A memorial and biographical history of northern California, illustrated. Containing a history of this important section of the Pacific coast from the earliest period of its occupancy...and biographical mention of many of its most eminent pioneers and also of prominent citizens of today, Part 12

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1000

USA > California > A memorial and biographical history of northern California, illustrated. Containing a history of this important section of the Pacific coast from the earliest period of its occupancy...and biographical mention of many of its most eminent pioneers and also of prominent citizens of today > Part 12

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HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

continuous stream of water was permitted to flow from a pond above. Other men below as- sisted in dissolving the dirt by stirring it with shovels or forks and in removing gravel. The puddling-box obtained favor where water was scanty and the clay tough. This was a box about six feet square wherein the dirt could be stirred in the same water for some time, with a rake and frequently with animal power. By removing a plug a few inches from the bottom the muddy water could be run off and fresh water introduced.

As an aid to the foregoing processes the quicksilver machine for saving fine gold which the simple cross- bar failed to catch, was found of great utility. It was a long rocker witlı perforated iron top throughout, above the riffle- box, above each of whose bars some quicksilver was placed to absorb the gold, which was re- gained by squeezing the mercury through buck- skin and retorting its amalgam.

But both of the above were replaced within two or three years by the more effective perina- nent sluice, an extension of the tom, and either constructed of boards, or as a simple inclined ditch, with rocks instead of wooden riffles for retaining the gold. To the sluice and its auxil- iary apparatus is due the immense increase in the production of gold during the early mining period.

Operations on river bars soon led to explora- tions of the bed itself, to which end the stream was turned into artificial channels to lay bare the bottom. The water was turned by wing- dams into flumes, which are usually cheaper than ditches, owing to the rocky character of the banks. The flume current supplied water for sluicing and power to pump the bed. Boul- ders were lifted by derricks. At times the stream was confined to one-half of the bed while the other was worked, and this operation was permitted in the dry season. The cost and risk of deviating the river course caused the in- troduction of dredges with fair success, the buckets of which discharged the dirt into huge rocker- riffles. Along the northern coast of Cal-

ifornia the auriferous bluffs, worn away by the surf, deposit very fine gold in the deep sand, which is carried away on mule-backs and washed at the nearest stream.

The saving effected by the rocker was four times that of the pan, and the tom was about four times greater still, while the sluice was found to be three times cheaper than the tom, reducing the cost to about thirty-five cents per cubic yard. But even this price was too heavy to permit the mining of the largest gold-bear- ing deposits with profit in the gravelly banks and hills, which had moreover to be removed before richer underlying strata could be profit- ably worked.

The celebrated hydraulic process was invented in 1853, to undermine and wash down banks by directing against them a stream of water through a pipe, under great pressure. The same stream did the work of a host of pick-men and shovelers, and supplied the washing sluices so that in course of time, with cheaper labor and machinery, the cost of extracting gold from a cubic yard of gravel was reduced as low as half a cent, while the cost under the old rocker system of 1848-'49 was estimated to cost several dollars. The year previous, however, a French- man named Chabot used a hose without a noz- zle upon his claim at Buckeye Hill, Nevada County, to sluice away the gravel which had been loosed by the pick; and a similar method is said to have been used at Yankee Jim's, the same season. The water, of course, was obtained by damming the cañon. After many checks from lack of experience, the hydraulic system acquired in California a greater expansion than in any other country, owing to the vast area of the gravel-beds and the natural drainage provided by the Sierra Nevada slopes; but an immense preliminary outlay was generally required in bringing water through flumes, ditches and tunnels, sometimes for many miles. The official report for 1855 gave a total of 5,000 miles of canal in Califor- nia for hydraulic mining, costing $6.342,000. But on account of this process throwing down

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

upon the fertile valleys so great an amount of debris, called " slickens," thus rendering value- less the most profitable horticultural and agri- cultural land in the State, the Legislature of 1882 was prevailed upon to prohibit that method totally, and accordingly since that time no hydraulic mining has been done. This leg- islation of course depreciated the value of the mining districts, causing the towns and camps to rnu down, the remaining residents to con- tinue poor, while the people of the valleys re- joice; and it is still a question with many whether the prohibition will finally result in a net gain for the State. The main considera- tion is that minerals are limited, while farming and gardening are supposed to be as lasting as the human race itself.

Deep, timbered shafts were not common in placer mining, for the pay dirt was seldom profitable enough to cover the expense; but for prospecting hills they proved of value in de- termining the advisability and direction of a tunnel, which, permitting easy drifting and offering a slight incline for drainage and use of tramways, greatly reduced the cost of extracting the dirt. This method had its beginning in California in the "coyote" burrowing of the Mexicans, and in following gravel deposits under river banks. It did not assume the rank of a distinct branch until 1852, wlien ancient river channels began to attract attention. Fully half the early attempts resulted in failure, owing to miscalenlations and insufficient ad- juncts. The first extensive drift mining was begun in 1852, at Forest Hill, Nevada, but the year previous J. McGillivray drifted a claim at Brown Bar, on the middle fork of the Amer- ican.

Shaft and drift mining became more identi- fied with quartz operations, which already-in 1849-began to be regarded as a future main branch for mining. The first quartz vein was discovered in Mariposa, on Fremont's grant, in 1849, the reddish samples yielding two ounces to every twenty-five pounds. This discovery was quickly followed by other developments

along the gold belt, and in 1850 the first mill was planted at Grass Valley. This was a " periphery " from the Eastern States, brought here by Wittenbach, who, after working vainly on mica on the American River in 1849, set it up at Grass Valley in the following year for Mr. Wright. The second was an eight-stamp "Stockton " mill, with an engine of sixteen- horse power, brought across the istlimus, and also erected by Wittenbach for Mr. Wright. The development of quartz mining was so promising that the very air became filled with wild rumors as to future operations and suc- cesses. Assay upon assay demonstrated that California ore was ten to one hundred-fold richer than well-paying lodes abroad, and ex- plorations revealed that auriferous rock existed throughout the State. But the extraction of gold from quartz at first, on account of igno- rance as to the best method of saving the small particles, failed to yield more than two or three cents to the pound where assaying gave twenty or thirty cents, and the reduction cost from $40 to $150 per ton, when it should have been effected for $6 to $15. Also expensive works were often erected in the vicinity of rich pock- ets, which were abont cleaned out by other methods. Hundreds were financially ruined, and quartz-mining fell into disrepute. A few, however, persevered patiently until they at- tained success

Those who found valuable nuggets were few as compared with the number who, alighting on remunerative claims, took out fortunes from coarse and fine pay-dirt. These especially formed the theme of anecdote and newspaper record, all with the usual exaggeration. While Aus- tralia holds the palm for the largest nugget found in modern times, California ranks second with a large number of huge nuggets. The largest ever found in this State was from Cala- veras, in November, 1854, which weighed 161 pounds, less some twenty pounds for quartz, which represented a sum of $30,000. Other remarkable finds are related elsewhere in this volume. The best steady average of gold-dust

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

was yielded perhaps by the middle fork of the American River; and it was generally admitted that the steady worker could show a far higher balance at the end of the year than the pros- pectors and itinerant miners. In 1852 the aver- age yield for each of the 100,000 men engaged in mining was only $600, while wages for com- mon labor ruled twice and three times higher.

" Placer " mining consisted in collecting what gold could be conveniently reached at or near the surface of the ground. The word is Spanish and is pronounced plăth-air in the mother tongne, but plass-er among English-speaking people.

The gold placers of the Sierra Nevada render possible the sudden acquisition of wealth, as they also allure people into many successive years of expense and toil without yielding a reward. Fortune is called the fickle goddess, and gold is the most fickle of her representa- tives. Where gold may possibly be found is easily told; but the quantity in the possible localities is exceedingly variable. The drift of the glacial age directs where to find the placer, and the vein of quartz contains it in place; but the drift may contain an infinitesimal quantity only, and the quartz may be barren, but in either there are deposits of wealth. Many, led on by strong desire and abounding hope, have songht for one of these deposits ever since the discovery of gold in 1848, and it has contin ually avoided their grasp; but others, favored by fortune, have struck upon them unawares, gaining a large amount of wealth in a moment. These are called "rich strikes," and they are widely published so that to a distant observer the history of gold mining is made of brilliant successes, with all the industrious miners riot- ing in wealth. But the greater number who toil year after year and make no richt strike cannot be enumerated; their deeds are not of the exciting character, and therefore they are not reported in the newspapers and do not swell the pages of history. Bright points on a dark surface seen at a great distance obscure the dark portion and make the whole appear bright.

DRIFT MINING IN CALIFORNIA.

This article is from the pen of Russell L. Dunn, in the State Mineralogical Report:

Drift mining is peculiarly a California development of the gold placer-mining industry, originating from the ex- ceptional conditions of location of the larger area of these auriferous deposits. The placers by geological age and local condition are generally divisible into two classes. First, the so called blue-lead or ancient river channel placers, the result of river wash and erosion of the plio- cene or quarternary age, or of both, geological authorities differing. Second, the recent deposits of existing streams. The latter, though covering a wider range of country than the older placers, are comparatively limited in aggre- gate area, being for the most part the river and stream beds and their banks and bars. Being accessible and workable by primitive methods without the need usually of any capital, except that of labor itself, they were read- ily discovered and rapidly worked out. The gold they contained came very largely from the blue-lead ancient river channels that were cut through and eroded away by the present river system. A small portion only seems to have come from the direct disintegration by these streams of the auriferous slates, talcose rocks, and quartz lodes. Though some of the deep bars and portions of their channels that have been covered by slides are worked by the methods and appliances of drift mining, it is with the remains of the ancient river channels that the industry is most closely connected.

Geographically, the ancient river system, whose buried channels are so auriferous, extended from what is now Butte and Plumas counties on the north to Tuolumne on the south, and trom the eastern edge of the Sacramento Valley almost to the summit of the Sierras. Within these limits are included portions of the counties of Butte, Sierra, Plumas, Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Ama- dor, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Stanislaus, in all (roughly approximated) an area of 7,000 square miles, only a small portion of it, however, being actually covered by the re- mains of the ancient channels. The topography of this section has been formed by tributaries of the Sacramento rising at the summit of the Sierras and flowing in the precipitous coñons of their erosion, till the Sacramento Valley is reached. Starting at the valley, the beds of these cañons rise from ten to forty feet to the mile for the first forty or titty miles, thence with much steeper grades to the headwaters, only a thousand or so feet be- low the summit of the Sierras. The narrow ridges be- tween the cañons rise from the plains with mean grades of from 100 to 150 feet to the mile, to summit elevations of from 6,000 to 8,000 feet. The topography of the country during the existence of the pliocene and quarternary rivers cannot now be restored with more than probable certainty. It seems likely that the river system then was very similar to the present one in relative location and direction of flow of the main streams, at least particularly through the northern portion of the district. At Oroville, in Butte County, is the debouchure of a great river coming

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

from the north and corresponding to the present Feather River, and apparently draining much the same territory. At Smartsville, in Yuba County, is the evidence of an an- cient river the counterpart of the present Yuba. The main stream can be traced up the "Ridge," as it is lo- cally known, lying between the Middle and South Forks of the Yuba to about Moore's Flat, thence north ward into Sierra County. Remains of what must have been its trib- utaries are observable all over northern Nevada County and central and northern Sierra into Plumas County. In Placer County, from Auburn southwesterly, there are the remains of an old river channel, the predecessor of the present American. Higher up in the mountains there is a tangled network of old channel fragments that were once part of its system. Further south at La Grande, in Stanislaus County, is the outlet for the pliocene rivers of Tuolumne and probably Calaveras and Amador counties. A careful study and comparison of the location, direction, elevation, and grade of the remains of the channels is con" vincing that there is not one main great blue-lead chan- nel coming from north to south, as supposed for many years after the mines in them were discovered and worked, with tributary channels coming in from the east and the west, a system analagous to the main Sacramento, but in the mountains fifty miles east of it, but that, as already stated, the system was much the same as at the present time. In the northern portion of the district the channels can be traced for long distances, have indeed been somewhat restored by mining operations in them and their continuity and identity established with con- siderable certainty. In the southern portion the remains of the old channels are very fragmentary, either as a re- sult of more complete subsequent erosion, or because the system originally was not as extensive or permanent. A complication of the problem of identity of the more or les- isolated fragments of these channels comes from in disputable evidence that there were two, and in some lo- calities more, systems formed necessarily in different periods of time.

The ancient streams, as indicated from the immense masses of drift gravels and detritus they have left in their channels, probably carried much larger volumes of water than the present streams. The mean gradient of their beds was considerably more than that of the existing streams at corresponding points, for, although in the enormous lapse of time great local changes in elevation are possible, it is almost certain that the elevation of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain to substantially its present condition and altitude was in the later cretaceous or early tertiary periods. The changes in it have been the re- sult of glacial and stream erosion and of lava flows, not, so far as the section under consideration is concerned, of local genesis. The periods of erosive energy of the an. cient streams were not as long as that of the present, as they evidently did not cut as cañon-like depressions. The general surface of the country was oot, therefore, as rugged as now, being hilly rather than mountainous, the difference in altitude of the general plane of the surface of the country and the stream channel depressions at cor-

responding points being much less than at the present time.

The gold in the channels is the product of the primary disintegration of the auriferous slates, talcose rocks, and quartz veins. Whether or not these disintegrated rocks were richer in gold, and the eroded portion of the veins more massive, is uncertain, but the erosive agencies of water and cold were undoubtedly much more powerful then. The theory of direct glacial erosion is hardly tent able, as no trace of it appears in the channels, and re. mains of flora and fauna are found that indicate, if not a temperate, certainly a subarctic climate. Le Conte says that the glacial erosion was prior to the formation of the channels, and was the greater disintegrating force.

The great changes in the location of the stream chan- nels have been made by eruptive agencies. A secondary cause was their filling up with accumulations of gravels, sands, and clays. Enormous flows of trachytic lava (trachyte after Ashburner, Geological Surveyor, Califor- nia-andesite after Becker, United States Geological Sur- veyor), volcanic ashes, tufa, and mud coming from the north filled up the channels at some points to several hundred feet in depth, turning the streams and com- pletely altering the surface of the country. This cover- ing up and obliteration of the surface was not the result of one season of eruptive activity, but of several, sepa- rated by enormous intervals of time only less than that which has elapsed since the final dying out of the plu- tonic forces. Discussion of this volcanic action is some- what speculative, and deductions from the indeterminate phenomena are uncertain. As an opinion, merely based on examination and comparison, it is true the first of the flows in point of time seem to have consisted of trachytic lava, and to have covered the greater territory ; that there then followed a long period of inactivity of the interior forces, during which the streams adjusted their channels to the changed topography. The first flows probably did not completely divert the streams, except at a few points, but merely raised their beds and changed the character of the channel deposits, the latter becoming largely lava. The period of inactivity was in time followed by another display of the plutonic forces, aud in its turn by a period of quiescence. This sequence, repeated several times, but with a diminishing power and range of the eruptive energy confining it more and more to the northward, and with lengthening intervals of repose, finally ended in the complete cessation of the eruptive energy. These latter flows, in addition to the trachytic lava, consisted largely of volcanic ashes and tufa, and volcanic mud. The chan- nels and surface depressions generally, and some of the lower hill elevations, became more and more filled up and obliterated, until at the end of the last period of erup- tion a completely new topography was forming, the be- ginning of the present.

The lessening area to the south covered by the success- ive flows accounts both for the greater erosion of the eruptive deposits of the southern portion of the district, and for the greater aggregate depth and more numerous strata of the northern portion. It is probable that many

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

of the existing river channels are the original ones cut deeper into the country rock, the volcanic flows not ob- literating them at all, or only temporarily. This is par- ticularly the case in the lower courses of the larger streams. The geological time of the end of the eruptive period was probably in the earlier quarternary, prior to the glacial epoch or age of ice. During it and since then has been the erosion of the existing river system. This. as before stated, is a system of tremendous gorges and cañons cut down through the surface volcanic deposits, the drift-filled old river channels, and from a few hun- dred to three thousand feet into the country rock. An erosion so stupendous could hardly have been made by the narrow, small, flowing streams now in the bottom of these cañons, conceding almost any geological lapse of time. Only glacial action followed by great torrential streams can account for it.

The old river channels now are-as the result of the eruptive flows first filling, then denudation by glacial and stream erosion, depress.ons in the surface of the country rock filled with river sands, gravels, and clays, and capped with lava, volcanic ashes, and tnfa, with possibly wash gravels lying between the volcanic flows-the re- mains of stream erosion in the interval between the flows. The depth of the gravels on the bed-rock will vary between limits of nothing to three hundred feet; the depth of the volcanic flows and other gravel deposits from nothing to fifteen hundred feet; though at no two points would exactly the same deposits, either in quality or relation, be found. The following data from the shaft of the Gray Eagle Drift Mine, Sec. 6, T. 13 N., R. 10 E., M. D. M., near Forest Hill, Placer County, is typical, and well illustrates the phenomena of several of the ernptive periods and the stream flows of the intervals between. Beginning at the surface, in sinking, the shaft passed through-

Red soil and loam 10 feet.

Soft gray volcanic ash. 31 feet.

Hard gray lava, containing angular fragments of

slate feet. River wash, sand and gravel in alternate strata, principally sand . 34 feet.

River wash, gravel and sand in alternate strata, principally gravel 30 feet.

Yellow water sediment, pipe clay .

25 feet.

Loam, fine black sediment, containing leaves,

logs, etc .. 10 feet.

Large bowlders, water-worn. 10 feet.

Hard, chocolate-colored lava. 60 feet.

River wash, gravel and sand 10 feet.

Hard, chocolate-colored lava, containing logs, some petrified. 20 feet. River wash gravel. 7 feet.

Hard, chocolate-colored lava 25 feet.

At this point the country rock is struck sloping down, showing that the bottom of the channel has not been reached. On and iu this rock gold was found.

In this particular case there are four distinct lava flows

determinable and four river flows in substantially the same channel. Not till the channel became full by the last volcanic flow did the old stream take an entirely dif- ferent location. Comparatively few shafts have been sunk through these lava flows, the mining of the aurifer- ous gravels underneath being most practicable through tunnels, and in the sinking of the shafts but little atten- tion has been paid to keeping a record of the character of the ground passed through. However, in the working of some of the drift mines through tunnels, several of these lava flows have been located far underground, not super- imposed one on the other, but filling channels that have cut through and crossed older channels filled with older lava flows. In the Bald Mountain Mine, at Forest City, Sierra County, the channel being mined was crossed and cut through by another channel about five hundred feet wide. The latter was filled at the bottom with a kind of volcanic mud and contained no gold. In the Mountain Gate Mine, at Damascus, Placer County, a wide white quartz channel was found to be cut through and crossed by another channel over five hundred feet wide and sixty feet lower at the crossing. This last channel, unlike that in the Bald Mountain Mine, contained auriferous blue gravel (almost exclusively slate) from six to fifteen feet in depth, directly overlaid with a hard, compact lava. In the Paragon Mine, at Bath, Placer County, there are three distinct determinable channels. First, the lowest and original, a blue gravel channel lying directly on the country rock. Second, an upper channel one hundred and filty feet above the first in an elevation and having the same general line of flow. Between the two are alternate layers of wash gravel, sand, and pipe clay. Third, a channel crossing and cutting through the second, but not down to the first. This last is filled with a lava flow.

Some of these old river channels are filled to depths of several hundred feet with gravel, sand, and pipe clay, all river deposits, which extend to great widths and far be- yond the limits of the lowest channel depression.

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A memorial and biographical history of northern California, illustrated. Containing a history of this important section of the Pacific coast from the earliest period of its occupancy...and biographical mention of many of its most eminent pioneers and also of prominent citizens of today, Part 12

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1000

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1000