Techniques
In the early days, a party say of four or six, left a mining camp. A mule was packed with their tools, blankets, c. and a sack of flour and some bacon. Each of them carried a rifle or gun, and thus equipped they plunged into the hitherto unknown and unprospected country. I will presume them to know something about mining, and to be able to read `signs,' and wash a pan of dirt. They follow one of the forks of a river, and prospect the gulches as they go along. They notice where the river makes a sudden bend, and forthwith they cut down a few trees that grow on its banks and make a wing dam; that is to say, they shunt off the river where the eddy is, as it rounds the corner, and, having diverted it, prospect the bottom. If it promises well there they camp. Their wing dam is strengthened, the river bed is exposed, and some of the party are despatched to the nearest mining town for a stock of provisions. By and bye other prospectors would come along, and would be shown how they were doing without the least hesitation, for there was no jealousy in those days, no petty concealment either of good or bad luck, and always a hearty welcome for the wayfarer. Those were the golden days of California ere it was scratched and raked and poked into and burrowed, as it is now. Those were the days of rockers , and long toms , and coarse gold, that begged to be dug up and coined and sent on its travels over the world. Those were the days when men were rich at noon on Saturday and returned to their claim on Monday morning cleaned out by the gamblers. Those were the days when everything was paid for in dust, and the scales were rather in favour of the shopkeeper, and gold was only worth fourteen and fifteen dollars an ounce in the mines, at least the agents of the San Francisco bankers would not give more. Those were the easy, extravagant, rich, wicked, thoughtless, generous, happy days of California. They were the early days of gold mining.

from Six months in California
By J.G. Player-Frowd