These Chinese miners are operating gold "rockers" or "dollies." Buckets of gravel containing gold (seen in centre foreground) are emptied into the tray, water ladled over it, and the rocker or dolly gently rocked back and forth. The gold is recovered either from a series of horizontal screens or else from a series of vertical wooden obstructions or "riffles". Chinese miners worked the riverbanks and sandbars of the Fraser River and its tributaries in the 1850's and 1860's. The reputation they had for patient labour is indicated by one incident in which a veteran prospector remembered watching a Chinese miner brush the fine traces from his pan into a blanket each day. When the season ended, the miner burned the blanket and recovered fused pieces of gold from the ashes.
