A Strange Sluicebox

In spring a young Alaskan's mind turns to thoughts of gold. But remembering how much work it is to pan for gold, the clever miner designs a sluicebox.

Sluiceboxes come in many forms but the strangest we ever did see is the one in the accompanying photograph from the Selid-Bassoc collection in the archives of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Consultations with several experts led to the conclusion that this Y-shaped sluicebox was so built to aid in the tailing removal problem.

One of the bad things about a sluicebox is that just as many rocks come out the bottom as are put in at the top. These rocks pile up very quickly and somehow must be gotten rid of. Evidently the miner in this photograph diverted the flow from one arm of the Y to the other so as to spread out the tailings over a wider area. By this means he had less shoveling to contend with.