The way to discover large amounts of gold, was to have the perfect mining technique. One of the earliest techniques was panning and cradling. This method consisted of a pick, a shovel and a washing dish and people either worked by themselves, or in a small group.
First of all, panning was a simple method but required a lot of skill. It worked by loading sediment onto the washing device which had a sieve(strain), and moving the pan to and fro until the heavier gold was separated from the dirt that was collected. …