river diggingn.

1850 N.Y. Jrnl. of Commerce 23 Apr. 2/3 The river digging will be very rich the coming season. Fresh deposits of gold are made on old spots, hitherto worked.

1857 New Monthly Mag. May 71 The mode which yields the largest return is river digging, in which the gold is obtained in the bottom or bed of the stream.

1876 F. Boyle Savage Life 11 It was by no means unpleasant, this river, or wet, digging.

1901 Chambers's Jrnl. 23 Nov. 822/2 I knew enough about river-digging by this time to be aware that such a rich deposit of these pebbles must mean good finds of the more valuable stones.

1947 L. Hastings Dragons are Extra i. 10 Dabbling in river~digging for diamonds.

1968 J. T. McNish Rd. to Eldorado 200 His first attempt, late in 1869, at what was to become known as ‘dry digging’ as against ‘river digging’ was where the Du Toits Pan and Bultfontein diggings later emerged.

1985 K. Shillington Colonisation Southern Tswana 1870–1900 113 In the closing years of the century the men and women of the locations regularly trekked in their hundreds to Kimberley and the ‘river-digging’ centres to earn cash.

1850 Placer (Calif.) Times 17 May A friend who went up in March to the North Fork of the north branch of the Yuba gives his opinion that this will prove one of the richest river diggings of the new discoveries.

1851 D. B. Woods Sixteen Months at Gold Diggings i. 13 The ‘river diggings’ include the bars and auriferous portions of the channels of the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, during their passage through the foot-hills.

1862 E. Hodder Mem. N.Z. Life 222 There are two principal kinds of diggings: river diggings..and dry diggings, in the conglomerate and gravel accumulated on the slope of the mountains.

1881 E. E. Frewer tr. E. Holub Seven Years S. Afr. I. iii. 60 The settlement at the river-diggings sprang up with a rapidity as marvellous as those of California.

1910 Pop. Mech. Dec. 151/1 Recent statistics giving the output of the Kimberley mines and river diggings for the past three years, place it at..nearly a ton and three-quarters.

1947 E. Afr. Ann. 1946–7 122/1 The ‘river diggings’ of South Africa where workings extend..along present or ancient river beds.

1991 T. Pakenham Scramble for Afr. iii. 46 Diamonds were discovered, first in the river diggings in West Griqualand, close to the river Vaal, then at Colesberg kopje twenty miles away.

2007 M. Meredith Diamonds, Gold, & War ii. 23 Although the river diggings lay well outside the Transvaal's recognised boundaries, President Marthinus Wessels Pretorius also claimed rights there.