Once the dirt is removed the sand is washed with powdered white mercury.
The mercury adheres to gold dust and is also heavier than the sand or water, so all the stirring moves this to the bottom of the basin. When all the sand is washed away, only the gold and mercury are left.
This mixture is placed into a cloth and wrung out tightly, forcing most of the mercury thru the cloth, leaving the gold dust and some mercury behind.
These small balls are carefully gathered up and collected for sale to brokers in Busia.
The sand is collected and taken back for re-pounding to attempt to retrieve more gold dust.
The work would go easier if they had some equipment, like a pump for removing the ground water from the caves and a gold metal detector to trace the ore veins. But in the meantime, they do what they can do and work very hard at it.
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