cradleful

She marched across the room and flung open the door to call to Morgan, who was at the river's edge sifting a cradleful of sludge.

Gabriel's Lady Seymour, Ana 1996

Sometimes gold is found diffused with wonderful regularity within a few inches of the surface, and so abundant that a single cradleful will yield an ounce of pure gold-dust, the miners readily realizing two or three thousand dollars per diem.

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 87, March, 1875 Various

"What, haven't you heard? it is your friend Jem! he has got a slice of luck, bought a hole of a stranger, saw the stuff glitter, so offered him thirty pounds; he was green and snapped at it; and if Jem didn't wash four ounces out the first cradleful I'm a Dutchman."

It Is Never Too Late to Mend Charles Reade 1849

The men drove their spades in close to the little hole which Robinson had made prospecting yesterday, and the very first cradleful yielded an ounce of gold-dust extremely small and pure.

It Is Never Too Late to Mend Charles Reade 1849