should be made beforehand, and the surrounding conditions studied, and it goes without saying that these matters require engineering skill and experience. "The field for dredging for gold seems large. Where the proper conditions exist, it is a system which commends itself, and which gives promise, in competent hands, of being an economical method of mining. There is probably a very large extent of country where dredging for gold will be carried on profitably. The ground need not be in a river, if there is seepage water sufficient to float the dredge and supply clear water for the saving of the gold. Dredging requires little water as compared with that required for sluicing and elevating, and this water can, in many dry localities, be supplied at small expense, where a supply for hydraulic work or elevating would cost a very large sum, or be impossible at any cost. Any power suitable for driving the prime motors can be utilized to run the dredge. Indeed, it would seem as if a system of mining was about to be perfected which may make possible the profitable working of many deposits not easy to be worked by other methods, and which may, in many instances, solve problems regarding the successful working of deposits which hitherto have seemed most perplexing and even impossible of solution. Some doubt exists as to possible economical dredging operations under the water of torrential streams. The strong currents, the frequent floods, and many large boulders found in the channels of such streams make the working of the machines difficult and costly. This would not be so much the case in the long stretches of less current, nor would it be so at all in the valley-like reaches in the lower portions of rich streams, nor in the wide, flat portions of country where the streams enter the plains."