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I do not think that as a waterway the Fura Creek can be made of any practical use; but it will be very valuable for 'hydraulicking. Canoes and small surf-boats may run down it at certain seasons, but the flow is too fast and the bed is too full of snags and sawyers to be easily ascended.
At this season there is little or no flow, and the bed is mostly a string of detached pools, where gold has been washed and will be washed again. Thus the facilities for 'hydraulicking' are superior, and the number of shallow native pits at once suggests the properest process.
Cameron drew my attention to the necessity of 'hydraulicking' this hill-side; and from three pounds of its yellow clay, gathered at random, we washed about fourpence worth of gold-dust, upwards of 8l. a ton. Other specimens assayed 1 oz. 13 dwts. and 13 grains. A few minutes of uphill-walk led us to the little Apatim village, our objective.
Here the one thing wanted would be a miner accustomed to 'hydraulicking' in California or British Columbia, Australia or South Africa. I hope that the work will not be placed in inexperienced hands, whose blunders of ignorance will give the invaluable and infallible process a bad name. Retracing our steps, we made the chief Sensensé's village, and persuaded him to guide us.
In the meantime light works and hydraulicking on an extensive scale might be begun at once, especially during the rainy season, under seasoned and acclimatised overseers. An amelioration must be the result, and even before the rich surface has been washed it will be possible to set up heavy machinery for deep working, shafting, and tunnelling.
On an arenaceous strip projecting from the western edge the women were washing and panning where the bottom of the digging was below that of the river. This is an everyday sight on the Ancobra, and it shows what scientific 'hydraulicking' will do.
It is well known that California was prepared for agriculture and viticulture by 'hydraulicking' and other mining operations. It will be the same with the Gold Coast, whose present condition is that of the Lincolnshire fens and the Batavian swamps in the days of the Romans.
Wyatt's map, 'Gold-dust found in all these streams; 'Natives dive for gold in the dry, and 'Old gold-shafts all along this track, we should think of 'hydraulicking. The natives, here and elsewhere, prospect for and work the bank-reefs after the subtending gutter-bed has proved auriferous.
Both of us came to the conviction that the 'Izrah Concession' will pay, and pay well. But instead of the routine shafting and tunnelling it must be treated by hydraulicking and washing away the thirty feet of auriferous soil, whose depth covers the reef. The bed of the Fía will supply the water, and a force-pump, worked by men, or preferably by steam-power.
Moreover, the short distance from the shore offers peculiar advantages for 'hydraulicking. Flumes and sluices could carry the golden subsoil to the sea and discharge it into a series of tanks and cisterns, which would be cradled for 'pay-dirt. Finally, it will be easy to baffle the plundering negro workman by sending all stone containing free gold to be worked in England, where superior appliances extract more than enough to pay transport-costs.
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