Fossick

I dined alone and sat after dinner in the smoking-room, for Odell never suggested the library, though I would have given a lot to fossick about that place.

I could have built a better fire myself but I was too cold when we arrived to fossick around for twigs. I went back to the warm car and let Neil and Henry fossick. Playing the dumb broad is profitable too.

How strange it was to see men do something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant. There wasn't much room for beauty in the lives of our men. The only exception was the strange Yuri Orlov who carved lovely, old-world toys from stuff he fossicked up from the forest floor.

He began to fossick again, shifting the bars of soap around until he became aware of something moving behind him.

Back in the kitchen, and with his mother off fossicking around for place mats, he tried to start the oven a couple of more times, then stood back scraching [sic] his head.

[T]he honorable member went to the Railway department, and fossicked about for information, and he found, forsooth, that there had been a little rise in the salary of a son of a member of the House.

The "fossicker" is one who wanders about old diggings, armed with a knife and pan, and who seldom sinks or drives, but "fossicks" or searches about the old heaps of dirt, or in the bottoms of deserted shafts and drives, keen-eyed after unobserved gold.

In New South Wales the bureau has been able to dispose of a large contingent of the workless by sending them to fossick for gold on old or deserted goldfields.

The best way to fossick on old dumps is to either sieve material from untouched areas (you'd do this on the opal fields) or drag down the sides with a rake. You can also find gemstones by closely examining the surface without necessarily disturbing it.

In order to fossick you must first obtain a fossicking permit (free). They are available from the tourist offices in Darwin and Alice Springs, or Gemtree […] in the Harts Range. Permission to fossick on freehold land and mineral leases must be obtained from the owner or leaseholder.