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+Project Gutenberg's Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining, by John S. Hittell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining
+
+Author: John S. Hittell
+
+Release Date: September 7, 2009 [EBook #29926]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HITTEL ON GOLD MINES AND MINING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HITTEL
+
+ON
+
+GOLD MINES
+
+AND
+
+MINING.
+
+
+
+QUEBEC:
+PRINTED BY G. & G. E. DESBARATS.
+
+1864.
+
+
+
+
+HITTEL
+ON
+GOLD MINES
+AND
+MINING.
+
+
+_Chief Industry._--Mining is the chief industry of California. It
+employs more men and pays larger average wages than any other branch of
+physical labor. Although it has been gradually decreasing in the amount
+of its production, in the profits to the individuals engaged in it, and
+in its relative importance in the business of the state, it is yet and
+will long continue to be the largest source of our wealth, and the
+basis to support the other kinds of occupation.
+
+_Metals obtained._--Our mines now wrought are of gold, silver,
+quicksilver, copper and coal. Ores of tin, lead, and antimony in large
+veins, beds of sulphur, alum and asphaltum; lakes of borax and springs
+of sulphate of magnesia, are also found in the state, but they are not
+wrought at the present time, though they will probably all become
+valuable in a few years. Platinum, iridium, and osmium are obtained
+with the gold in some of the placer mines, but are never found alone,
+nor are they ever the main object sought by the miner. The annual yield
+of our gold mines is about forty millions of dollars, of our quicksilver
+two millions of dollars. Our silver, copper and coal mines have been
+opened within a year, and their value is yet unknown. All our other
+mining is of little importance as compared with the gold.
+
+_Gold Mines._--Our gold mines are divided into placer and quartz. In
+the former, the metal is found imbedded in layers of earthy matter,
+such as clay, sand and gravel; in the latter it is incased in veins of
+rock. The methods of mining must be adapted to the size of the
+particles of gold, and the nature of the material in which they are
+found. In placer mining, the earthy matter containing the gold, called
+the "pay-dirt," is washed in water, which dissolves the clay and
+carries it off in solution, and the current sweeps away the sand,
+gravel and stones, while the gold, by reason of the higher specific
+gravity, remains in the channel or is caught with quicksilver. In
+quartz mining the auriferous rock is ground to a very fine powder, the
+gold in which is caught in quicksilver, or on the rough surface of a
+blanket, over which the fine material is borne by a stream of water.
+About two-thirds of our gold is obtained from the placers, and
+one-third from the quartz.
+
+A mine is defined and generally understood to mean "a subterraneous
+work or excavation for obtaining metals, metallic ores or mineral
+substances;" but this definition does not apply to our placer mines,
+which are places where gold is taken from diluvial or alluvial
+deposits. Most of the work is not subterraneous; it is done in the full
+light of day. In some of the claims the pay-dirt lies within two feet
+of the surface; in others it lies much deeper, but all the
+superincumbent matter is swept away.
+
+Water is the great agent of the placer miner; it is the element of his
+power; its amount is the measure of his work, and its cost is the
+measure of his profit. With an abundance of water he can wash every
+thing; without water he can do little or nothing. Placer mining is
+almost entirely mechanical, and of such a kind that no accuracy of
+workmanship or scientific or literary education is necessary to mastery
+in it. Amalgamation is a chemical process it is true, but it is so
+simple that after a few days' experience, the rudest laborer will
+manage it as well as the most thorough chemist.
+
+It is impossible to ascertain the amount of gold which has been taken
+from the mines of California. Records have been kept of the sums
+manifested at the San Francisco Custom House, for exportation, and
+deposited for coinage in the mints of the United States; and there is
+also some knowledge of the amounts sent in bars and dust to England;
+but we have no account of the sums carried by passengers to foreign
+countries and coined elsewhere than at London, or used as jewelry, or
+of the amount now in circulation in this state. According to the books
+of the Custom House of San Francisco, the sums manifested for export
+were as follows:
+
+In 1849, $4,921,250; in 1850, $27,676,346; in 1851, $42,582,695; in
+1852, $46,586,134; in 1853, $57,331,034; in 1854, $51,328,653; in 1855,
+$45,182,631; in 1856, $48,887,543; in 1857, $48,976,697; in 1858,
+$47,548,025; in 1859, $47,640,462; in 1860, $42,303,345; in 1861,
+$40,639,089; a total of $551,603,904 in twelve years.
+
+The exportation of gold commenced in 1848, but we have no record of the
+sums sent away in that year. Previous to 1854 very large sums were
+carried away by passengers, who gave no statement at the Custom House;
+since that year, the manifests show the exportation correctly within a
+few millions. I am entirely satisfied that the total gold yield of
+California has been not less than seven hundred millions of dollars;
+but I have not room here to state the reasons for this opinion. My
+estimate is considerably less than that of most business men of the
+state, and less than that made by Hunt's _Merchants' Magazine_. There
+was undoubtedly a regular increase in the annual yield of the mines
+from 1848 to the end of 1853; and there has been a gradual decrease
+since the beginning of 1854--a decrease perhaps not very regular but
+still certain. Since 1854 considerable sums exported from San
+Francisco, and included in our tables, came from mines beyond the
+limits of California, such as the mines in Southern Oregon, in the
+eastern part of Washington Territory, in British Columbia, and in
+Nevada Territory; and while the California gold yield has been
+decreasing, these extraneous supplies have been increasing. Several
+millions must be deducted from the annual shipments since 1858, for
+foreign gold. The gold yield will undoubtedly continue to fall, but to
+what point and at what rate no one can know. I believe that in 1870,
+the yield will not exceed thirty millions of dollars.
+
+_Placer Mines._--Placer mines are divided into many classifications.
+The first and most important is into deep and shallow. In the former
+the pay-dirt is found deep, twenty feet or more beneath the surface; in
+the latter, near the surface. The shallow or surface diggings are
+chiefly found in the beds of ravines and gullies, in the bars of
+rivers, and in shallow flats; the deep diggings are in hills and deep
+flats. The pay-dirt is usually covered by layers of barren dirt, which
+is sometimes washed, and sometimes left undisturbed, while the pay-dirt
+is taken out from beneath it through tunnels or shafts. So far as our
+present information goes, we have reason to believe that no gold
+country ever possessed so large an extent of paying placer mines, with
+the pay-dirt so near the surface, and with so many facilities for
+working them as California. In Australia the diggings are very deep and
+spotted, that is, the gold is unevenly distributed, and the supply of
+water for mining is scanty. In Siberia the winter is terribly cold
+during six months of the year. In Brazil the diggings were not so
+extensive nor so rich as in this state. Here we have numerous large
+streams coming down through the mining districts, very large bodies of
+pay-dirt, and a mild climate.
+
+After dividing placers into deep and shallow, the next classification
+will be according to their topographical position, as into hill, flat,
+bench, bar, river-bed, ancient river-bed, and gulch mines. Hill
+diggings are those where the pay-dirt is in or under a hill. Flat
+diggings are in a flat. Bench diggings are in a "bench" or narrow table
+on the side of a hill above a river. Benches of this kind are not
+uncommon in California, and they often indicate the place where the
+stream ran in some very remote age. Bars are low collections of sand
+and gravel at the side of a river and above its surface at low water.
+River-bed claims are those beneath the surface of the river at low
+water, and access is obtained to them only by removing the water from
+the bed by flumes or ditches. Ancient river-bed claims are those of
+which the gold was deposited by streams in places where no streams now
+exist. Gulch claims are those in gullies which have no water, save
+during a small part of the year. A "claim" is the mining land owned or
+held by one man or a company.
+
+The placer mines are again classified according to the manner in which,
+or the instruments with which they are wrought. There are sluice
+claims, hydraulic claims, tunnel claims, dry washing, dry digging, and
+knife claims. In 1849 and 1850, the main classification of the placers
+was into wet diggings and dry diggings, the former meaning mines in the
+bars and beds of rivers, and dry diggings were those in gullies and
+flats where water could be obtained only part of the year or not at
+all. That classification was made while nearly all the mining was done
+near the surface, before the great deposits of pay-dirt in the hills
+had been discovered, and before ditches, sluices, and the hydraulic
+process had been introduced. The class of mines then known as the "dry
+diggings," and which for several years furnished nearly half of the
+gold yield of the state, are now, with a few unimportant exceptions,
+exhausted, or left to the attention of the Chinamen.
+
+The purpose of all placer miners is not to catch all the gold in the
+dirt which they wash, but to catch the greatest possible quantity
+within a given time. It is not supposed that any process used in gold
+mining catches all the metal. Part of it is lost; in some processes a
+considerable proportion. The general estimate in California is, that
+one-twentieth of the gold in the dirt which is washed is lost. Many of
+the particles are so very small as to be invisible to the naked eye,
+and so light that their specific gravity does not avail to prevent them
+from being carried away by the water like sand. The larger pieces will
+sink to the bottom and resist the force of the water; the smaller the
+particles, the greater the danger that it will be borne away. Many
+devices have been tried to catch all the gold, but none have succeeded
+perfectly, and some which have caught a portion of what escaped from
+the ordinary modes of mining, have been found to cost more than their
+yield. The miner does not grieve about that which he cannot catch. He
+is not careful to catch all that he could. His purpose is to draw the
+largest possible revenue per day from his claim. He does not intend to
+spend many years in mining, or if he does, he has become thriftless and
+improvident. In either case, he wishes to derive the utmost immediate
+profit from his mine. If his claim contain a dollar to the ton, and he
+can save five dollars by slowly washing only six tons in a day, while
+he might make ten dollars by rapidly washing fifteen tons in a day, he
+will prefer the latter result, though he will loose twice as much of
+the precious metal by the fast as by the slow mode of working. The
+object of the miner is the practical dispatch of work, and his success
+will depend to a great extent upon the amount of dirt which he can wash
+within a given space of time. He regrets that any of the gold should be
+wasted, but his regret is because it escapes from his sluice and his
+pocket, rather than because it is lost to industry and commerce.
+
+_The Sluice._--The board-sluice is a long wooden trough, through which
+a constant stream of water runs, and into which the auriferous dirt is
+thrown. The water carries away the clay, sand, gravel and stones, and
+leaves the gold in the bottom of the sluice, where it is caught by its
+gravity and by quicksilver. The board-sluice is the great washing
+machine, and the most important instrument used in the placer mining of
+California. It washes nearly all the dirt and catches nearly all the
+placer gold of the country. It was invented here, although it had
+previously been used elsewhere; it has been more extensively employed
+here than in any other country, and it can be used here to more
+advantage than elsewhere. It is not less than fifty feet long, nor less
+than a foot wide, made of boards. The width is usually sixteen or
+eighteen inches; and never exceeds five feet. The length is ordinarily
+several hundred and sometimes several thousand feet. It is made in
+sections or "boxes" twelve or fourteen feet long. The boards are an
+inch and a half thick, and are sawn for that special purpose, the
+bottom boards being four inches wider at one end than the other. The
+narrow end of one box therefore fits in the wide end of another, and in
+that way the sluice is put together, a long succession of boxes, the
+lower end of each resting in the upper end of another, and not fastened
+together otherwise. These boxes stand upon trestles, with a descent
+varying from eight to eighteen inches in twelve feet. It is therefore
+an easy matter to put up or take down a sluice after the boxes are
+made, and it is not uncommon for the miners to haul their boxes from
+one claim to another. The descent of a sluice is usually the same
+throughout its length, and is called its "grade." If there be a fall of
+eight inches in twelve feet, the sluice has an "eight-inch grade," and
+if the fall be twice as great, it is a "sixteen-inch grade." The grade
+depends upon the character of the pay-dirt, the length of the sluice,
+and its position. The steeper the descent, the more rapidly the dirt is
+dissolved, but the greater the danger also that the fine particles of
+gold will be carried away by the water. The tougher the dirt, that is,
+the greater its resistance to the dissolving power of the water, the
+steeper, other things being equal, should be the sluice. A slow current
+does not dissolve tough clay, and that is the greater part of the
+pay-dirt, so rapidly as a swift one. The shorter the sluice, other
+things being equal, the smaller the grade should be. There is more
+danger that the fine particles of gold will be lost by a short sluice
+than by a longer one, and to diminish this danger, the rapidity of the
+current must be reduced by a small grade. The greater the amount of
+dirt to be washed, other things being equal, the steeper should be the
+grade; for a swift current will wash more dirt than a slow one. In many
+claims the pay-dirt is full of large stones and boulders, weighing from
+one hundred to five hundred pounds each, all of which must be carried
+away through the sluice. Some are sent down whole, and others are
+broken into pieces with sledge hammers before they are thrown into the
+box. These require a swift current and a large body of water. The
+larger the supply of water, the steeper the sluice is made, other
+things being equal. Of course economy and convenience of working
+require that the sluice should be near the level of the ground, and as
+that may be steep or level below the claim, the grade of the sluice
+must to some extent conform to it. There are thus a multitude of points
+to be taken into consideration in fixing the grade of a sluice; but a
+fall of less than eight or more than twenty inches, in a box of twelve
+feet, would be considered as unsuitable for the board-sluice. Sometimes
+the upper part of the sluice is made steeper so as to dissolve the
+dirt, and the lower part has a small grade to catch the gold. The
+clayey matter of ordinary pay-dirt is fully dissolved in a sluice two
+hundred feet long with a low grade, so the use of the boxes beyond that
+length is merely to catch the gold. There are claims however in which
+the clay is so extremely tough that it will roll in large balls more
+than a quarter of a mile through a steep sluice with a large head of
+water, and come out at the lower end scarcely diminished in size.
+
+The gold is caught in the sluice-boxes by false bottoms of various
+kinds. It would not do to leave the smooth boards, for the water would
+sweep all the gold away, and the boards themselves would soon be worn
+through. The most common false bottom is the longitudinal riffle-bar,
+which is from two to four inches thick, from three to seven inches
+wide, and six feet long. Two sets of these riffle-bars go into each
+sluice-box, the box being twice as long as the bar. A set of
+riffle-bars is as many as fill one half of a box. They are wedged in,
+from an inch to two inches apart; the wedging being used, because the
+bars can more readily be fastened in their places, and more easily
+taken up, than if nails were used. Before the work of sluicing
+commences, all the boxes are fitted with riffle-bars, and the bottom of
+the sluice is therefore full of holes from one to two inches wide, from
+three to seven inches deep, and six feet long. These are the places in
+which the gold, quicksilver, and amalgam are caught. Quicksilver is
+used now in nearly all the sluices, and is the more necessary the
+smaller the particles of gold. The large pieces of the metal would all
+be caught by their specific gravity without the aid of amalgamation.
+
+The sluice-boxes having been made, and set up with the proper grade,
+the water is turned in. The boxes are made of the rough boards as they
+come from the saw, and the joints are not waterproof, but the leaks are
+soon stopped by the swelling of the wood, or by the dirt. The stream of
+water in the sluice is at least two inches deep over the bottom. The
+height of the sides of the boxes is from eight inches to two feet. The
+sluice usually runs through the claim, and the auriferous dirt is
+thrown in with shovels, of which from four to twenty are constantly at
+work. A man will throw in from two to five cubic yards of dirt in one
+day. The water rushing over the dirt as it lies in the box, rapidly
+dissolves the clay and loam, and then sweeps the sand, gravel and
+stones down. The first dirt in the box goes to fill the spaces between
+the riffle-bars. After the sluicing has been in progress a couple of
+hours, some quicksilver is put in at the head of the sluice, and it
+gradually finds its way downward, most of it stopping, however, near
+where it is put in.
+
+_Amalgamation._--There are a few metals, including gold, silver, copper
+and tin, which, with quicksilver, form a peculiar chemical union called
+amalgamation, a process of great importance to the gold miner. When a
+piece of gold or silver is placed in mercury, the latter metal
+gradually penetrates through it, destroys the coherence of its
+particles, and form with it a mass like dough. A lump of gold as large
+as a bean will be soaked through in three or four days; with silver and
+copper the process is slower, but they are affected in the same manner.
+Amalgamation, though a union of a solid with a liquid, differs much
+from a solution. In the latter the union is mechanical; in the former
+it is chemical. In the latter the solid is reduced to particles of
+impalpable fineness; in the former it is not. An ounce of salt will be
+dissolved in, and nearly equally diffused through, a pint of water; but
+if an ounce of gold be thrown into a pint of quicksilver, it will,
+after forming an amalgam with the quicksilver, remain at the bottom. We
+have no texture so fine that it will strain salt out of water; but the
+particles of gold are so coarse in amalgam that they can easily be
+strained out by means of buckskin or tight cloths. However, a little
+gold will remain in the quicksilver--about the fiftieth part of an
+ounce of gold in every pound of quicksilver; and the only method of
+obtaining this gold is by retorting.
+
+Quicksilver is used in gold mining for catching the small particles of
+metal; the large ones are caught by their weight. But many of the
+particles are so small that they are almost invisible to the naked eye,
+and when in moving water they float. Miners frequently show visitors
+the fineness of their gold by putting some of the dust in a vial with
+water, and upon shaking, the particles of metal can be seen floating
+about in the clear water. Riffles, and all the devices to get the
+benefit of specific gravity, are of little use to arrest this
+"float-gold," so amalgamation is employed. If a bit of quicksilver is
+put in the way of the fine gold, the two metals unite at once and make
+a larger bulk, which can be caught.
+
+There is no such attraction between gold and quicksilver as there is
+between the magnet and iron; but when the two former metals once touch,
+an amalgam is immediately formed, and if the proportions of the metals
+be about even, they in time make a hard mass. Some gold does not
+amalgamate readily; in various diggings of Siskiyou county, the gold
+has a reddish coating, which prevents amalgamation. Grease or resin in
+the water used for washing, is also unfavorable. So is cold. Heat is
+favorable, and therefore less gold is lost in summer than in winter.
+Quicksilver that has been once used is considered better than that
+fresh from the flask.
+
+No tinned iron or copper vessel should be used for holding or panning
+out amalgam, or dirt containing amalgam; since quicksilver forms an
+amalgam with tin and copper, and will stick to the sides of a tinned or
+copper pan.
+
+In most sluices, the quicksilver is put in above the riffle-bars at
+various places along in the boxes, with a confidence that the great
+specific gravity of the metal will prevent it from being lost. The
+greater the quantity and proportion of fine gold, the greater the
+importance of the quicksilver.
+
+The best method of catching very fine gold by amalgamation is to cover
+a large copper plate with mercury, and let the dirt and water, in a
+thickness of not more than a quarter of an inch, pass over it slowly.
+There are various methods of covering copper plates with quicksilver.
+The first thing, in every case, is to wash the copper with diluted
+nitric acid, so as to remove all dirt and grease. The quicksilver may
+then be rubbed on with a rag; or, still better, it may be dissolved in
+nitric acid, and the liquid nitrate of quicksilver may be applied with
+a rag. The nitric acid will attack the copper, and leave the
+quicksilver as an amalgam on the surface of the copper. This is the
+most common process, but the nitrate of copper continues for a long
+time to come up through the quicksilver and interfere with the catching
+of the gold. When the nitrate of copper appears--it is a green
+slime--it should be scraped off and the place rubbed over with
+quicksilver. When a plate is once covered with mercury, the operation
+need never be repeated; but more mercury must be sprinkled on as the
+gold collects and forms a solid amalgam. The plate is usually three
+feet wide and six feet long, and is set nearly level. In very large
+sluices the stream should be divided so as to run over different
+plates. The slowness of the current and the shallowness of the water
+are important, for with a swift current or deep water many of the
+particles of float-gold may escape without touching the quicksilver.
+Wherever a speck of gold has fixed itself on the plate, there others
+will collect about, evidently preferring to fix themselves in a
+neighborhood rather than in a waste place. The more gold there is on a
+plate, the better it is considered to be. The seasons for cleaning up
+are usually determined by the danger of theft. Miners do not like to
+leave their gold out in quantities so large as to attract thieves. The
+amalgam is sometimes half an inch thick, and is usually, at cleaning-up
+time, a hard mass, which must be loosened by heat. The plate is put on
+a fire, and when it gets so warm that the hand can scarcely bear it,
+the amalgam is softened and loosened, so that it can be scraped off
+readily. The plate is then sprinkled anew with quicksilver, and is
+ready for use again. Mercury does not amalgamate with copper so readily
+as with gold or silver. A copper plate, the sixteenth of an inch thick,
+may be used for at least five years, and perhaps for ten; whereas a
+gold plate of equal thickness would, if exposed to the action of
+quicksilver in the same manner, fall to pieces in a few weeks. After a
+time the quicksilver pervades the copper, and gives it a silvery
+whiteness all through on the under side. It is said that a solution of
+cyanuret or prussiate of potash, is used instead of nitric acid in
+applying mercury to copper plates, and that it is still better, there
+being then no trouble with the green spots of nitrate of copper.
+
+A good amalgamated copper plate is considered as serviceable as a bed
+of quicksilver of equal size, and it is very much cheaper and more
+convenient to manage.
+
+The dirt and water should be admitted to the copper plate, by falling
+first through a sheet-iron plate, pierced with holes half an inch long
+and a sixteenth of an inch wide. Some miners place this sheet-iron
+plate immediately over the copper.
+
+Very soon after the water and dirt commence to run in the sluice, all
+the spaces between the riffle-bars are filled with sand, gravel and
+dirt; which, however, present many little inequalities of surface,
+sufficient to catch all the particles of gold larger than a pin-head.
+The largest gold is caught near the head of the sluice; and the farther
+down the sluice, the finer the gold. In some sluices, where the
+pay-dirt contains much coarse gold, the quicksilver is introduced from
+thirty to sixty yards below the head, so as to catch only the fine
+particles of metal.
+
+_Cleaning up._--The separation of the gold, amalgam, and quicksilver,
+from the dirt in the bottom of the sluice, is called "cleaning up;" and
+the period between one "cleaning up" and another is called a "run." A
+run in a common board-sluice usually lasts from six to ten days.
+Ordinarily the sluice runs only during daylight, but in some claims the
+work continues night and day. Cleaning up occupies from half a day to a
+day, and therefore must not be repeated too often, because it consumes
+too much time. In some sluices the cleaning up does not occur until the
+riffle-bars have been worn out or much bruised by the wear of the
+stones and gravel. Cleaning up is considered light and pleasant work as
+compared with other sluicing, and is often reserved for Sunday. At the
+time fixed, the throwing in of dirt ceases, and the water runs until it
+becomes clear. Five or six sets of riffle-bars, a distance of thirty or
+thirty-five feet, are taken up at the head of the sluice, and the dirt
+between the bars is washed down, while the gold and amalgam lodge above
+the first remaining set of riffle-bars, whence it is taken out with a
+scoop or large spoon, and put into a pan. Five or six more sets of bars
+are taken up, and so on down. Sometimes all the riffle-bars are taken
+up at once, save one set in every thirty-six feet, and then the work of
+cleaning up is dispatched much more rapidly.
+
+The quicksilver and amalgam taken from the sluice are put into a
+buckskin or cloth, and pressed, so that the liquid metal passes
+through, and the amalgam is retained. The amalgam is then heated, to
+drive off the mercury. This may be done either in an open pan or in a
+close retort. In the former, the quicksilver is lost; in the latter, it
+is saved. The pan is generally preferred. Often a shovel or plate of
+iron is used. Three pounds of amalgam, from which the liquid metal has
+been carefully pressed out, will yield one pound of gold. The gold
+remaining after the quicksilver has been driven off by heat from the
+amalgam, is a porous mass, somewhat resembling sponge-cake in
+appearance.
+
+_Riffle-Bars._--The riffle-bars are usually sawn longitudinally with
+the grain of the wood, but "block riffle-bars" are considered
+preferable; the latter are cut across the tree, and the grain stands
+upright in the sluice-box. The block riffle-bars are three times more
+durable than the longitudinal; and as the latter kind are worn out in a
+week in some large sluices, there is a considerable saving in using the
+former. The block riffle-bars are only two or three feet long.
+
+In some small sluices the riffle-bars are not placed in the boxes
+longitudinally, nor in sets; but one bar near the head runs downward at
+an angle of forty-five degrees to the course of the box, not touching
+its lower end to the side of the box, but leaving an open space of an
+inch there. Just below this open space another bar starts from the side
+of the box and runs downward at right angles to the course of the first
+bar, and an open space is again left at the end of this bar; and so on
+down to near the lower end of the sluice, where there are longitudinal
+riffle-bars in sets as described in the preceding paragraphs. The
+consequence of using this kind of riffle-bar is, that though much of
+the water and light dirt runs straight over the bars, the heavier
+material runs down from side to side in a zigzag course. Near the head
+of the sluice is a vessel, from which quicksilver falls by drops into
+the box; and it follows the course of riffle-bars, overtaking the gold
+which takes the same route. These zigzag riffle-bars are nailed down.
+In all sluices, men must keep watch to see that the boxes do not choke;
+that is, that the dirt and stones do not collect in one place, so as to
+make a dam, and cause the water to run over the sides, and thus waste
+the gold.
+
+There are small sluices, from which all stones as large as a doubled
+fist are thrown out. For this purpose the miner uses a sluice-fork,
+which is like a large manure-fork or garden-fork, but has tines which
+are blunt and of equal width all the way down; the bluntness being
+intended to prevent the tines from catching in the wood, and the
+equality of width to prevent the stones from getting fast in the fork.
+
+In some sluices, the "block riffle-bars"--that is, bars cut across the
+grain of the tree--are set transversely in the boxes, and about two
+inches apart.
+
+Another device is, to fill the pores of such riffle-bars with
+quicksilver. This is done by driving an iron cylinder with a sharp edge
+into the surface of the bar, then putting mercury into the cylinder,
+and pressing it into the wood. The quicksilver, thus fastened in the
+wood, catches particles of gold, which must be scraped off when the
+time for "cleaning up" comes.
+
+_Double Sluices._--Sluices are sometimes made double--that is, with a
+longitudinal division through the middle, so that there are two
+distinct sluice-boxes side by side. Two companies may be working side
+by side, so that it will be cheaper for them to build their sluices
+jointly. In some places the amount of water varies greatly; so that in
+the winter there is enough to run two sluices, and in the summer only
+one. And there are companies which wish to continue washing without
+interruption; so they wash first on one side and then on the other, and
+clean up without any interruption to the process of washing.
+
+Another device for saving gold in sluices is the "under-current box."
+There is a grating of iron bars in the bottom of a box, near the lower
+end of a sluice; and under this grating is another sluice, with an
+additional supply of clean water, and with a lower grade. The grating
+allows only the fine material to fall through; and the current of water
+being moderate, many particles of gold, that would otherwise be lost,
+are saved. Sometimes the matter from the under-current box is led back
+to the main sluice.
+
+_Rock-Sluices._--Large sluices are frequently paved with stone, which
+makes a more durable false bottom than wood, and catches fine gold
+better than riffle-bars. The stone bottoms have another advantage--that
+it is not so easy for thieves to come and clean up at night, as is
+often done in riffle-bar sluices. But, on the other hand, cleaning up
+is more difficult and tedious in a rock-sluice, and so is the putting
+down of the false bottom after cleaning up. The stones used are
+cobbles, six or eight inches through at the greatest diameter, and
+usually flattish. A good workman will pave eight hundred square feet of
+sluice-box with them in a day; and after the water and dirt have run
+over them for an hour, they are fastened very tightly by the sand
+collected between them. In large sluices, wooden riffle-bars are worn
+away very rapidly--the expense amounting sometimes, in very large and
+long sluices, to twenty or thirty dollars a day; and in this point
+there is an important saving by using the stone bottoms. They are used
+only in large sluices, and they generally have a grade of twelve or
+fourteen inches to the box of twelve feet.
+
+_Hydraulic Mining._--After the board-sluice, with its various adjuncts
+of riffle-bars, stone bottoms, copper plates, and so forth, the next
+instrument of importance in the gold-mining of California, is the
+hydraulic hose, used to let water down from a considerable height, and
+throw it under the pressure of its own weight against the pay-dirt,
+which is thus torn down, broken up, dissolved and carried into the
+sluice below. The sluice is a necessary part of hydraulic mining. The
+hose is used, not to wash the dirt, but to save digging with shovels,
+and to carry it to the sluice.
+
+The hydraulic process is applied only in claims where the dirt is deep
+and where the water is abundant. If the dirt were shallow in the claim
+and its vicinity, the necessary head of water could not be obtained.
+Hydraulic claims are usually in hills. The water is led along on the
+hill at a height varying from fifty to two hundred feet above the
+bed-rock, to the claim at the end or side of the hill, where the water,
+playing against the dirt, soon cuts a large hole, with perpendicular or
+at least steep banks. At the top of the bank is a little reservoir,
+containing perhaps not more than a hundred gallons, into which the
+water runs constantly, and from which the hose extends down to the
+bottom of the claim. The hose is of heavy duck, sometimes double, sewn
+by machine. This hose when full is from four to ten inches in diameter,
+and will bear a perpendicular column of water fifty feet high; but a
+greater height will burst it. Now, as the force of the stream increases
+with the height of the water, it is a matter of great importance to
+have the hose as strong as possible; and for this purpose, in some
+claims, it is surrounded by iron bands, which are about two inches
+wide, and are connected by four ropes which run perpendicularly down.
+The rings are about three inches apart. The "crinoline hose," thus
+made, is very flexible, and will support a column of water one hundred
+and fifty or two hundred feet high. The pipe at the end of the hose is
+like the pipe of a fire-engine hose, though usually larger. Sometimes
+the pipe will be eight inches in diameter where it connects with the
+hose, and not more than two inches at the mouth; and the force with
+which the stream rushes from it is so great, that it will kill a man
+instantaneously, and tear down a hill more rapidly than could a hundred
+men with shovels.
+
+One or two men are required to hold the pipe. They usually turn the
+stream upon the bank near its bottom until a large mass of dirt tumbles
+down, and then they wash this all away into the sluice; when they
+commence at the bottom of the bank again, and so on. If the bank is one
+hundred and fifty feet high, the mass of earth that tumbles down is of
+course immense, and the pipemen must stand far off, for fear that they
+will be caught in the avalanche. Such accidents are of daily
+occurrence, and the deaths from this cause probably are not less than
+threescore every year in the state. Often legs are broken; still more
+frequently the pipemen have warning, and escape in time. When men are
+buried in the falling dirt, the water is used to wash them out. In some
+claims, the pipe will tear down more dirt than the sluice can wash; in
+other claims, the sluice always demands more dirt than the pipe can
+bring down. In the latter case, blasting may be used to loosen the
+dirt, or the miners may undermine the bank, leaving a few columns of
+dirt for support; and then these being washed away by the pipe, the
+whole bank comes tumbling down.
+
+In hydraulic claims, all the dirt is washed; in all other kinds of
+claims, such dirt as contains no gold is thrown to one side, or
+"stripped off." "Hydraulic mining" is the highest branch of placer
+mining; it washes more dirt, and requires more water, and a larger
+sluice, than any other kind of mining. The number of men employed in a
+hydraulic claim, however, is usually small, from three to six, the
+water doing nearly all the work. In some claims a man is constantly
+employed with a heavy sledge-hammer in breaking up large stones, so
+that the pieces may be sent down the sluice. One man attends to the
+sluice, and sees that the dirt does not choke up in the sluice, or in
+the claim above it.
+
+The quantity of dirt that can be washed with a hydraulic pipe depends
+upon various circumstances--such as the supply of water, the height of
+its fall, the toughness of the dirt, and the amount of moisture in it.
+More can be washed in winter than in summer, because the dirt is then
+moister, and requires less water to loosen and dissolve it. The
+quantity of water used in a hydraulic claim is from forty to two
+hundred inches. With one hundred inches, at least thirty cubic yards
+can be washed in ten hours, on an average; and three men can do all the
+work. If there were a cent's worth of gold in each cubic foot, the
+thirty cubic yards would yield eight dollars and ten cents per day, or
+two dollars and seventy cents to the man, exclusive of the cost of
+water. But, as a matter of fact, nearly all the hydraulic claims pay
+more than that, and they will average at least three cents to the cubic
+foot, and many of them yield five cents. The water usually costs twenty
+cents an inch per day, so that one hundred inches would cost twenty
+dollars. Allowing for the water at that rate, a claim in which thirty
+cubic yards could be washed in a day with one hundred inches of water,
+and in which the dirt contained five cents to the cubic foot, would
+leave a net pay of six dollars and sixty-six cents to each man per day.
+
+One hydraulic company, of whose labors I have a note, washed two
+hundred and twenty-four thousand cubic feet of dirt in six days, using
+two hundred inches of water, and employing ten men. The wages of the
+men amounted, at four dollars per day each, to two hundred and forty
+dollars; the water cost three hundred dollars; and the waste of
+quicksilver, and wear of sluice, perhaps one hundred dollars more,
+making a total expenditure of six hundred and forty dollars: and the
+gold obtained was three thousand dollars, leaving a clear profit of
+twenty-three hundred and fifty dollars. The dirt contained one cent and
+a fifth of gold in a cubic foot. The greater the amount of water used,
+the greater the proportionate amount of dirt that can be washed, and
+the greater the proportionate profits. It is far more profitable to
+have a large sluice than a little one, if the water and dirt can be
+obtained in abundance.
+
+Usually, in a hydraulic claim, the dirt is washed down to the bed-rock;
+but in some places the washing stops far above the bed-rock, because
+there is no outlet for the water.
+
+_Blasting._--In some hydraulic claims, the dirt, in dry seasons, is
+blasted, so as to loosen it. A drift or hole is cut into the bottom of
+a hill, one or two hundred feet high, and a number of kegs of powder
+(from twenty to two hundred) are introduced, and they are fired with a
+slow match. The explosion makes an earthquake in the vicinity; and the
+ground is loosened to such an extent that there is a great saving of
+labor. The breaking up of the dirt and the exposure to the air are
+supposed to facilitate the washing greatly.
+
+More water is required for piping down banks than for washing the dirt;
+and often the sluice is almost idle for want of dirt, while the water,
+after being thrown against the hillside, runs away without doing any
+service at washing. Blasting, therefore, by loosening the earth,
+enables the hydraulic miner to have an abundant and regular supply of
+dirt in his sluice, at an expense much less than the cost of manual
+labor to dig the bank down with pick and shovel.
+
+_Tail-Sluice._--The tail-sluice is a large sluice made for rewashing
+the tailings or dirt which has previously passed through other sluices.
+It is placed ordinarily in the bed of a ravine or creek through which
+tailings run, and it receives no attention for weeks or months at a
+time, save to keep it from choking. The sluices emptying into it
+furnish both dirt and water, and in the dirt there is always a large
+amount of fine gold, as is plainly proved by the fact that some of the
+tail-sluices have paid large profits to their owners. Tail-sluices are
+always large, long and paved with stones; and sometimes they are
+double, so that one side may be cleaned up while the other continues
+washing. In a branch of the Yuba there is, or was not long since, a
+tail-sluice twenty feet wide.
+
+_Tunnel-Sluice._--A tunnel-sluice is a sluice in a tunnel. It sometimes
+happens that a considerable body of water runs out through a tunnel;
+and in such case, a sluice at the bottom of the tunnel offers the
+easiest method of getting out and washing the dirt. The tunnels are
+never cut level, but with a slightly ascending grade, so that the water
+will always run out. The grade is so low, that transverse riffle-bars
+must be used; for with longitudinal riffle-bars or stones, there would
+be too much danger of choking. These tunnel-sluices, because of their
+low grades, require much more attention than any other kind of sluices.
+
+_Ground Sluice._--All the sluices hitherto mentioned and described have
+wooden boxes, but the ground-sluice has no box: the water runs on the
+ground. The place selected for the ground-sluice is some spot where
+there is a considerable supply of water, a steep descent for it, and
+much poor dirt. The stream is turned through a little ditch, which the
+miners labor to deepen and enlarge, and when it is deep they prize off
+the high banks so that the dirt may fall down into the ditch. This is a
+very cheap and expeditious way of washing, but it is not applied
+extensively. It is used to the most advantage for washing where the
+water is abundant for only a few weeks after heavy rains, and where it
+would not pay to erect large sluices. A few cobble-stones should be
+left or thrown at intervals in the bed of the ground-sluice to arrest
+the gold, for if the bed were smooth clay, the precious metal might all
+be carried off. Quicksilver is not used in the ground-sluice. After the
+dirt has all been put through the ground-sluice, it is cleaned up in a
+short board-sluice, or a tom.
+
+_Long Tom._--The tom or long tom, an instrument extensively used in the
+Californian mines in 1851 and 1852, but now rarely seen, is a wooden
+trough about twelve feet long, eighteen inches wide at the upper end,
+and widening at the lower to thirty inches, with sides eight inches
+high. It is used like a board-sluice, but has no riffle-bars, and at
+the lower end its bottom is of sheet-iron, perforated with holes half
+an inch in diameter. This sheet-iron is turned up at the lower end, so
+that the water never runs over there, but always drops down through the
+perforated sheet-iron or riddle, into a little riffle-box, containing
+transverse riffle-bars. A stream of water of about ten inches makes a
+"tom-head"--or the amount considered necessary for a tom--through the
+tom, which has a grade similar to that of a board-sluice. The dirt is
+thrown in at the head of the tom, and a man is constantly employed in
+moving the dirt with a shovel, throwing back such pieces of clay as are
+not dissolved, to the head of the tom, and throwing out stones. From
+two to four men can work with a tom; but the amount of dirt that can be
+washed is not half that of a sluice. The tom may be used to advantage
+in diggings where the amount of pay-dirt is small and the gold coarse.
+The riffle-box contains quicksilver, and as the dirt in it is kept
+loose by the water falling down on it from the riddle above, a large
+part of the gold is caught; but where the particles are fine, much must
+be lost.
+
+_Cradle._--The rocker or cradle is still less than the tom and inferior
+in capacity. It bears some resemblance in shape and size to a child's
+cradle, and rests upon similar rockers. The cradle-box is about forty
+inches long, twenty wide, and four high, and it stands with the upper
+end about two feet higher than the lower end, which is open so that the
+tailings can run out. On the upper end of the cradle-box stands a
+hopper or riddle-box twenty inches square, with sides four inches high.
+The bottom of this riddle box is of sheet-iron, perforated with holes
+half an inch in diameter. The riddle-box is not nailed to the
+cradle-box, but can be lifted off without difficulty. Under the riddle
+is an "apron" of wood or cloth, fastened to the sides of the cradle-box
+and sloping down to the upper end of it. Across the bottom of the
+cradle-box are two riffle-bars about an inch square, one in the middle,
+the other at the end of the box. The dirt is shovelled into the hopper,
+the "cradler" sits down beside his machine, and while with one hand
+with a ladle he pours water from a pool at his side upon the dirt, with
+the other he rocks the cradle. With the water and the motion the dirt
+is dissolved, and carried down through the riddle, falling upon the
+apron which carries it to the head of the cradle-box, whence it runs
+downward and out, leaving its gold, black sand, and heavier particles
+of sand and gravel behind the riffle-bars. The man who rocks a cradle
+learns to appreciate the fact, that the "golden sands" of California
+are not pure sand, but are often extremely tough clay, a hopperful of
+which must be shaken about for ten minutes before it will dissolve
+under a constant pouring of water. Many large stones are found in the
+pay-dirt. Such as give an unpleasant shock to the cradle, as they roll
+from side to side of the riddle-box, are pitched out by hand, and after
+a glance to see that no gold sticks to their sides, are thrown away;
+but the smaller ones are left until the hopperful has been washed, so
+that nothing but clean stones remain in the riddle, and then the
+cradler rises from his seat, lifts up his hopper, and with a jerk
+throws all the stones out. The water and the rocking are both
+necessary. Without the water, the dirt could not be washed; and without
+the rocking, the dirt would dissolve very slowly, and the gold would
+most of it be lost. The rocking keeps the dirt in the bottom of the
+cradle more or less loose, so that the particles of gold can sink down
+in it, whereas if the cradle stood still, the sand there would almost
+immediately pack down into a hard floor, over which the gold would run
+almost as readily as over a board. The whole business of washing with a
+cradle, is a repetition of the process already described--some dirt,
+about one-third or one-fourth of what the hopper would hold, if full,
+is put into the hopper, and while the cradle is rocked with one hand,
+the other pours in the water. The cradle is cleaned up two or four
+times in a day. The cleaning up is done by lifting the hopper, taking
+out the apron, scraping up all the dirt in the bottom of the cradle
+with an iron spoon, putting it into a pan and washing out the dirt, so
+that only the gold will be left. This last process is called panning
+out, and will be described in the next section. Most of the gold
+collects above the upper riffle-bar, including all the larger lumps. If
+the apron be of rough woollen cloth, some of the fine gold will be
+caught there. In diggings where the gold is very fine, the hopper is
+sometimes placed over the lower end of the cradle, and the apron is
+made twice as long, and with a lower inclination than in the more
+common form of the rocker. The water for the cradle should be supplied
+by a little ditch, with a reservoir at the head of the cradle, to
+contain five or six gallons. The dipper should be of tin, shaped like a
+basin, hold about a gallon when full, and have a handle an inch and a
+half in diameter, and eight inches long. The difference of height
+between the upper and lower ends of the cradle should not be more than
+two inches: a steeper inclination will make the current running through
+it too strong, and the gold will be carried off; and, on the other
+hand, if the cradle be nearer a level it will be hard to rock, and the
+dirt in the bottom will pack more rapidly. The amount of dirt that can
+be washed in a day with a cradle, varies from one to three cubic yards.
+The dirt is usually shovelled into a pan or bucket, from which it is
+thrown into the hopper. The miners usually measure the amount of dirt
+washed by the number of "pans." One man working alone with a cradle
+ought to wash from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty pans in a day,
+and two men will wash twice as much. A pan may contain one-third or
+one-half of a cubic foot. Two men can work more conveniently with the
+rocker than one. There is enough work to give constant employment to a
+cradler and a shoveller. The latter has a couple of buckets or pans,
+which he fills alternately, always keeping one full and near the
+cradler, so that without moving his feet he can pick it up and empty it
+into the riddle-box. If the rocker have only one man, he must stop
+rocking after washing every pan and get more dirt. This delay is
+injurious to the process of washing, because it allows the dirt in the
+bottom of the cradle to harden and pack, and some gold is always lost
+as a consequence. If the dirt and water be convenient, not more than
+two men can work to a profit with a rocker. But sometimes it happens
+that water cannot be led to the claim, and in such case the dirt must
+be carried to the water, a greater weight of which is used than of
+dirt. At least three times as much water as dirt is required for
+washing. If the distance from the hole to the water be not over ten or
+twenty feet, the miners will usually carry the dirt in buckets; if
+farther they will use wheelbarrows; and sometimes for greater distances
+pack-mules or waggons. The greater the distance, the more the men
+required for carrying the dirt. Sometimes, too, it happens that the
+claim is troubled by water, and then one man may be constantly employed
+in bailing.
+
+It is of great importance in mining with the cradle, to have the cradle
+placed within four or five feet of the hole from which the pay-dirt is
+obtained, and to have a good supply of water at the head of the cradle,
+and then to have a good descent below the cradle, so that the tailings
+may all be carried away by the water, so as not to accumulate. The
+rocker washes about one-half the amount of dirt that can be washed by
+an equal number of men with the tom, one-fourth of what can be washed
+with the sluice, and one-hundredth of the amount that can be washed
+with the hydraulic process; but it is peculiarly fitted for some kinds
+of diggings. Many little gullies, containing coarse gold in their beds,
+cannot obtain water for washing except during rains, and then only for
+a few days at a time. In these gullies the cradle can be used to the
+best advantage, for it can easily be transported, and it is very good
+for saving coarse gold. While dirt that would pay from ten to
+twenty-five cents, was abundant at the surface of the earth in the
+Californian mines, the cradle was extensively used, but now it has been
+abandoned by the whites, and is left to the Chinamen, who think
+themselves doing well if they make seventy-five cents or one dollar per
+day.
+
+The great difficulty in mining with the cradle is, that the sand will
+"pack," or make a hard mass on a level with the top of the riffle-bars,
+and the gold then is lost. So long as the cradle is in motion the dirt
+does not pack, but when the rocking ceases, the mass hardens in a few
+minutes. If the miner leaves his cradle standing for fifteen minutes,
+he stirs up the dirt with his spoon before commencing again to wash.
+One device to prevent packing is to put a little block under each end
+of the rockers, so that at the end of every motion the cradle receives
+a shock. Quicksilver is sometimes used in cradles, but not usually.
+
+_Pan._--The pan is used in all branches of gold mining, either as an
+instrument for washing, or as a receptacle for gold, amalgam, or rich
+dirt. It is made of stiff tin or sheet-iron, with a flat bottom about a
+foot across, and with sides six inches high, rising at an angle of
+forty-five degrees. A little variation in the size or shape of the pan
+will not injure its value for washing. Sheet-iron is preferable to tin,
+because it is usually stronger and does not amalgamate with mercury.
+The pan is the simplest of all instruments used for washing auriferous
+dirt. Some dirt, not enough to fill it full, is put in, and the pan is
+then put under water. The water ought to be not more than a foot deep,
+so that the pan may rest on the bottom, while the miner inserts his
+fingers in and under the dirt and lifts it up a little, so that the
+whole mass is wet. If the water be deep, the pan may be held in one
+hand while the other is used to stir up the dirt, but it is more
+convenient to take both. The dirt having been filled with water, the
+miner catches the pan at the sides, raises that part toward his body,
+and lowers the outer edge a little, and commences to shake the pan from
+side to side, holding it so that all the dirt is under water, and so
+that a little of the dirt can escape over the outer edge. The earthy
+part of the dirt is rapidly dissolved by the water, assisted by the
+shaking of the pan and the rolling of the gravel from side to side, and
+forms a mud which runs out while clean water runs in. The light sand
+flows out with the thin mud, while the lumps of tough clay and the
+large stones remain. The stones collect on the top of the clay, and
+they are scraped together with the fingers and thrown out. This process
+continues, the pan being gradually raised in the water, and its outer
+edge depressed, until all the earthy matter has been dissolved, and
+that as well as the stones swept away by the water, while the gold
+remains at the bottom. Panning is not difficult, but it requires
+practice to learn the degree of shaking, which dissolves the dirt and
+throws out the stones most rapidly without losing the gold. If the
+shaking be too mild and slow, the process consumes too much time;
+whereas if it be too rapid and violent, the gold is carried off with
+the stones. Sometimes the pan is shaken so that the dirt receives a
+rotary motion. This is the most rapid method of washing dirt, but also
+the most dangerous. The pan must always be used in cleaning up the dirt
+which collects in the cradle, in prospecting, and frequently in washing
+small quantities of dirt collected in other kinds of placer mining.
+Amalgam can be separated from dirt by washing, almost as well as gold.
+In panning out, it frequently happens that considerable amounts of
+black sand containing fine particles of gold are obtained, and this
+sand is so heavy that it cannot be separated from the gold by washing,
+while it is easily separated by that process from gravel, stones and
+common dirt. The black sand is dried, and a small quantity of it is
+placed in a "blower," a shallow tin dish open at one end. The miner
+then holding the pan with the open end from him, blows out the sand,
+leaving the particles of gold. He must blow gently, just strong enough
+to blow out the sand, and no stronger. From time to time he must shake
+the blower so as to change the position of the particles, and bring all
+the sand in the range of his breath. The gold cannot be cleaned
+perfectly in this manner, but the sand contains iron, and the little of
+it remaining is easily removed by a magnet. The blower should be very
+smooth, and made of either tin, brass or copper.
+
+_Dry Washing._--Dry washing is a method of winnowing gold from dirt. In
+many parts of the mining districts of California, water cannot be
+obtained during the summer for mining purposes. The miner therefore
+manages to wash his dirt without water. He takes only rich dirt, and
+putting it on a raw hide, he pulverizes all the lumps and picks out the
+large stones. He then with a large flat basin throws the dirt up into
+the air, catches it as it comes down, throws it up again, and repeats
+this operation until nothing but the gold remains. Of course a pleasant
+breeze, that will carry away the dust, is a great assistance to the
+operation. Sometimes two men have a hide or a blanket, with which they
+throw up the dirt. The process is very similar to the ancient method of
+separating grain from chaff. The miner who devotes himself to dry
+washing must be very particular to take only rich dirt, so he scrapes
+the bed-rock carefully. He never digs very deep--not more than twenty
+feet; and when he goes beyond seven or eight feet he "coyotes," or
+burrows after the pay-dirt. He may coyote into the side of a hill, or
+sink a shaft and coyote in all directions from it. This style of mining
+is named from the resemblance of the holes to the burrows of the
+coyote, or Californian wolf. Coyoting is not confined to the dry
+washing, but is used also by miners washing with the pan and cradle.
+One of the Congressmen elected some years ago to represent California
+at Washington, was a miner at the time of his nomination, and was so
+fond of coyoting, that he was generally known as "Coyote Joe."
+
+_Dry Digging._--Dry digging is that mining where the miner, after using
+the shovel to strip off the barren dirt, scrapes the pay-dirt over with
+a knife, picking out the particles of gold as he comes to them, and
+throwing away the earthy matter. This is a slow process, but in rich
+placers may be profitable. The miner is, of course, particular to
+examine all the crevices in the bed-rock; and if the material be slate,
+he digs up part of it, to see whether the gold has not found its way
+into cracks scarcely perceptible on the surface. "Dry digging," as a
+mode of mining, must not be confounded with "dry diggings," a kind of
+mining ground which has been described near the beginning of this
+chapter.
+
+Knife-mining differs a little from dry digging. In the latter, a shovel
+is used to strip off the barren dirt; whereas the knife-mining is
+practised in those places where the gold is deposited in crevices in
+rocks along the banks of streams, without any covering of barren dirt,
+so that the knife alone is used in scraping out the dirt; and afterward
+the dirt, being placed in a pan, may be washed in water, which is never
+used in dry digging.
+
+_Puddling-Box._--The puddling-box is a rough wooden box, about a foot
+deep and six feet square, and is used for dissolving very tough clay.
+The clay is thrown into the box, with water, and a miner stirs the
+stuff with a hoe until the clay is all thoroughly dissolved, when he
+takes a plug from an auger-hole about four inches from the bottom, and
+lets the thin solution of the clay run off, while the heavier material,
+including the gold, remains at the bottom. He then puts in the plug
+again, fills up the box with water, throws in more clay, and repeats
+the process again and again until night, when he cleans up with a
+cradle or pan. The puddling-box is used only in small mining
+operations, and never with the sluice, or in hydraulic claims.
+
+_Quicksilver-Machine._--The quicksilver-machine, or Burke rocker, is a
+cradle about seven feet long, two feet wide, and two feet high. In the
+bottom are a number of compartments, all containing quicksilver. One
+man rocks the machine without cessation. A constant stream of water
+pours into the machine at its head. The riddle extends the whole length
+of the machine; and the stones, after being washed clean, fall off the
+riddle at the lower end. One man is employed constantly working with a
+shovel to keep the dirt on the riddle under the stream of water, and in
+throwing off the big stones. If the pay-dirt is very convenient, two
+men can shovel enough to keep the machine in operation. The Burke
+rocker was extensively used in California eight and ten years ago, but
+now it is a great rarity.
+
+_Tunnel-Mining._--A tunnel, in California mining, is an adit or drift
+entering a hill-side, or running out from a shaft. Mining-tunnels are
+usually nearly horizontal--those entering hill-sides having a slight
+ascent, for the double purpose of draining the mine, and to facilitate
+the removal of the pay-dirt. In a few hills the tunnels run downward at
+an angle of twenty degrees or more, to avoid veins or ledges of rock,
+which would have to be blasted through if the tunnel were cut
+horizontally; but this can only be done with safety in hills which are
+drained by older horizontal tunnels.
+
+The mining-tunnel does not run through a hill, but only into it. The
+length of tunnels varies greatly; the longest are about a mile. The
+usual height is seven feet, the width five feet. Ordinarily the top
+must be supported by timbers, to prevent it from falling in, and not
+unfrequently the sides must also be protected by boards. The cost of
+cutting a tunnel varies from two to forty dollars a longitudinal foot,
+according to the nature of the ground, the cost of getting timbers, &c.
+Tunnels are usually made by companies of eight or ten men, of whom
+one-half may be merchants, lawyers, physicians or office-holders, and
+the remainder laboring miners. The latter class do the work; the former
+furnish provisions and tools, and a certain amount of cash weekly until
+the pay-dirt is reached. Two or three men work at a time cutting a
+tunnel; one or two to dig the earth, and one or two to haul it out. The
+dirt of the first fifty yards is hauled out in a wheelbarrow; beyond
+that distance a little tram-way or railroad is laid down, and the dirt
+is hauled out in cars, pushed by the miners. It is not customary to use
+horses. It is common to have two relays of laborers--one set working
+from noon to midnight, the other from midnight to noon. Work in a
+tunnel is as pleasant at night as in the daytime. When a company is
+rich, or has many laborers, it may have three relays, each to work
+eight hours in the twenty-four.
+
+It is not uncommon for two companies, owning adjacent claims in a hill,
+to unite and cut a tunnel on joint account along the dividing line.
+They go in until they reach the pay-dirt, and then a surveyor is
+employed to run the line between their claims, and the tunnel is
+continued through the pay-dirt. The dirt from the tunnel is washed for
+the joint account of the two companies. After the dividing line has
+been established, each company keeps on its own side, and each has its
+time to use the tram-way. They may also have a joint-stock sluice at
+the mouth of the tunnel--one company having the privilege of using the
+sluice one week, and the other the next. All the dirt brought out in a
+week can readily be washed in a day. The work of taking out the
+pay-dirt after the main tunnel has been cut, is called "drifting;" and
+the holes made by the men engaged in it are termed "drifts." The drifts
+are usually not so high as the tunnels. The large stones and barren
+dirt obtained in the drifts are piled up here and there to sustain the
+earth overhead. Sometimes wooden posts are likewise necessary.
+
+_Shafts._--Shafts are used in prospecting, and also in mining, where
+the claims are deep and cannot be reached by either the hydraulic
+process or the tunnel. The prospecting shaft is sometimes sunk into
+hills supposed to be auriferous, where the shaft is far less expensive
+than the tunnel. After the shaft demonstrates that the dirt is rich,
+and precisely the altitude at which it lies, a tunnel is cut to strike
+it. The shaft may be the cheaper for prospecting, but the tunnel is
+usually the cheaper if any large amount of dirt is to be taken out.
+
+The shaft is dug by one man in the hole, and one or two are employed at
+a windlass in hauling up the dirt. Mining-shafts in placer diggings are
+rarely over one hundred feet deep; but one was dug in Trinity county to
+the depth of six hundred feet, for the purpose of prospecting, but it
+found neither pay-dirt nor the bed-rock.
+
+_River-Mining._--River-mining is mining for gold in the beds of rivers,
+below low-water mark. The only practicable method of doing this is by
+damming the stream, and taking the water out of its bed, in a ditch or
+flume. It has been proposed by persons who never saw the mines, to get
+the gold by dredging, or with a diving-bell; but such schemes are
+absurd in the eyes of miners. The rivers in which the gold is found are
+mountain-torrents, in which a canoe can scarcely float in summer, much
+less a dredging machine; and any large scoop working under water would
+miss the crevices and corners in the rocks, where most of the gold is
+found. As the water is very seldom more than a couple of feet deep, a
+diving-bell would be of little service. The flume, the ditch, and the
+wing-dam, are the chief tasks of the river-miner. The ditch is rarely
+used, because the banks of the mining-streams are usually so steep,
+high, rocky and crooked, that a flume is cheaper. The wing-dam is not
+often used, because the river-beds are in most places too narrow. The
+flume is almost universally employed.
+
+The work of river-mining can be done only during the summer and fall,
+while the water is low, and while the miner can have confidence that it
+will not rise. It may be as low in January as in August, but the winter
+is the season of rains; and when the flood comes, it sweeps dams,
+flumes and every thing before it. If the dam and flume be commenced too
+early in the season, they may be carried off before they are finished;
+and it frequently happens that they are destroyed in the fall just when
+the miners are commencing to reap the reward of their summer's labor.
+
+River-mining has many disadvantages, as compared with other branches of
+mining. The miner cannot work at it more than half the year; he cannot
+prospect the dirt which is hidden under water; he must erect expensive
+dams and flumes, which can be used for only a few months; and then he
+is exposed to floods which may come and destroy all his work before he
+has commenced to wash. These disadvantages, and the exhaustion of most
+of the river-diggings in the state, have almost put an end to
+river-mining in California. In a few cases, extensive fluming
+enterprises have proved profitable; but, as a general rule,
+river-mining in this state has cost more than it has produced. A river
+is seldom flumed for less than three hundred yards, and sometimes for a
+mile; and the lumber and labor required to make so long a flume, and
+one large enough to hold all the water of a river, are very expensive.
+The dam will always leak, and water will run into the bed from the
+adjacent hills and mountains, and this water must be lifted out by
+pumps driven by wheels placed in the flume. The river-beds are full of
+large rocks, weighing from one to ten tons, and these must be moved by
+machinery, to allow the dirt to be taken out.
+
+River-mining is now never undertaken by an individual, but always by
+large associations, generally called "fluming companies," sometimes
+composed of miners exclusively, sometimes of miners and all the
+principal business-men living near the place where the work is to be
+done. The lawyers, doctors and office-holders, pay their assessments in
+cash; the merchants furnish provisions, the lumbermen supply lumber,
+and the miners make the dam, and help the carpenters build the flume.
+
+_Beach-Mining._--Beach-mining is the business of washing the sands of
+the ocean-beach. Between Point Mendocino, in California, and the mouth
+of the Umpqua River, in Oregon, the beach-sand contains gold, and in
+some places it is very rich. The beach is narrow, and lies at the foot
+of a bluff bank of auriferous sand. In times of storm, the waves wash
+against this bank, undermine it, sweep away the pieces which tumble
+down, leaving the gold on the beach. The gold is in very fine
+particles, and it moves with the heavier sand, which alters its
+position frequently under the influence of the waves and surf. One day,
+the beach will have six feet depth of sand; the next, there will be
+nothing save bare rocks. The sand differs greatly in richness at
+various times: one day, it will be full of golden specks; a few days
+later, at the same place it will be barren. The sand in the mean time
+has been moved by the waves, and replaced by other sand.
+
+It is a very difficult matter to know where the sand is rich and where
+it is not. The companies employed in mining on the beach number about
+ten men; and there is a foreman who rides out early every morning,
+following the beach about two miles to the northward and two miles to
+the southward of the camp, for the purpose of finding where the sand is
+the best. So changeable is the sand, that a new examination is made
+every day; and only three or four men are supposed to be good judges of
+the quality of sand, from its appearance.
+
+When the foreman has selected a place, he orders all the men to it, and
+they go with twenty pack-mules, which carry the sand in _alforjas_, or
+raw hide sacks, to the place of washing, which is up on the bluff,
+probably a mile or more distant from the spot where the sand is
+obtained. It happens occasionally that the foreman rides long distances
+on the beach, and sometimes he will order the sand to be obtained ten
+miles from the washing-place. The sand must, of course, be very rich,
+to pay for such transportation, but the beach-sand at times in the
+sunlight is said to be actually dazzling yellow with gold. The purpose
+of going upon the bluff to wash it, is to get fresh water for washing;
+for the sea-water is not so good, nor can it be obtained conveniently.
+The richest dirt is that the farthest down on the beach, so still
+weather and low tide are the best times for getting it. When a rich
+place is discovered low down on the beach, great exertions are made to
+get as much of the sand as possible before the tide rises. When high
+tide and storm come together, little can be done. The sand, having been
+separated from all clay and soluble matter by the action of the sea, is
+very easily washed, and all collected in a month can be washed in two
+days in a sluice.
+
+_Mining-Ditches._--The placer-mines of California would yield very
+little gold, were it not for the numerous ditches which supply them
+with water for washing. The auriferous districts are very dry in
+summer, and in some places there is not a spring nor a brook within
+many miles. The artificial ditch supplies the want. The ditches are
+made by large companies, which sell the water by the "inch." An inch of
+water is as much as will run out of an orifice an inch square, with the
+water standing six or seven inches deep in the flume over the orifice.
+The depth of water over the orifice is called the "head." The orifice
+is usually two inches high, and as long as necessary to give the amount
+of water desired. Nobody wants less than ten or twelve inches for
+mining: a "sluice-head" is about eighteen inches; a "hydraulic-head" is
+from forty to two hundred inches. The water, however, is not measured
+accurately. Of course the amount which runs through the orifice will
+depend to a considerable extent upon the "head," which is usually
+greater in the morning than at night. At sunrise there may be fifteen
+inches head, and at sunset only three. The water collects during the
+night, and is exhausted during the day. The price of water is in no
+place less than ten cents an inch per day; in some places it is forty
+cents; the average is about twenty cents.
+
+Many of these ditches are extensive enterprises, and have cost hundreds
+of thousands of dollars. When they cross ravines and valleys, large
+flumes--wonders of carpentry--must be built. Some of these are two
+hundred feet high and a mile long, and so large that a horse and waggon
+can be driven through them. In all, save length and durability, they
+are as wonderful as the great Roman aqueducts, whose tall ruins still
+stand in the Campagna, near the Eternal City. In some cases iron tubes
+have been used, and although they are very expensive, yet they may pay
+for themselves, by preventing evaporation, leaking and soaking, which
+take away much of the water from flumes and ditches.
+
+_Prospecting._--"Prospecting" is the search for gold. The instruments
+used by the prospector for placer-mines are usually the pan, pick and
+shovel. He should be familiar with the general laws of the distribution
+of gold, and then try the dirt in the most favorable places. If there
+is any gold in a district, he can scarcely fail to find specks of it by
+washing dirt from the bed-rock in the ravines, and in bars. The
+existence of gold in a district having been established, close
+observation will suggest to the prospector where he may reasonably
+expect to find the best diggings. It is usually found that placer-gold
+is collected in those places where, if he had been familiar with the
+ancient topography of the country, he should have had reason to suppose
+that it would be.
+
+_Quartz Mining._--Quartz mining differs much from placer mining. For
+the former, more capital, more experience, more complicated machinery
+and richer material are required than for the latter. The placer miner
+throws the dirt into the water, which then does the work; whereas the
+pulverizing of rock is a nice operation, requiring constant attention.
+Quartz requires a mill and water-power; placer dirt is washed in a
+simple sluice. Dirt containing ten cents in the cubic yard may pay the
+hydraulic miner, but the quartz miner must have a hundred times as much
+in a cubic yard of vein stone, or he cannot work. The placer gold, when
+freed from the baser material surrounding it, is much of it in coarse
+particles, which are easily caught by their specific gravity; the
+quartz gold must be reduced to a fine powder before it be set free from
+its gangue, and with the fineness of the particles increases the
+difficulty of catching them.
+
+Auriferous quartz lodes are often found by accident. Not unfrequently
+it happens that a rich streak of pay-dirt in a placer claim is followed
+up to the quartz vein from which it came. While miners are out walking
+or hunting, they occasionally will come upon lodes in which the gold is
+seen sparkling. Some good leads have been found by men employed in
+making roads and cutting ditches. The quartz might be covered with
+soil, but the pick and shovel revealed its position and wealth. In
+Tuolumne county in 1858, a hunter shot a grizzly bear on the side of a
+steep _canon_, and the animal tumbling down, was caught by a projecting
+point of rock. The hunter followed his game, and while skinning the
+animal, discovered that the point of rock was auriferous quartz. In
+Mariposa county, in 1855, a robber attacked a miner, and the latter saw
+the rock behind his assailant sparkle in the sunlight, at a spot where
+a bullet struck a wall of rock. He killed the robber, and found that
+the rock was gold-bearing quartz. In Nevada county, several years ago,
+a couple of unfortunate miners who had prepared to leave California,
+and were out on a drunken frolic, started a large boulder down a steep
+hill. On its way down, it struck a brown rock and broke a portion of it
+off--exposing a vein of white quartz which proved to be auriferous,
+induced the disappointed miners to remain some months longer in the
+state, and paid them well for remaining. Science and experience do not
+appear to give much assistance in prospecting for quartz lodes.
+Chemists, geologists, mineralogists and old miners, have not done
+better than ignorant men and new-comers. Most of the best veins have
+been discovered by poor and ignorant men. Not one has been found by a
+man of high education as a miner or geologist. No doubt geological
+knowledge is valuable to a miner, and it should assist him in
+prospecting; but it has never yet enabled any body to find a valuable
+claim.
+
+_Distribution of Gold in Quartz._--The rich quartz-veins of California
+extend from Kern River to the Siskiyou, are found on hills, in _canons_
+and in vales. They are at least two thousand feet above the level of
+the sea, and not more than ten thousand feet above it. Their course is
+generally from north-north-west to south-south-east, and they dip
+steeply to the eastward, sometimes being nearly perpendicular. They
+differ in thickness from a line to sixty feet. Quartz veins are very
+numerous in most of the mining districts, so the task is not to find
+the veins, but rather to find those which are gold-bearing. It is
+supposed that nearly all large veins come to the surface of the
+bed-rock or "country;" but many of them are covered with soil and thus
+are hidden. Hidden veins are called "blind;" those plainly visible on
+the surface are called "croppings veins," because their position is
+shown by the out-croppings. Experience has not ascertained whether
+large or small veins are more likely to contain gold. It is found in
+both. The porous quartz, or that containing many cavities, is more
+frequently found auriferous and richly auriferous, than the very
+compact quartz. The best gold-bearing veins are usually yellowish or
+brownish in tinge, near the surface at least; but very rich specimens
+are found in white and bluish-white rock. Most quartz veins in
+California contain a little gold; the metal seems to have been
+distributed most lavishly, but unfortunately in nine-tenths of the
+veins, the proportion of metal is too small to pay. Most of the large
+veins are supposed to run for miles upon miles, though they can rarely
+be traced clearly on the surface for more than a furlong. The
+auriferous veins vary much in richness. No vein is wrought for more
+than a few hundred feet. Beyond that, it is either too poor to pay, or
+the vein is hidden. Some persons have supposed that there is one great
+gold-bearing quartz vein running along the side of the Sierra Nevada,
+from Mariposa to Plumas county, and that many of the richest claims are
+really in this one vein; but this a supposition which cannot be proved
+now. Sometimes a vein seems to spread out and divide into a number of
+smaller veins, all of which afterward unite again. These points of
+junction, and the narrower places in the vein, are usually richer than
+other parts of it. When two veins cross each other, one may be
+auriferous on one side of the intersection and not on the other; but in
+this case the other vein will be auriferous on both sides. It is as
+though they were streams, one rich, the other barren, and that after
+meeting, the wealth of the one was divided between them. It is a
+general rule that metalliferous veins running parallel with the strata
+of the bed-rock or country are not extensive. In fact they are rather
+deposits than veins, and though often extremely rich are soon
+exhausted, while the lodes which run across the stratification, run far
+and deep, and have a regular and straight course and dip. Lodes lying
+between two different kinds of rock, are usually richer than those
+which have the same kind of rock on both sides. Thus it is said that
+the richest veins of auriferous quartz in California, have been
+discovered at the intersection of trap and serpentine, and the richest
+places in veins are where they cross from one kind of bed-rock into
+another. The richest part of a lode of auriferous quartz is almost
+invariably on the lower side of the vein, near the foot-wall. All these
+are facts to be remembered by the prospector as a guide, and an
+assistance to him in his search for a rich gold-bearing vein. If the
+lode is covered with earthy matter, he may sometimes trace its course
+by the difference in the color of the dirt and stones over it from that
+elsewhere. When the prospector finds dirt and stones on a vein,
+evidently disintegrated portions of it, he should wash some of the dirt
+in a pan, and if he finds no gold, there is a strong presumption that
+the vein is barren.
+
+_Prospecting Quartz Rock._--After finding a gold-bearing vein, the
+question arises whether it will pay. Great sums are lost in gold-mining
+countries by injudicious investments in mills and machinery to work the
+auriferous rock, and persons going into the business should be
+particularly careful not to commit this great error. The business of
+quartz mining has great profits, but also great pecuniary dangers
+connected with it. It is rarely that all the rock of a vein will pay
+for working. In some lodes, the vein-stone will average one hundred
+dollars to the ton, for all the stone found in a certain part of the
+lode, but beyond that the rock may be poor or worthless. Picked
+specimens may be worth several thousand dollars to the ton, but perhaps
+not more than a ton of such specimens has been obtained in the best
+lode ever opened in the state. The most profitable lodes are those
+which have a large supply of rock, easily to be obtained, and all of it
+yielding something above the cost of working. The common method of
+ascertaining whether rock will pay, is to pulverize a little of it and
+wash it in a horn spoon. In taking out the quartz rock in large lodes,
+it is important to take out only that which will pay, and to determine
+this, the superintendent of the quarry-men must occasionally test the
+vein-stone. He takes several little pieces of it, average specimens,
+places them on a hard, smooth, flat stone, about a foot square, on
+which he crushes them with a stone muller four inches square, and then
+by rubbing with the muller he reduces them to a fine powder. He has a
+horn spoon, made of a large ox-horn, with a bowl about three inches
+wide, and eight inches long, being merely one-half of the horn in its
+natural shape. With this spoon he washes out the powder in water, and
+if he does not find a speck of gold or a "color," as it is called, in a
+pound of the rock, he infers that it will not pay. The three principal
+quartz mines in the state are those of Fremont in Mariposa county, of
+the Allison company in Nevada county, and of the Sierra Butte company
+in Sierra county. The first has produced $75,000 in a month, the second
+$60,000, and the third $20,000, but the average is probably thirty per
+cent. less, and the expenses about thirty per cent. of the total
+product. The average yield of the Fremont rock is fourteen dollars to
+the ton, of the Sierra Butte rock eighteen dollars, and that of the
+Allison company, according to report, has for more than a year at a
+time been one hundred dollars per ton. The cost of working quartz rock,
+including quarrying, crushing and amalgamating, is in the best mills
+from five to ten dollars per ton. The width of the vein, the softness
+of the rock, the amount of work done, and the skill and industry of the
+workmen, all are items of great importance in estimating the cost of
+quartz-mining. It is a business which the owner of the mill ought to
+understand. The cost of quarrying common quartz rock is about two
+dollars per ton, that is, for mill-owners that understand the business
+and superintend the labor themselves. When given out by the job, it
+usually cost more. When quartz is crushed in a custom mill, that is, a
+mill built to crush for all applicants, the cost is rarely less than
+five dollars per ton, and in Washoe, the price was at one time thirty
+dollars per ton; but in the large mills, where many tons are crushed
+every day, is about two dollars per ton.
+
+_The Divining Rod._--In prospecting for auriferous quartz, use is
+sometimes made of the divining rod, a practice not without credit with
+some good miners. The rod is a fork of a green hazel-bush, shaped like
+a V, with the arms about a foot long. The prospector holds the end of
+an arm in each hand, with the point of the V directed forward
+horizontally, and as he walks along, the point turns down whenever he
+comes over a metalliferous vein, metallic body or water. It is supposed
+that very few persons can use the divining rod effectually; for most
+men it refuses to turn. It is used in nearly every civilized country,
+especially by miners, and is generally considered superstitious,
+because it is employed by ignorant people, and because there has been
+no generally accepted scientific explanation of the manner in which a
+stick could be influenced by a metal hidden under ground. A scientific
+explanation of the principle of the divining rod has been offered to
+the world, by Baron Reichenbach, (see page sixty of his _Odic-Magnetic
+Letters_, translated by John S. Hittel).
+
+_Quarrying Quartz._--The quarrying of quartz rock differs little from
+the quarrying of other metalliferous vein-stones. The lode descends
+steeply, and the excavation must follow its course. Sometimes the
+quartz is so soft that it may easily be loosened with the pick. The
+harder rock is blasted. Soft quartz is that which is penetrated by
+numerous cavities, though the lumps between the cavities may be very
+hard. Some quartz on exposure to the air crumbles into sand, though
+hard when first taken from the vein. In narrow lodes, some of the
+wall-rock must be cut away to get room for the workmen. In wide lodes,
+that part of the vein-stone which does not pay is left. Sometimes the
+gold from the lode penetrates a little way into the foot-wall, and in
+that case the quarrying must extend beyond the vein stone. The quartz
+loosened in the vein, must either be hoisted perpendicularly in a
+bucket with a windlass, or be hauled out through a tunnel. The common
+method is to hoist the rock with a windlass. Most of the veins are in
+such places that shafts are more easily dug than tunnels. After the
+excavation has extended twenty or thirty feet below the surface, it is
+usual to dig a perpendicular shaft, so as to strike the vein sixty or
+seventy feet below the surface, and from this point the miner or
+"drifter" works upward, and as he loosens the rock it falls to the
+bottom of the shaft, where it is put in the bucket to be hoisted to the
+surface. Our quartz mines are generally in dry hills, so that they are
+not troubled much by water; but there are a few shafts where
+steam-pumps are constantly at work to carry off the water.
+
+Occasionally the miners find small quantities of auriferous quartz
+which are so easily broken up, and the pieces of gold in which are so
+coarse, that after the rock has been pounded a little in a mortar, the
+metal can easily be picked out with the fingers.
+
+_Arastra._--Quartz is pulverized either in an arastra, or Chilean mill,
+or by stamps.
+
+The arastra is the simplest instrument for grinding auriferous quartz.
+It is a circular bed of stone, from eight to twenty feet in diameter,
+on which the quartz is ground by a large stone dragged round and round
+by horse or mule-power. There are two kinds of arastras, the rude or
+improved. The rude arastra is made with a pavement of unhewn flat
+stones, which are usually laid down in clay. The pavement of the
+improved arastra is made of hewn stone, cut very accurately and laid
+down in cement. In the centre of the bed of the arastra is an upright
+post which turns on a pivot, and running through the post is a
+horizontal bar, projecting on each side to the outer edge of the
+pavement. On each arm of this bar is attached by a chain a large flat
+stone or muller, weighing from three hundred to five hundred pounds. It
+is so hung that the forward end is about an inch above the bed, and the
+hind end drags on the bed. A mule hitched to one arm will drag two such
+mullers. In some arastras there are four mullers and two mules. Outside
+of the pavement is a wall of stone a foot high to keep the quartz
+within reach of the mullers. About four hundred pounds of quartz,
+previously broken into pieces about the size of a pigeon's egg, are
+called a "charge" for an arastra ten feet in diameter, and are put in
+at a time. The mule is started, and in four or five hours the quartz is
+pulverized. Water is now poured in until the powder is thoroughly mixed
+with it, and the mass has the consistence of thick cream. Care is taken
+that the mixture be not too thin, for the thickness of it is important
+to the amalgamation. The paste being all right, some quicksilver (an
+ounce and a quarter of it for every ounce of gold in the quartz, and
+the amount of gold is guessed at from the appearance of the rock) is
+scattered over the arastra. The grinding continues for about two hours
+more, during which time it is supposed the quicksilver is divided up
+into very fine globules and mixed all through the paste (which is so
+stiff that the metal does not sink in it to the bottom), and that all
+the particles of gold are caught and amalgamated. The amalgamation
+having been completed, some water is let in three or four inches deep
+over the paste, and the mule is made to move slowly. The paste is thus
+dissolved in the water, and the gold, quicksilver and amalgam have an
+opportunity to fall to the bottom. At the end of half an hour, or
+sooner, the thin mud of the arastra is allowed to run off, leaving the
+precious material at the bottom. Another charge of broken quartz is now
+put in and the process is repeated, and so on. The length of a "run,"
+or the period from one cleaning up to another, varies much in different
+places. In the rude arastra a run is seldom less than a week, and
+sometimes three or four. The amalgam having settled down between the
+paving stones, the bed must be dug up and all the dirt between them
+carefully washed. In the improved arastra the paving fits so closely
+together, that the quicksilver and amalgam do not get down between
+them, but remain on the surface, and can readily be brushed up into a
+little pan, and therefore cleaning up is much less troublesome and is
+more frequently repeated than in the rude arastras; besides there is a
+greater need of frequent cleaning up in the improved arastras, because
+the amount of work done within a given time is usually greater.
+
+The arastra is a slow instrument, but in some important respects it is
+superior to any other method of working auriferous quartz. It grinds
+the quartz well, is unsurpassable as an amalgamator, is very cheap and
+simple, requires no chemical knowledge or peculiar mechanical skill in
+the work, requires but little power, and very little water--all of them
+important considerations. In many places, the scarcity of water alone
+is enough to enable the arastra to pay a larger profit than any other
+method. Again, if a miner finds a rich spot in a lode, he may be
+doubtful as to the amount of paying rock which he can obtain. Such
+cases very frequently happen in California, and the arastra is just the
+thing for the case; for then if the amount of paying rock is small,
+nothing is lost, whereas the erection of a stamping-mill would cost
+much time and money, and before it could get into smooth operation the
+rich rock would be exhausted, and the mill perhaps become worthless. No
+other simple process of amalgamation is equal to that of the arastra;
+and it has on various occasions happened in California, that Mexicans
+making from fifty to sixty dollars per ton from quartz, have sold out
+to Americans who have erected large mills at great expense, with patent
+amalgamators, and have not been able to get more than ten or fifteen
+dollars from a ton. The arastra is sometimes used for amalgamating
+tailings which have passed through stamping-mills.
+
+_Chilean Mill._--The Chilean mill has a circular bed like the arastra,
+but much smaller, and the quartz is crushed by two large stone wheels
+which roll round on their edges. In the centre of the bed is an upright
+post, the top of which serves as a pivot for the axle on which both of
+the stones revolve. A mule is usually hitched to the end of one of the
+axles. The methods of managing the rock and amalgamating with the
+Chilean mill, are very similar to those of the arastra. The Chilean
+mill, however, is rarely used in California; the arastra being
+considered far preferable.
+
+_Stamps._--Nine-tenths of the quartz crushed in California is
+pulverized by stamps, of which there are two kinds, the square and
+rotary. The square stamp has a perpendicular wooden shaft, six or eight
+feet long, and six or eight inches square, with an iron shoe, weighing
+from a hundred to a thousand pounds. The wooden shaft has a mortice in
+front near the top, and a cam on a revolving horizontal shaft enters
+this mortice at every revolution. When the cam slips out of the
+mortice, the stamp falls with all its weight upon the quartz in the
+"battery" or "stamping-box." The rotary stamp has a shaft of wrought
+iron about two inches in diameter, and just before falling this shaft
+receives a whirling motion, which is continued by the shoe as it
+strikes the quartz. The rotary stamp is considered superior to the
+square, its advantage being that it crushes more rock with the same
+power, that it crushes more within the same space, and that it wears
+away less of the shoe in proportion to the amount of rock crushed.
+There are usually half a dozen square stamps or more, standing side by
+side in a square-stamp mill, and these do not all fall at the same
+moment, but successively, running from the head to the foot of the
+"battery." The quartz is put in at the head of the battery, and is
+gradually driven to the foot. The rotary stamps sometimes stand side by
+side, and sometimes in a circle. The battery of both rotary and square
+stamps is surrounded by wire gauze, or a perforated iron plate,
+allowing the finely pulverized quartz to escape, and retaining the
+coarser particles. Quartz is crushed wet and dry. In wet crushing a
+little stream of water runs into the battery on one side and escapes on
+the other, carrying all the fine quartz with it.
+
+_Separation._--After pulverization comes the separation of the gold
+from the rocky portion of the powder. The means of separation are
+mechanical or chemical. The chemical process is amalgamation; the
+mechanical are those wherein the gold is caught on a rough surface with
+the aid of its specific gravity. The chief reliance is upon
+amalgamation, and in some large quartz-mills mechanical appliances are
+not used at all for catching the particles of gold, but only for
+catching amalgam.
+
+The mechanical appliances used in quartz-mills in separating the gold
+from the pulverized rock, are the blanket, the sluice, and the raw
+hide.
+
+The blanket is a coarse, rough, gray blanket, which is laid down in a
+trough sixteen inches wide and six feet long. The pulverized quartz is
+carried over this by a stream of water, and the particles of gold are
+caught in the wool. The blanket is taken up and washed, at intervals
+depending upon the amount of gold deposited. In some mills where a
+large amount of rock is crushed, and where the powder is taken over the
+blanket before trying any other process of separation, the washing
+takes place every half hour. In mills where the pulverized quartz is
+exposed to amalgamation first, the blanket may be washed three or four
+times a day. The washing is done in a vat, kept for that especial
+purpose.
+
+The sluice used in quartz-mills is similar to the placer board-sluice,
+but the amount of matter to be washed is less, and there is no dirt to
+be dissolved, and there are no larger stones, and therefore the sluice
+is not so large, so strong, or so steep in grade, as the placer-sluice,
+and the riffle-bars are not so deep. In some quartz-mill sluices there
+are transverse riffle-bars. If the quartz has much iron or copper
+pyrites, the sluice is used to collect this material and save it for
+separation at some future time. The pyrites ordinarily contains, or is
+accompanied by much gold, which it protects from amalgamation. This
+separation of the pyrites from the pulverized rock is called
+"concentrating the tailings," and the material collected is called
+"concentrated tailings." In the sluices of some quartz-mills cast iron
+riffle-bars are used; cast in sections about fifteen inches square, and
+about an inch deep. Much study has been devoted to the subject of
+making these riffle-bars in such a manner that the dirt will not pack
+in them, but will always remain loose, and keep in constant motion
+under the influence of the water running over them; but the object has
+never been fully attained. Quicksilver is used in nearly all
+quartz-mill sluices.
+
+The raw hide used in separating gold from the pulverized quartz is a
+common cow hide, laid down in a trough with the hairy side up, and the
+grain of the hair against the course of the water. The gold is then
+caught in the hair. Sheep hides have been used in the same manner,
+recalling to mind the Golden Fleece. The hides, however, are inferior
+to the blankets for this purpose, and are never used in the best mills.
+
+The methods of amalgamating are numerous. Among them are amalgamation
+in the battery, amalgamation with the copper plate, amalgamating bowls,
+and patent amalgamation of many kinds.
+
+In many mills quicksilver is placed in the battery, two ounces of
+quicksilver for one of gold; and about two-thirds of the gold is caught
+thus. The copper plate in quartz-mills is made in the same manner as in
+placer-sluices, under which head a description of the plate may be
+found. Some amalgamating bowls or basins are little Chilean mills and
+arastras, made of cast iron. One plan of amalgamation is to use a cast
+iron bowl about four feet in diameter and a foot deep. Near the bottom
+are horizontal iron arms, which revolve and stir the quicksilver and
+pulverized quartz together. Four or five of these bowls sit in a row
+but at different levels: the bottom of the first bowl being level with
+the top of the second, and so on. The pulverized quartz passes through
+them all. Under each bowl a fire is kept up, because heat forms the
+action of amalgamation. If there be any pyrites in the quartz, some
+common salt is thrown in to assist in releasing the gold from the
+embraces of the sulphurates, and preparing it to be seized by the
+mercury. Another amalgamating bowl revolves on an axis that stands at
+an angle of about seventy-five degrees to the horizon, so that the
+material in the bowl is continually moving; and the bottom is divided
+by little compartments, which make a constant riffle. In other bowls
+the pulverized quartz is forced with water through the mercury. The
+methods of amalgamation differ very much, and a book might be filled
+with a description and discussion of the processes used at different
+quartz-mills in California.
+
+_Sulphurets._--Many auriferous quartz veins contain considerable
+quantities of sulphurets or pyrites of iron, copper and lead, and their
+presence prevents amalgamation, and thus causes a great loss of gold.
+It is said that on some occasions in good mills, not more than twenty
+or thirty dollars have been obtained from a ton of vein-stone which had
+seven or eight hundred dollars of gold in every ton. The best method of
+treating the quartz containing pyrites, is to roast it, and thus drive
+off the sulphur, but this process is so expensive that it is seldom
+used; and the common practice is to crush and amalgamate the rock, and
+save the concentrated tailings for some future time, when there may be
+a sale for them, or when it will be cheaper to reduce them. The
+pulverized sulphurets are decomposed by exposure to the air, and after
+the tailings have been preserved for a time, they may pay better at the
+second amalgamation than at the first. A mixture of common salt assists
+the decomposition of the pyrites.
+
+_Chief Quartz-Mills._--The most productive quartz-mill in the state is
+the Benton mill, on Fremont's Ranch, in Mariposa county. It is also the
+largest, having forty-eight stamps. There are four mills on the estate,
+with ninety-one stamps in all, and their average yield per month is
+sixty thousand dollars. A railroad four miles long, conveys the quartz
+from the lode to the mills. The Allison quartz mine in Nevada county,
+produces forty thousand dollars per month. The Sierra Buttes
+quartz-mill, twelve miles from Downieville, yields about fifteen
+thousand dollars per month. These last mills run night and day, and
+crush and amalgamate ten thousand tons of rock a year, or twenty-eight
+tons per day. Forty men are employed, twenty-five to quarry the rock,
+five in the mill to attend to the stamps and amalgamation, one to do
+carpentry, one for blacksmithing, and eight for getting out timber,
+transporting quartz, and so forth. The cost of quarrying, crushing and
+amalgamating a ton of rock, is six dollars. The wages of the men are
+from fifty to seventy dollars per month with boarding. The average
+wages is sixty dollars. About ten miles eastward of Sonora, in Tuolumne
+county, are some rich veins of auriferous quartz, the most prominent of
+which are the Soulsby and Blakeslee lodes. The Soulsby mill produced
+forty thousand dollars in three weeks, when it commenced work in 1858,
+but it has not been so profitable of late.
+
+_Silver Mining._--Silver mining has not yet been established fairly as
+a business in California. The silver ores of Washoe were discovered in
+1859, and mining has been fairly commenced there, but the mines of
+Esmeralda and Coso, within the limits of this state, were not found
+until the summer of 1860, and up to the present time no mills have been
+established there.
+
+Silver mining differs much from gold mining. Gold is always found as a
+metal, never as an ore, and the separation from the accompanying
+vein-stone with which it is mixed mechanically, is much more simple and
+easy than the reduction of the argentiferous ores in which the silver
+is chemically combined with base substances, for which it has a strong
+affinity. Chemical knowledge and chemical processes are more necessary
+in mining for silver than for gold; and while all auriferous quartz is
+of the same kind, and may be treated in the same manner, there are many
+different kinds of silver ores, each of which requires a peculiar
+treatment. The reduction of silver ore costs on an average, from three
+to five times as much as the reduction of auriferous quartz.
+
+The silver ore of Esmeralda and Coso is a sulphuret of silver, nearly
+all the veins having the same material, though the amount of it
+scattered through the vein-stone differs greatly in different lodes. In
+some veins there is much free gold, that is, little specks of metallic
+gold which can be separated from the other material in the same manner
+that gold is separated from auriferous quartz. The methods of reducing
+silver ore are so numerous and complex, and vary so much in different
+districts and under different circumstances, that it is impossible to
+know now what process will be used in Esmeralda and Coso, the resources
+of which places have been so little studied. Besides it is said that
+new processes for reducing silver ore have been invented, far superior
+to all the old methods; and these processes are kept secret. It is
+therefore unnecessary that I should go into a long description of the
+various processes practised elsewhere. Silver ore after pulverization
+is smelted by mixing with it fifty per cent. of lead in metal or ore,
+and ten per cent. of iron, and exposing the whole to a heat sufficient
+to melt the silver which runs off. The metal thus obtained is not pure
+but contains much lead, which is driven off by heat while the silver is
+kept in a molten condition for a period of four or six hours. The cost
+of smelting in California at present, is about one hundred and
+twenty-five dollars per ton. In most of the other methods of reducing
+silver ore, the ore is roasted to drive off the sulphur. In the barrel
+amalgamation, which has been used at Washoe, and will probably be used
+at Esmeralda also, half a ton of ore, after being pulverized and
+roasted, three hundred pounds of water, and one hundred pounds of
+wrought iron, in little fragments, are put into a barrel, which
+revolves on a perpendicular axis. At the end of two hours the mass has
+taken the consistence of thick cream, when five hundred pounds of
+quicksilver are put in, and after the barrel has revolved four hours
+more, the amalgamation is complete. More water is now poured in; the
+barrel revolves very slowly to let the amalgam all settle to the
+bottom, the mud runs off through a cock four inches above the bottom,
+and the mercury and amalgam are then drawn off through a little hole in
+the bottom of the barrel.
+
+_Quicksilver Mining._--The ore from which quicksilver is obtained is a
+sulphuret. The sulphur is driven off by heat, and the metal, which
+rises in fumes from the ore, is collected by condensation. The miners
+are Cornishmen and Mexicans. The ore is in large masses underground,
+not in a connected vein of regular thickness; and after one mass is
+exhausted, much labor is often vainly spent in search of another. There
+are, however, usually little seams of ore running from one large
+deposit to another, and it is the business of the mining captains to
+observe these veins closely, and trace them up when a "fault" occurs.
+There are no scientific rules for finding the ore; and the business of
+searching for the large deposits is never intrusted to educated mining
+engineers, but always to mining captains, who have themselves been
+laborers, and have learned by experience where to seek. The New Almaden
+mine produces two hundred and twenty thousand pounds of metal in a
+month. The _hacienda_, or reducing establishment of the mining company,
+has fourteen brick furnaces, each fifty feet long, twelve feet high,
+and twelve feet wide. At one end of each furnace is the fire chamber,
+which may be nine cubic feet inside; next to that is the ore chamber of
+about the same size; and beyond that is the condensing chamber, in
+which there are a number of partitions alternately running up from the
+bottom and down from the top, with a space for the fumes to pass, their
+course being up and down, and up and down again, and so on, for a
+distance of thirty feet to the chimney, which is forty feet high. In
+the bottom of the condensing chamber is water. The walls between the
+fire chamber and the ore chamber, and between the latter and the
+condensing chamber, are built with open spaces, so that the heat, smoke
+and fumes can pass through. The ore is placed in the ore chamber in
+such a manner as to leave many open spaces. The heat drives off the
+sulphur and mercury of the ore in fumes, which in passing through the
+condensing chambers, deposit the mercury, and the smoke and sulphur
+escape through the chimney. In the Enriqueta and Guadalupe mines the
+quicksilver is condensed in a close iron retort, and the sulphur is
+absorbed by quicklime.
+
+Copper ore is dug from several mines in California, but it is all
+exported to be smelted elsewhere.
+
+_Platinum._--Platinum, iridium and osmium, three white metals of about
+the same specific gravity with gold, are found with the latter metal in
+the placers in the basin of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers. Their
+particles are usually fine scales, very rarely reaching a quarter of an
+ounce in weight, and the largest piece of either ever found was less
+than an ounce and a half. They cannot be separated from the gold by
+washing, but they do not unite with quicksilver, and therefore they are
+separated from the more precious metal by amalgamation. They have no
+regular market in the state; miners never make them the chief object of
+search, and they have not been studied, so it is not known to what
+extent they might be obtained.
+
+_Del Norte and Klamath._--Del Norte county in the north-western corner
+of the state, is about forty miles long from east to west by thirty
+from north to south. The mining population in it is small. Most of the
+mining is done along the banks of the Klamath River, which runs about
+twenty miles through the south-eastern portion of the county. There are
+some miners on the head-waters of Althouse Creek, which runs northward
+into Oregon. The county assessor, in his report for 1860, does not
+mention the existence of any quartz-mill or mining-ditch in the county.
+The mining districts are very mountainous and difficult of access. They
+obtain most of their supplies from Crescent City. The mining is chiefly
+in shallow placers, in deep and narrow ravines, and on bars of the
+Klamath River.
+
+Klamath county lies immediately south of Del Norte, and is about the
+same size. It is almost exclusively a mining county, and has a
+population of about eighteen hundred. The diggings are placers in the
+bars and banks of the Klamath River and its tributaries, the Trinity
+and Salmon Rivers, and many small creeks. The principal mining places
+are Orleans Bar, Gullion's Bar, Negro Flat, Cecilville, Weitspeck and
+Red Cap. The whole county is very rugged and mountainous, and much of
+it is covered with heavy timber. The diggings are so difficult of
+access, and are so protected by mountains against ditches, that they
+will last for many years. There is probably no part of the state where
+the single miner, without capital, has a better chance to dig gold with
+a profit. Nearly the whole beach of the county is auriferous.
+
+_Siskiyou._--Siskiyou county lies east of Del Norte and Klamath, is
+forty miles wide from north to south, one hundred miles long from east
+to west, and reaches to the eastern boundary of the state. It has a
+population of 7,629, the large majority of whom are engaged in mining.
+The mining district is all in the western end of the county, along the
+banks of the Klamath River and its tributaries, the Scott and Shasta
+Rivers. The Klamath runs through a deep _canon_; the Scott and Shasta
+Rivers, have pleasant open valleys, but the diggings along their banks
+are chiefly among the _canons_ near the Klamath. Hydraulic and tunnel
+claims are rare. There are six quartz-mills in the county, and fifteen
+mining ditches, of which last the principal is the Yreka canal, forty
+miles long, bringing water from the head of Shasta River to the town of
+Yreka. In 1859, there were four quartz-mills in the county, one of
+which was at Mugginsville, one in Scott's valley and two in Quartz
+valley. I have no information about the situation of the two built
+since that time. The principal mining towns are Yreka, Scott's Bar,
+Hawkinsville, Johnson's Bar, Deadwood and Cottonwood.
+
+_Trinity and Shasta._--South of the western part of Siskiyou and the
+eastern part of Klamath, lies Trinity county, ninety miles long from
+north to south, and about twenty miles wide on an average. The northern
+part of the county is the basin of the Trinity River, and is
+auriferous. From the county assessor's report for 1860, it is to be
+inferred that there is not a quartz-mill or a mining-ditch in the
+state. The county is very mountainous, and most of the mining is done
+in rugged _canons_ along the Trinity River. The chief mining towns are
+Weaverville, Cox's Bar, Big Bar, Arkansas Flat, Mooney's Flat and
+Trinity Centre.
+
+South of Siskiyou and east of Trinity lies Shasta county, which is on
+an average forty miles wide from north to south and one hundred miles
+long, reaching to the eastern border of the state. There is a rich
+auriferous district about twenty miles square, in the vicinity of the
+town of Shasta, in the south-western part of the county. The diggings
+are mostly in the basins of Clear Creek, Cottonwood Creek, Rock Creek
+and Salt Creek, all of which enter into the Sacramento. There are four
+quartz-mills in the county, one at French Gulch, one at Middle Creek,
+one at Muletown, and one at Old Diggings. The county has twenty-seven
+mining ditches, with a joint length of one hundred and forty-one miles,
+an average of five miles each. The chief mining towns are Shasta,
+Horsetown, French Gulch, Muletown, Briggsville, Whiskey and Middletown.
+
+_Plumas and Sierra._--South of the eastern part of Shasta county lies
+Plumas, which is about seventy miles square. About one third of the
+county, in the south-western part of it, comprising that portion
+drained by the head waters of Feather River, is auriferous. It lies
+high above the level of the sea, and the work of mining is interrupted
+during a considerable portion of the winter, by cold, snow and ice.
+Hydraulic and tunnel claims in deep hills, furnish a large portion of
+the gold yield of the county. There are five quartz-mills, one at
+Elizabethtown, one at Eureka Lake, and three at Jamison Creek. The
+principal mining towns are Quincy, Jamison City, Indian Bar, Nelson's
+Point and Poorman's Creek.
+
+South of Plumas is Sierra county, which is fifty miles long from east
+to west, and twenty miles wide from north to south. The North Fork of
+the Yuba River runs through its centre, and the Middle Fork is its
+southern boundary. Though small, it is one of the richest mining
+counties of the state, and in proportion to the extent of its mining
+ground, is much richer than any other county. All its territory is four
+thousand feet above the sea level, at the lowest. Most of the mining is
+done in hydraulic and tunnel claims in deep hills. Near the centre of
+the county is a mountain called the Downieville Butte, or the Yuba
+Butte, eight thousand eight hundred and forty-six feet high, on the
+sides of which are found some rich quartz leads. In 1859 there were
+eleven quartz-mills in Sierra county, of which seven are at the Butte,
+two at Downieville, one at the Mountain House, and one at Sierra City.
+The principal mining towns are Downieville, Monte Cristo, Pine Grove,
+St. Louis, La Porte, Poker Flat, Eureka City, Forest City, Alleghany
+Town, and Cox's Bar. One of the most remarkable features of the placers
+of the state, is the blue lead, which was first discovered in Sierra
+county, and has been more thoroughly examined there than elsewhere. The
+"blue lead" is a stratum of blue clay very rich in gold. It is found
+deep under other strata. The general opinion is, that the blue lead
+occupies the bed of a large antediluvian river, which ran parallel with
+the Sacramento and about sixty miles eastward of it. It has been traced
+twenty miles or more, passing near Monte Cristo, Alleghany Town, Forest
+City, Chip's Flat and Zion Hill. Mr. C. S. Capp wrote thus to the San
+Francisco _Bulletin_:
+
+"This is not one of the many petty leads, an inch or two in breadth and
+thickness, which, after being traced a few hundred feet, end as
+suddenly and mysteriously as they commence; but it is evidently the bed
+of some ancient river. It is often hundreds of feet in width, and
+extends for miles and miles, a thousand feet below the summits of high
+mountains, and entirely through them. Now it crops out where the deep
+channels of some of the rivers and ravines of the present day have cut
+it asunder; and then, hidden beneath the rocks and strata above it, it
+only emerges again miles and miles away. Wherever its continuity has
+been destroyed, the river or gulch which has washed a portion of it
+away, was found to be immensely rich for some distance below, and the
+materials of which the lead is composed are found with the gold in the
+bed of the stream. It is evidently the bed of some ancient stream,
+because it is walled in by steep banks of hard bed-rock, precisely like
+the banks of rivers and ravines in which water now runs, and because it
+is composed of clay which is evidently a sedimentary deposit, and of
+pebbles of black and white quartz, which could only be rounded and
+polished as they are by the long continued action of swiftly running
+water. The bed-rock in the bottom of this lead is worn into long smooth
+channels, and also has its roughness and crevices like other river
+beds. The lighter and poorer qualities of gold are found nearest to its
+edges, while the heavier and finer portions have found their way to the
+deeper places near the centre. Trees and pieces of wood, more or less
+petrified and changed in their nature, which once floated in its
+waters, are also every where encountered throughout this stratum.
+
+"The clay and fine gravel in which these pebbles and boulders are found
+to be tightly packed, is of a light-blue color, which gives the name to
+the lead. Much of this clay is remarkably fine and free from coarse
+particles, and is smooth and unctuous to the touch. It is said to be
+strongly impregnated with arsenic, as was shown by chemical analysis,
+and contains large quantities of iron and sulphur in solution, for
+pyrites and sulphurets of iron are deposited in shining metallic
+crystals in every vacant crevice. Fine gold is found among this clay,
+and the heavier particles beneath it, upon the bed-rock. This stratum
+varies in thickness from eighteen inches to eight or ten feet, while
+the whole lead varies in width from a hundred and fifty to five hundred
+feet.
+
+"The same lead has been found at Sebastopol, four miles above Monte
+Christo, and also higher up among the mountains. It appears at Monte
+Christo, which is four miles above the high-lying Downieville, and over
+three thousand feet above it, and at Chapparal Hill on the side of a
+deep ravine; then at the City of Six, which is also on very high land,
+about four miles from Downieville, across the North Yuba. It is next
+found at Forest City, on both sides of a creek, and is there traced
+directly through the mountain to Alleghany Town and Smith's Flat, on
+the opposite side. There it is again cut in twain by a deep ravine. It
+crops out on the other side at Chip's Flat, where it has been followed
+by tunnels passing completely through the mountain to Centreville and
+Minnesota on the other side. Here it is obliterated by the Middle Fork
+of the Yuba, but it is believed to be again found at Snow Point, on the
+opposite side of the river, and again at Zion Hill, several miles
+beyond. There is no reason for doubting that after thus reaching over
+twenty miles, it still extends further. Hundreds of tunnels have been
+run in search of it. Where the line it follows was adhered to, they
+have always found it, and have been well rewarded for their labor.
+Millions of dollars have been taken from this lead, and its richness,
+even in portions longest worked, is yet undiminished. These tunnels
+have cost from $20,000 to $100,000 each, and interest in the claims
+they enter sell readily at from $1,000 to $20,000, in proportion to the
+amount of ground within them remaining untouched, and the facilities
+which exist for working it. Many of these claims will yet afford from
+five to ten or more years' profitable labor to their owners, before the
+lead itself within them is exhausted. As in some of them quartz veins
+and poorer paying gravel have been found, many of them may be valuable
+to work from the top down as hydraulic claims."
+
+This idea that the blue lead occupies the bed of an antediluvian river
+is however not universally accepted. Mr. B. P. Avery, who has written
+numerous newspaper articles upon the mineral deposits, asserts that the
+"blue lead," as it is called, is not a "lead" but an extensive stratum
+which is many miles wide, and is found all the way from the foot hills
+to the summit of the Sierra Nevada. In reply to this, it is said that
+while a bluish stratum of clay similar to that of the blue lead is
+found over a wide district, that it is evidently different in origin
+from the blue lead itself, which is confined to a narrow bed, and
+marked by the signs found in all the other ancient river beds of the
+state.
+
+The Sierra Butte Quartz Mining Company has some of the best auriferous
+quartz lodes in the state. One lode called the Cliff Ledge, is
+twenty-five feet wide; and another called the Aerial Ledge, is about
+three feet wide. In the Cliff Ledge, the paying rock averages about six
+feet in thickness next the foot wall. The average yield is eighteen
+dollars per ton. The quartz is bluish white in color, and very hard
+when first taken from the lode, but on exposure to the air it slowly
+crumbles into sand.
+
+_Yuba and Butte._--West of Sierra county, and drained by the same
+streams, is Yuba, which reaches to the Sacramento River, lying half in
+the mountains and half in the plains, the mining district being in the
+former half. The principal mining towns are Camptonville, Timbuctoo,
+Foster's Bar, Texas Bar and Long's Bar. In 1859 there were nine
+quartz-mills in the county, three at Brown's valley, and one each at
+Camptonville, Dobbin's Ranch, Dry Creek, Honcut, Indiana Creek and
+Robbin's Creek. The assessor in 1860 reported only two quartz-mills in
+the county. There are twenty-two ditches in the county, with an
+aggregate length of nine hundred and fifty-two miles, an average of
+forty-three miles each. The most important ditch, called "Bovyer's,"
+supplies Timbuctoo with five thousand inches of water in the winter,
+less in the summer. The diggings at Timbuctoo are in a deep hill, which
+is washed away by the hydraulic process.
+
+West of Yuba and Plumas counties lies Butte, which is drained by the
+Feather River. The principal mining towns are Oroville, Bidwell's Bar,
+Forbestown, Natchez and Whiterock. In 1859 there were seventeen
+quartz-mills in the county, of which four were at Oregon Gulch, at
+Columbiaville and Hansonville, three each, two at Yankee Hill, and at
+Evansville, Gold Run, Long Bar, Nesbitt's Flat and Spring Valley, one
+each. The assessor reports for 1860, twenty-nine quartz-mills, worth
+fifty thousand dollars, and crushing in the aggregate one hundred and
+sixty-two and a half tons per day. There are sixty-four mining-ditches,
+with an aggregate length of five hundred and eighty-three miles. The
+bars and beds of Feather River were once very rich, and some of the
+most extensive enterprises of river mining in the state have been
+undertaken within the limits of Butte county. The greatest flume ever
+built in California was that of the Cape Claim Company, near Oroville,
+in 1857. It was three quarters of a mile long and twenty feet wide, and
+furnished employment for two hundred and fifty men from May till
+November. The expenditures during that period were $176,985, and the
+receipts $251,426, showing a clear profit of $74,441. The next year,
+after the water had fallen, the company commenced its labors again;
+spent $160,000 and received $115,000, and thus lost $45,000. North of
+Oroville is a "table-mountain" with a top of basalt, covering a rich
+deposit of auriferous clay.
+
+_Nevada and Placer._--South of Yuba and Butte is Nevada, the richest
+mining county of the state. Within its limits the tom, sluice,
+under-current sluice, and crinoline hose were invented, and the ditch
+and hydraulic power were first applied to placer-mining; and
+quartz-mining was first undertaken extensively. In 1859 there were
+thirty-two quartz-mills in the county, and twenty-eight mining-ditches,
+with an aggregate length of three hundred and ninety-four miles. No
+part of the mineral region of the state is better supplied with water
+than Nevada county. The richest quartz district is in the vicinity of
+Nevada City, which has fifteen mills, and Grass Valley, five miles
+distant, has seventeen. The great Allison mine, which has the richest
+lode in the state, is in Grass Valley.
+
+The quartz mines here are much troubled with water, and during the
+winter of 1860-61, many of the mills were compelled to stop for weeks
+until the shafts could be drained by steam engines, after having been
+filled by a long and heavy rain. The annual gold yield of Grass Valley
+has been estimated at four millions of dollars. North San Juan has the
+finest hydraulic claims, and Sweetland the largest tail-sluices. The
+Eureka Lake Ditch Company has more ditching and water than any other
+company in the state. Their main ditch is seventy-five miles long, and
+there are one hundred and ninety miles of branches, making a total of
+two hundred and sixty-five miles, which have cost nine hundred thousand
+dollars. The daily sale of water is six thousand inches, with a weekly
+income of six thousand dollars. The principal mining towns are Nevada,
+Grass Valley, North San Juan, Rough and Ready, Orleans Flat, Moore's
+Flat and Humbug City.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+                                   PAGES.
+
+Chief Industry                       3
+
+Metals obtained                      3
+
+Gold Mines                           3
+
+Placer Mines                         5
+
+The Sluice                           7
+
+Amalgamation                         9
+
+Cleaning up                         11
+
+Riffle-Bars                         12
+
+Double Sluices                      13
+
+Rock-Sluices                        13
+
+Hydraulic Mining                    14
+
+Blasting                            16
+
+Tail-Sluice                         16
+
+Tunnel-Sluice                       17
+
+Ground Sluice                       17
+
+Long Tom                            17
+
+Cradle                              18
+
+Pan                                 20
+
+Dry Washing                         22
+
+Dry Digging                         22
+
+Puddling-Box                        22
+
+Quicksilver-Machine                 23
+
+Tunnel-Mining                       23
+
+Shafts                              24
+
+River-Mining                        24
+
+Beach-Mining                        26
+
+Mining-Ditches                      27
+
+Prospecting                         27
+
+Quartz-Mining                       27
+
+Distribution of Gold in Quartz      28
+
+Prospecting Quartz Rock             30
+
+The Divining Rod                    31
+
+Quarrying Quartz                    31
+
+Arastra                             32
+
+Chilean Mill                        34
+
+Stamps                              34
+
+Separation                          34
+
+Sulphurets                          36
+
+Chief Quartz-Mills                  36
+
+Silver Mining                       37
+
+Quicksilver Mining                  38
+
+Platinum                            39
+
+Del Norte and Klamath               39
+
+Siskiyou                            40
+
+Trinity and Shasta                  40
+
+Plumas and Sierra                   41
+
+Yuba and Butte                      43
+
+Nevada and Placer                   44
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining, by John S. Hittell
+
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