Thanks everyone for all of your great comments. 
Wolfau, The area was a quartz shed on the side of a hill. A small wet season run off creek cut through the middle of it. The old timers had picked up and cracked open the slate and rocks and stacked them on the sides of the creek (a chinese coin was found close by). They had raked out this creek, but what the old boy's didn't know was that gold was laying on the hill all around them. The area is slate bedrock with water warn rocks sitting on top of the slate. The top surface is a clay base soil and you wouldn't know that all that old wash was sitting below, until you dug down a foot and hit it.
Wolfau, The area was a quartz shed on the side of a hill. A small wet season run off creek cut through the middle of it. The old timers had picked up and cracked open the slate and rocks and stacked them on the sides of the creek (a chinese coin was found close by). They had raked out this creek, but what the old boy's didn't know was that gold was laying on the hill all around them. The area is slate bedrock with water warn rocks sitting on top of the slate. The top surface is a clay base soil and you wouldn't know that all that old wash was sitting below, until you dug down a foot and hit it. 
