The richest gold mines in the world, and the most favourably situated. There is gold in Siberia, but it is obtained amid the severities of the arctic region. There are `Afric's golden sands,' but none but a negro can collect them. The mines of Australia are devoid of water compared with those of California, and are more difficult to mine in consequence of the gold lying at a great depth. In this state, the miner can work for ten months of the year with no other shelter than a tent, and no floor but the bare ground. For six months he can live under his leafy ramade , made out of the branches of the chapparal. As regards `placer' diggings it is the luxury of mining, and formerly was more so than at present.
In the early days, a party say of four or six, left a mining camp. A mule was packed with their tools, blankets, c. and a sack of
flour and some bacon. Each of them carried a rifle or gun, and thus equipped they plunged into the hitherto unknown and
unprospected country. I will presume them to know something about mining, and to be able to read `signs,' and wash a pan of
dirt. They follow one of the forks of a river, and prospect the gulches as they go along. They notice where the river makes a
sudden bend, and forthwith they cut down a few trees that grow on its banks and make a wing dam; that is to say, they shunt
off the river where the eddy is,
as it rounds the corner, and, having diverted it, prospect the bottom. If it promises well there they camp. Their wing dam is
strengthened, the river bed is exposed, and some of the party are despatched to the nearest mining town for a stock of
provisions. 
By and bye other prospectors would come along, and would be shown how they were doing without the least
hesitation, for there was no jealousy in those days, no petty concealment either of good or bad luck, and always a hearty
welcome for the wayfarer. Those were the golden days of California ere it was scratched and raked and poked into and
burrowed, as it is now. Those were the days of rockers , and long toms , and coarse gold, that begged to be dug up and
coined and sent on its travels over the world. Those were the days when men were rich at noon on Saturday and returned to
their claim on Monday morning cleaned out by the gamblers. Those were the days when everything was paid for in dust, and
the scales were rather in favour of the shopkeeper, and gold was only worth fourteen and fifteen dollars an ounce in the mines,
at least the agents of the San Francisco bankers would not give more. Those were the easy, extravagant, rich, wicked,
thoughtless, generous, happy days of California. They were the early days of gold mining.
To-day it is very different; mining has become a science, a labour, a work wherein mere animal force alone will not suffice; a work requiring brain, patience, and capital; and it is of this last, which has personally come under my observation that I proceed to speak. Gold, silver, and quicksilver are the principal products of the country, and it is with gold that I will begin.
Gold mines may be divided into two generic heads--placer mines and quartz mines--all others are subservient to one or the other of these. In placer mining the gold is found with gravel, sand, clay, or other foreign substance. In quartz mining the gold is either in veins, or permeated in quartz. In the first instance the gold is free, in the second it is imprisoned. In the one case water is used to cleanse the precious metal from its impurities, in the other mechanical force is employed to release it from its bonds.
Water is the most precious commodity in California, and nature has bountifully supplied her with it. There are the American,
Sacramento, Yuba, Feather, Bear, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, San Joaquim, and many other rivers running through the different
mining regions, the head-waters of which are brought by flumes or ditches to supply the hydraulic or sluice washings. These
two latter are alone employed in placer mining. 
A sluice is a large trough of strong timber, into which the pay dirt is thrown,
and a stream of water passed through. The trough is slightly inclined, the angle being varied according to the nature of the
diggings. The general width of the sluice is from a foot and a half to four feet, and its depth from eighteen inches to two feet. It
is sometimes a mile long . The end of each trough fits into the end of the one immediately after it, and the whole is sufficiently
raised from the ground to allow the miners to turn the dirt over as the water runs through it. The bottom of the sluice is
covered with what are termed riffle bars, that is, transverse pieces of wood which catch the heavy gold as the water separates
it from the earth. These riffles are of many shapes and devices. Sometimes they are merely strips of wood nailed across. In
others, round pieces of wood made of sawn sections of a tree are laid on the bottom, touching each other at points in the
circumference, the intervening holes being the traps for the gold. This is the best sort as they protect the bottom of the sluice
from being worn away by the stones and gravel, and are easily taken
up and replaced. The sluice being pretty well filled with dirt almost along its entire length, the water is turned on. It dissolves
the finer particles of clay and dirt, washes away the sand, rolls down the stones and boulders, for everything is shovelled, and
men stand all along to throw out the stones and gravel after they are washed quite clean. When the water has been running a
certain time quicksilver is introduced at the head of the flume, which works its way slowly downwards, all through the dirt,
gathering the particles of fine gold in its course, and forming an analgam which sinks into one of the riffle holes. Were the gold
coarse the quicksilver would not be wanted; but as every species of earth is thrown into the sluice , from the top dirt down to
that resting on the bed rock , of necessity much fine gold is mixed with it, for as a general maxim it may be laid down that
surface dirt contains only fine gold, and the deeper you go the coarser the gold becomes. Well, man and water go on working
away all day, he supplying the waste made by the water, and the quicksilver goes stealing about picking up stray particles, and
the boulders are jerked out with a blunt fork when they get bright and clean. Young miners use their fingers at first for that
purpose, but they soon leave off when the cracks come in their hands. This goes on sometimes for a fortnight, sometimes for a
month, the sluice being watched at night, for there are always inquisitive people who like to peep into the riffles, and have no
scruple at helping themselves. At the end of this fortnight or month, called a `run,' comes the cleaning up. No more dirt is
thrown in, and the water is allowed to flow till it runs out of the end quite clear. The riffles are taken up one after another, and
that which has lodged in them washed down until it can be scooped up with a kind of large spoon and put into a pan. This is
the most
interesting and important moment for the miners. It is a kind of holiday as well, for the labour is little or nothing. The body of
them follow the riffles to the end, leaning anxiously over the sluice until the last batch of amalgam, or lumps of coarse gold, are
taken out; that is, when they are all partners, as was more the case formerly than now. To-day a sluice claim is often owned
by one or two who hire labour to work it.
Ground sluicing is a primitive but very rapid way of mining. Suppose a small dry gulch runs up the sides of the hill, water is brought to its head and flushed along it, while workmen stir up the bottom as the stream flows along, so as to wash away the clay and sand and gravel, and leave the gold comparatively bare. This is rather a wasteful method of mining, and can only be used when the gulch is rich and the gold coarse.
But the most powerful placer mining agent is the hydraulic power. A stream of water is led to a small reservoir connecting with
a hose of from four to ten inches in diameter. This hose is made of very heavy duck sometimes strengthened with iron hands.
The nozzle is like that of a fire or garden engine narrowing to its end. Two men hold it, the water is let on. The nozzle is turned
towards the side of a hill and immediately it begins to melt away. Great care, however, must be taken not to bring too much of
the overhanging cliff down at once. The whole system is undermining or sapping the base, so they play away below, and with
the usual improvidence of miners and anxiety to bring down as much earth as possible, they frequently go too far and get
buried. When that is the case they have to be washed out in their turn. 
It is incredible what this hydraulic power will perform.
At Timbuctoo miles of the mountains' sides are washed away. The Yuba, into which run all the tailings, or waste earth, has its
bed
raised seventy feet by this cause alone. With two hundred inches of water, two hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet of dirt can
be washed in a working week. Now supposing the cubic foot to contain only one cent of gold, that would make a good sum.
But three cents a foot may be taken as a low average, so it will be seen that a company of miners can afford to spend a small
capital in bringing water to such a claim. The water, however, is generally brought by another company, who charge the miners
for the use of it at rates varying from twenty to fifty cents an inch. The force with which the stream issues from the nozzle of the
hose is so great that it would kill a man instantly did it strike him.
There are at present more than five thousand miles of artificial watercourses in California for mining purposes. The average size of these ditches is eight feet wide at the top, six at the bottom, and three feet deep, with a grade of from twelve to eighteen feet to the mile. These flumes traverse the mountains in all directions, sometimes crossing ravines on the delicate yet strong trestle work that the Americans have brought to perfection. Along the Truckee ditch a flume eight miles long hangs on the side of a canon. Of late iron pipes have been used; formerly all the flumes were of inch and a half planking. These ditches have cost in the neighbourhood twenty millions of dollars; and they have rendered mines available for working that would have remained untouched by pick or shovel to this day.
An inch of water in the mines is not a very well defined measurement, for the methods of delivering it differ in almost every camp. In many instances an opening, one inch high and twenty-four long , is made with a pressure of six inches, which would give twenty-four inches. So that here an inch of water is that quantity which passes through an aperture of a square inch under a six-inch pressure. That would give 2,274 cubic feet in twenty-four hours. Now a cubic foot being nearly seven and a half gallons in that time. In Eldorado county there is no pressure, but the aperture is three inches high and one wide. It will be obvious to all that the flow depends upon the pressure.
It is not easy to estimate the average cost of washing by the hydraulic process, as the nature of the material acted upon varies so considerably. The earth may be hard or soft, stubborn cement or loose gravel. With one pipe, of an inch and a half or two inches diameter, a boy can excavate and wash as much earth in one day as ten men. In some gravel claims the same force will wash as much as twenty men could do. At other places the strong cement has to be blasted before the hose is brought into play. In some claims one pipe will bring down as much material as three pipes will wash away, whilst others require three pipes to bring down that which one pipe can wash away. By washing away, I mean of course passing the loosened dirt through the sluice . Take for example a claim that uses 300 inches of water, and estimate, as is generally done, an inch of water to be equivalent to a supply of 145 lbs. a minute, or 8,700 lbs. an hour, then 300 inches will supply 15,000 tons in a day of twelve hours. It is calculated that the water removes one-fifth of its weight, which would give 3,000 tons of earth displaced daily, and that by two men, giving 1,500 tons to the man. The following calculation has been made of the relative expense of washing a cubic yard of gravel:--
By hand in the tin pan, about $15.00
By the rocker , about 4.00
By the Long Tom , about 1.00
By the sluice , about .34
By hydraulic washing, about .06
This includes the cost of the water. The Blue Gravel Company, at Smartsville, used more than seventeen millions of gallons to wash 980,000 cubic yards of gravel, and paid for water during forty-three months $57,261, paying at the rate of fifteen cents per inch, and the cubic yard of gravel costing less than six cents to wash. In the Middle Yuba district, where water is twenty cents, it costs seven and a half cents to mine a cubic yard.
Another branch of mining is sometimes practised on a large scale. This is called 'tail sluicing .' I think that I have before stated, that tailings are the earth, stones, and gravel that flow out of the sluice , and which, though treated as worthless, were always known to contain more or less gold. Now many companies working the same lode frequently unite to make a tail-race, which must have sufficient fall in order to carry of the refuse matter; whereupon another company gathers these tailings, and passes them through another course of sluicing . The following description of one of the largest of them will suffice for all. It is called the Teaff sluice , and is situated at Dutch Flat. The total length is 5,500 feet of this 2,500 feet are 51/2 feet wide and 26 inches deep in a tunnel; the remaining 3,000 feet are 6 feet wide. It cost 55,000 dollars, and was four years making. Several companies deliver their tailings into it with an aggregate of 1,550 inches of water. The bottom is paved with boulders fourteen inches deep, and the incline is ten inches in twelve feet. The descent is broken at intervals of 120 feet by drops or dumps two feet and a half high in the tunnel and five feet outside. These serve to break up the masses of cemented pebbles and thus liberate the gold. The force of the current in this sluice is such that boulders of rock ten and fifteen inches and even twenty inches in diameter would be swept along at the rate of nearly ten miles an hour. This constant pounding and attrition of the paved bottom of the sluice by the rolling rocks and gravel wear it away rapidly; this wear being as much as two inches in depth every three months, and half of the paving stones become broken so as to be unfit for use.
From fifteen to twenty pounds of quicksilver are put into the sluice every evening, but as the sluice continually catches that metal swept from the claims above, the owners are never obliged to buy any. They take out more than they put in.
Rock suitable for paving is also selected out of the boulders swept down from the other sluices . They are stopped by a strong iron grating placed across the mouth of the sluice in an inclined position. The spaces between the bars measure eight inches, so that only the largest boulders are excluded. A Chinaman standing by the grate examines every boulder that stops, and saves those suitable for pavement.
I had no means of ascertaining the earnings of this company but they are believed to be considerable, as a great deal of fine gold escapes from the claims above, and the company have comparatively little labour to perform, that being already done for them.
One hydraulic company, I was informed, washed 224,000 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 a day each, to two hundred and forty dollars; the water cost three hundred dollars; the waste of quicksilver and sluice about a hundred dollars more, making a total expenditure of six hundred and fifty dollars. They cleared up 3,000 dollars. The dirt contained one cent and a fifth per cubic foot.
I should have mentioned that the amalgam of gold and quicksilver is retorted after it is taken from the sluice , and the quicksilver thereby saved after having been separated from the gold. Some miners less careful only roast their amalgam in an open pan, and allow the fumes of the mercury to escape.
The action of quicksilver on gold is very curious. It does not mix with it like silver or copper, but as it were granulates it, separating the gold into minute particles, so that it crumbles to the touch and loses its malleability, which is never restored till the quicksilver is driven off by heat.
River mining was formerly much in favour in California. It is the most risky of all the styles of mining. The company either made a fortune or lost one, and being in the nature of gambling, and taking long odds, suited the Californian miner exactly. It is impossible to prospect a river other than on its banks. The only guide is the geological formation. For example a river rushes through a narrow gorge, and on emerging spreads out to more than its usual breadth. Here one may reasonably expect to find gold, which has been brought down as through a sluice . Again; a ridge of rocks crosses the river, or rather the river flows over them. They form in fact a natural riffle, and it can easily be supposed that gold will be found in the crevices above and below them. In another place the water, after passing through a series of rapids, forms a bank of sand, mud, and gravel, which it has washed down. This is called a bar, and is the pet speculation of the Californian miner. No sooner had one found a bar in a river than he forthwith gathered his chums together and imparted his discovery. They immediately sold their claims for what they would fetch, and set to work to turn the river. Everything conspires to throw difficulties in the way of river mining. It can only be done when the river is at its lowest. All the snow must be melted in the mountains. The work can hardly begin before June, and must be finished before September. They set to work with a will. As many labourers as their means will allow are hired. From daybreak to sunset there is no cessation of labour. Slowly and surely the massive dam progresses. A wide ditch is cut if possible in the bank of the river. When, as is generally the case, the sides are too steep and rocky to allow of a canal being cut, a portion of the river must serve for that purpose. At length, in the middle of August, the dam is finished. The river flows by the side of its ancient bed to rejoin it about half a mile lower down. The bed of the stream is bare. The sluice boxes are laid along the centre. Prospecting with the pan is going on in holes and crevices. All hands are busy shovelling in the dirt. The sluice box, deftly made in the dam, is opened. For a week the water flows down the race--a week of hope and fear--a week the end of which will declare whether their labour and money have been spent in vain. That such is often the case the names of many tell. We meet with Poverty Bar, Last Chance, Greenhorn, c. But, on the other hand, miners point exultingly to Yuba Dam, to Long Bar, and many others that have yielded millions. But supposing our bar turns out to be rich. Washing is neglected, unless the force is large, for the more important task of strengthening the dam against the floods of winter. For the rains will be on soon, and the springs will begin to rise. Very few dams withstand the winter torrents. They don't mind; they know that the gold is there; the claim remains their own, and next year they patiently recommence their labours, and so continue until the whole river bed is worked out. It is a strange sight these river beds with the huge boulders, and the crevices full of gravel, and pools of standing water, and little streamlets trickling about, for the bed is never quite dry; and there is a strange feeling of being below the level of the water, for over the dam you see the banked-up river, and have a sense of danger. Suppose the dam should burst? Everywhere is motion and bustle, excepting on Sunday, for very few miners work on that day. Rough and sometimes dissolute as he is, the miner rarely works on the day of rest. When I have seen such they were foreigners, generally Frenchmen.
So it is that to-day engineering and mechanical skill have supplanted the old gold washing machines. From the hand washing
pan (battea) of the Mexican and Indian came the rocker or cradle of the White man; that was improved to the Long Tom
ending with the sluice and hydraulic power. And with these changes the nature of the mines is changed. There is no longer a
scraping of the surface until what was called bed rock is reached; the whole surface of gulch and ravine and creek and flat is
worked out, or at most so little left as to be deemed only worth working by the Chinese. 
A peculiar instance of how thoroughly
the placer diggings have been worked is evidenced in Shaw's Flat, an exceedingly rich plateau in the county of Tuolumne. In
1851 this was a beautiful level park, studded with trees, among them many noble cedars. In 1860 the whole plain, from four to
five miles across, was one scene of gaunt desolation. The entire dirt had been washed away, not a single tree remained. Shaw's
Flat, once proverbial for the richness of its mines, was silent and solitary. The bed rock was composed of limestone. The
head-waters of the river Stanislaus had been brought to bear upon the soil, and had washed every grain of it through Dragoon
gulch into the lowlands. Nothing remained but the white bare rocks that looked like tombstones, the more so as they were of
all shapes, some of them flat, others peaked, others needle-shaped, and some arched. A small town had sprung up during the
brief and brilliant prosperity of that place, but not a sign of life was now seen in the cluster of wooden houses. They will stand
there until some drunken traveller, either for
by negligence, will drop a lighted match against the dry walls and put the town out of its misery. A few ashes will mark the spot
where the bar-room, the general store, the gambling-house and the Baptist chapel once stood. No one will miss them, and the
fact of their destruction will hardly be mentioned in the local papers. Fortunes have been made here, but the face of the country
is ruined for centuries.
At the foot of this table mountain flows Wood's Creek, of which mention has been already made. No creek in California has yielded so universally and been so rich as this. From its source in the mountains near Columbia to its junction with a tributary of the Stanislaus, it has been mined since the earliest days of California. Small towns have been built on its banks, and the busiest of a most mixed population have swarmed all over its bed. It is estimated that nearly equal to one year's production of all the mines of California has been taken out of this little creek and the gulches that run into it. It has given rise to the question absurd as it may appear: Does gold grow? For nine months of the year the bed of the river, its banks and gulches, are washed and scraped and sluiced and every pocket emptied. Down comes the rain, and the snows melt, and the gentle creek is swollen to the importance of a river. When the waters have subsided the gold is found in its wonted spots, not so rich as in the days of yore but still repaying the worker. A company has lately been formed to sluice the whole creek from one end to the other. It is urged that it is not yet half-worked out, that miners have never fairly gone down to the bed-rock , and so they are going to lay that bare also.
The working of theold river beds may be classed as a separate branch of mining. I have partially alluded to one of them when treating of the hydraulic washing, for that Blue Lead referred to belongs to one of these, and its course has been traced for nearly a hundred miles, though it is only mined for a portion of its entire length on account of superposed mountains. Wherever it has shown itself a hue and cry has been raised, claims have been taken up, shafts sunk, tunnels bored into the mountains with drift ways seeking the continuation, every one animated with the hope of striking the hidden bed, certain of being rich the moment that he did so. All that was necessary was that a little bit of blue clay should come up in the bucket, and then the shout of Eureka would be raised, and the finder could either work it or sell out. Many miners prefer the latter, and then set to work again to find a further continuation of the mysterious stream.
But a still more striking phenomenon is presented by another of these primeval rivers. It is covered by what is called `the dead table mountain.' It runs from near Silver Mountain in Alpine to Knight's Ferry in Tuolumne county, and there disappears. A stream of lava must have filled up the bed as well as the banks of this river, which at one side were precipitous. Ages of climatic action, or more active agencies, have worn away these old banks, and we have the spectacle of a black wall of basalt winding its way through the country in some places from three to eight hundred feet sheer down, in all parts difficult to scale. For seventy miles this type of a past mighty destruction pursues its serpentine course. Its flat surface is a mass of loose scori, rendering it very difficult and painful for walking. Here and there, where a projecting crag has accumulated, a light soil may be seen, a hanging bush or scrub oak; but, in general, the burnt sides are utterly barren.
Under its feet, however, lies untold wealth, which these basaltic coffers render it very hard to get at. The old lava stream covers a river rich in gold. The only way to reach it is by tunnelling. There is no mistaking the course of the river. It is there marked as plainly as though its waters were running to-day. The difficulty lies in striking the bed. If the miner goes too high he works continually in the hard volcanic formation, if too low he is tunnelling the bed-rock . The real bed is far below the present surface of the ground, so the workmen have first to sink a shaft, and then run drift ways until they find the old stream. It is a trying and expensive work. Some of the old banks are of solid rock , or of huge fragments of rock . To overcome this the miners to-day sink an incline so as to tap the river about the centre of its bed and then drift every way. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in these table mountain tunnels, but with few exceptions the experiment has not been successful, the expenses having been too great. This great wall built on the ruins of this dead river is ominous and black as one could fancy the Destroyer to be.
Another table mountain covering another river whose history belongs to geology, extends about seventy miles from Lassens Peak to Oroville. Others have been traced in different parts of the state. Wherever their beds could be worked, they have repaid the miner, showing conclusively one thing, that the gold formation is older than the upheaval of the Sierra Nevadas. In some of these beds are found rounded boulders of lava and basalt, proving that volcanic action existed whilst they were living streams, and that it was not one general eruption that dried up their sources for ever. The character of their beds also is different; that of the Big Blue Lead contains large quartz boulders, whilst that of San Juan is gravel, the pebbles not being larger than a small egg.
The like phenomenon was observed at an eruption of Kilauea in the Sandwich Islands in 1859. The stream of lava came to a river which was winding its way to fertilise the plains below. For three days the lava battled with the snow-fed water and finally prevailed. The line of eruptive matter filled the bed of the river, and for some distance followed its course.
I will next draw attention to the quartz mines of California, her most enduring sources of wealth, and which are now receiving more particular attention and are being more rapidly developed in proportion as the placer mines are being worked out. The supply of quartz in this state is inexhaustible. The supply of gold-bearing quartz that will pay for working depends upon the cost of its extraction and crushing, as well as the nature of the machinery and processes employed. Some mines pay at ten dollars a ton, others lose with ore at thirty dollars a ton.
The elevation of quartz lodes is from two thousand to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. Their course is the same as
that of the dead rivers, namely from north-east to south-west. They crop out in all parts of the surface of the country, on the
sides of hills, at the botton of canons, and in the valleys. Gold is found in large veins and small veins, in veins white as marble,
and in others discoloured by the action of iron. Sometimes the gold is visible to the naked eye, sometimes the contrary; and yet
this latter may be the richest ore. It is seldom that a vein continues rich for any considerable distance; there is invariably a fault
or break, particularly if the vein have chimneys or pockets, which are spots in the vein where the ore is excessively rich. The
richest part of a lode of auriferous quartz is always on the lower side of the vein near the foot-wall. The vein, if near the surface,
is generally covered with loose fragments of disintegrated quartz. 
The miners usually wash and pound
up some of this, and if they don't find gold generally leave the vein alone. And yet there is nothing so dangerous as trusting to
specimens. They may be worth thousands of dollars to the ton, and the mine bring in a loss in the working, whilst another lode
of less pretensions will bring in an income for years. The most famous quartz mine in California for many years was called the
Alison Ranch at Grass Valley. It was owned by a company of Irishmen, and for a year through gave out rock that yielded a
hundred dollars to the ton. Now, when it is considered that the famous Mariposa Mines, formerly belonging to Colonel
Fremont but now worked by a company, only yield rock worth fourteen dollars to the ton, and yet the income is $75,000 a
month, it will be seen how rich the Alison mine must be. The partners disagreed some four or five years ago, and the mine was
closed. It was reopened this year, pumped out, and they are working it again. The Mariposa Mines have been continually the
subject of a lawsuit, and have been grossly mismanaged; but it is said that some parties have grown rich out of the
complications. The Eureka at Grass Valley is reputed to be the best managed mine in the state.
According to the official report there were in 1870, three hundred and thirty quartz mills in full operation in California. The number of tons crushed by them was 1,045,791, and they consumed 211,971 inches of water per day. This report cannot be absolutely relied upon as the millowners and miners are now very chary about giving information for fear of the tax-gatherer. One thing is certain, that the county of Nevada possesses one-fourth of all the mills in the fifty counties into which California is divided. Indeed it may be said that Amador, Calaveras, Eldorado, Mariposa, Nevada, Placer, and Tuolumne are the quartz mining counties.
Amador is the smallest county in the state but has some famous mines in it, the most noted of which is the `Hayward,' now incorporated with other mines, under the title of the Amador Mining Company. The history of this mine shows what pluck and perseverance will accomplish. About 1856 Alvinso Hayward commenced work on this lode, and for two years continued sinking shafts, erecting machinery, and following the course of the vein. The ore was poor, his funds were exhausted, but he was sure that he was on the right track, and would not be discouraged. He went to all his friends for he had many, and begged, borrowed, and scraped up all the money he could. All that went. His credit was exhausted. He could not even buy a pick. He had no money to pay his workmen, he was in arrear with them. One by one they withdrew, save one or two who were infected with their master's enthusiasm. He worked like one of them, suffered privations as they did, but still the mine yielded nothing. At length when worn out bodily and mentally, and almost on the point of giving up the mine in despair, he struck the main lode. Years had passed away in the meantime, but at length the reward had come. Of course all was now plain-sailing. Money is never wanting when money is in sight. In a short time Mr. Hayward's income was $50,000 a month. To-day he is worth millions, and has never forgotten those who stood by him in the dark days. Among these was a man of the name of Coleman, who had kept a huckster's shop at Amador. He had let Hayward have flour and provisions in limited quantities, for his means were limited, unto the end. Hayward invited him to San Francisco, obtained for him an agency for a large coal-oil establishment in the east, set him up in business with himself as partner, putting in $200,000 as capital, and the firm of Hayward and Coleman prospered exceedingly, the sole charge of the business being left to Coleman; who, however, was seized with the demon of jealousy. He envied the luck, as he called it, of his partner, forgetting that that luck was his fortune. Everything that Hayward touched turned to gold. He was a large shareholder in the Bank of California. In 1868 the land fever was at its height in San Francisco, and Hayward made a great deal of money by buying and selling real estate. He also made bold ventures in mining stocks, carrying all before him by the sheer weight of capital. Coleman would do likewise, but he had neither the weight nor the acumen of his partner. He went on the Stock Exchange. The consequence was that, at the end of a year, everything was gone and he was $300,000 behindhand. In one day he sold all his stock at a sacrifice, and this was the first intimation that his partner had of his loss. The notes of the firm were out to the amount of the deficiency, and the solvent partner had to pay them. Coleman has now gone into the interior.
The Amador mine is a continuous vein, yielding a regular grade of ore of little more than twenty-one dollars to the ton. This is considered the best species of rock as it goes on in the same way for years. The mine is 1,850 feet long , and the vein of quartz is enclosed on the east by a wall of granite, and on the west by one of slate. The product for the year 1869-70 was $617,542, and the mill contains seventy-two stamps.
The opening out of this mine caused several other companies to work the continuation of the vein, and some three or four are doing so with the like success that crowned the labours of Mr. Hayward; so that he indirectly benefited the country at the same time he enriched himself.
The mines of Nevada county are chiefly indebted to the famous Grass Valley district for their reputation. Grass Valley was the first to be worked for its quartz mines, and many and English company suffered in the early days of ignorance. It is still at the top of the tree, and still the region where the English most resort. The nucleus of the miners is composed of Cornishmen, the best underground miners in the world, but the hardest men to manage, as the recent strike, which has diminished last year's returns one-half, fully proves.
The system of mining here is called `the Grass Valley system,' which is acknowledged to be the most perfect at present in use. I will endeavour to give a short explanation of it. They have been fifteen years bringing it to its present state of completeness.
Formerly the amalgamation was formed in the battery, that is, the quicksilver was added to the quartz whilst it was being crushed to a powder, but in this process amalgamation is not practised in battery, but the quartz is crushed to such a fineness as to permit its passage through the finest screens, and thence over blankets which are washed out every fifteen minutes. These blanket washings are passed through two very simple amalgamators, where a revolving cylinder with rakes stirs the mass in a bed of mercury. The skimmings of the amalgamating boxes are now treated with chemicals, and here one-third of the gross yield is obtained. The pulp from blankets and amalgamators has, in the meantime, passed through two simple contrivances called `rubbers,' where further amalgamation is produced by washing and grinding cylinders covered with amalgamated copper plates (plates coated with quicksilver), which are moved horizontally by vibrating arms; thence through sluice -boxes with riffles of quicksilver to a discharge-box with self-acting gates, which is situated immediately over the concentrating room. Here commences the separation of the sulphurets which, still mixed with the sand and water, now flow through a concentrator eighteen feet in diameter. This apparatus is an improvement on the `buddle' used in the tin mines of Cornwall, and is well-adapted to California mining. The sulphurets settle on the outer rim of the concentrator, while the sand, water, and such fine particles as have not been caught, pass off through the centre to the tailpiece of the mill beyond. As a matter of precaution the sulphurets are passed through the buddle. They are then placed in a `tossing tub,' an ther Cornish appliance, and here a further separation takes place. A stream of water is turned on with the charge in the tub, and a four-pound hammer striking forcibly and rapidly on the sides of the tub by its vibrations causes the heavier particles to sink and settle while the lighter pass off the edge of the tub to the tail-sluice . The sulphurets are now ready for chlorination. The tail-sluice of the mill has received all the refuse, and still further precautions are used to prevent the escape of any of the precious particles. The sluice , more than one hundred feet long , is divided into three sections, one of which is cleaned while the tailings are passing over the other two, where the heavier sands are caught by riffles, and submitted to the manipulations of a `hooking trough.' Thus the last sulphurets are caught, and the tailings leave the ground of the company. I am indebted for the above, to a description of the mill of the Idaho mine, Grass Valley, furnished by Mr. W. A. Skidmore of San Francisco.
This Idaho mine is an extension of the famous Eureka, which is chiefly owned by two brothers of the name of Watt. They are Scotch, and have been in Grass Valley almost from the beginning, having originally had charge of the machinery of a quartz mill. The original length of the Eureka lode was 1,680 feet, but by purchase of an adjoining claim it is increased to 3,680 feet. The old Eureka yielded in 1869 $361,211 net profits to its owners. 1870 must not be taken into account, as it was the year of the miners' strike. There is a mournful history in connection with this mine. The original owner, after working it without success, and having exhausted all his money, was obliged to abandon it. He came to San Francisco, where he lived in indigence for some time, finally cutting his wife's throat and those of his two children, and then blowing out his own brains. Those who re-opened the mine struck the ledge only twelve feet beyond the spot where the poor fellow had ceased working. He and his family are in the grave, whilst of the present owners one is state senator and the other state controller.
Various experiments have been made, and many different apparatus tried, for saving the finest particles of gold which escape in the common stamp process and pass off in the tailings. The following method by Mr. James T. M`Dougall, of Grass Valley, may be interesting. Mr. M`Dougall is engaged on the waste tailings of the Eureka and Idaho mines above-mentioned.
The contrivance consists of twelve troughs, each twelve feet by two and a half, inclined at a slight angle. The bottom of the troughs, or sluice boxes, are covered with copper plates amalgamated, and thickly studded with square iron pegs, about four inches in height and half an inch square. Over these pegs are placed closely-fitting copper caps, their outer surface being amalgamated, and arranged in such a manner that a corner is presented to the stream. In other words the diagonal of the pegs and caps is parallel with the sides of the sluice -box. The waste water from the Eureka and Idaho, from which the owners have extracted all the gold that they possibly could with their blankets, copper plates, rubbers, amalgamated pans, c., is turned through the troughs I have described. Striking against the pegs, of which the troughs contain 5,000, the water boils and surges and eddies about, so that every atom comes in contact with the amalgamated surfaces. The precipitation of the gold is greatly increased by the electrical action induced by the difference in latent heat between the different metals, copper, iron, and quicksilver. Amalgam forms rapidly, and two men are constantly employed in cleaning the copper caps and plates. Owing to the almost microscopical fineness of the gold particles thus saved, the amalgam obtained does not contain as much gold to the ounce as that ordinarily obtained at the quartz mills. This of course is to be expected. Mr. M`Dougall can tell at once what grade of ore is being worked in the mill above him. When they are running what they call poor rock his contrivance saves the most gold; when they are crushing rich rock his contrivance does not do so well. The reason is, that their rock which they call poor may in reality contain as much gold as that which they style rich, only it is in much finer particles and more diffused throughout the entire metal. The particles are so fine that the mill process cannot arrest them. In the rich rock the gold is coarser and they save it. The calculation is, that on an average ten per cent. of the gold passes away even when the rock is treated by the best known process.
The principal mines in Grass Valley are the Eureka, Empire, Idaho, North Star, Union Hill, Wisconsin, Hartery, Perrin's, M`Cauley's, Gold Hill, and Laremer's, and these yielded nearly two million dollars in 1869.
Grass Valley is the most thriving little town in California. It is prettily situated in a hollow, the sides of which were formerly covered with fine trees, which have all disappeared for fuel and building; but now the young trees are growing up, the place does not look so barren, but still the ugly stumps meet one everywhere. The neighbouring town of Nevada is a large business centre surrounded by mines. It is in contemplation to build a narrow gauge railroad from Grass Valley and Nevada to a point on the Central Pacific. By this means a great quantity of the ore and sulphurets that cannot be profitably treated at Grass Valley may be shipped east or to Europe, and the gold be there extracted. These sulphurets abound in Grass Valley and all contain gold; but they are impracticable to quick-silver, and cannot be worked there. The furnace must do that which water and mercury fail to effect, and it is only in Europe that such appliances are to be found. They would not pay in California.
The description of one series of quartz mines is the description of all. Wherever they are carefully and economically worked they have proved an income, if not a fortune, to their owners. The development of them is yet in its infancy, and districts as yet unknown may rival the Grass Valley district.
