County Histories
A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California - Chicago, Lewis Publ. Co., 1891
EARLY GOLD DISCOVERIES.
The first mention of gold in California was made in Hakluyt's account of the voyage of Sir Francis Drake, who spent five or six weeks, in. June and July, 1579, in a bay on the coast of California. It has always been a question and will remain a question, whether this bay was that of San Francisco or one further to the north. In the narrative of Hakluyt it is written: "There is no part of the earth here to be taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold or silver." At this day we know that this statement must have been untrue, and was doubtless written for the purpose of attracting attention to the importance of the expedition of Sir Francis Drake. California was then a comparatively unknown country. It had been visited only by early explorers, and its characteristics were merely conjectured. When Hakluyt wrote there could hardly be a "hand.ful of soil taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold or silver;" in the light of the present the statement was absurd, for neither gold nor silver has ever been found in the vicinity of the point where Drake must have landed.
Other early explorers stated that gold had been found long before the discovery by Marshall; and there is no doubt that a well-founded surmise prevailed that gold existed in California. The country had been explored at times since the sixteenth century, by Spanish, Russian and American parties. It was visited by Commodore Wilkes, who was in the service of the United States on an extensive exploring expedition; and members of his party ascended the Sacramento River and visited Sutter at the fort, while others made explorations by land.
James D. Dana, a celebrated author of several works on mineralogy, was the mineralogist of this expedition and passed by land through the upper portion of California. In one of his works he says that gold rock and veins of quartz were observed by him in 1842 near the Umpqua River, in Southern Oregon; and again, that he found gold near the Sierra Nevada and on the Sacramento River; also, on the San Joaquin River and between those rivers. There is, in the reports of the Fremont exploring expedition, an intimation of the existence of gold.
It has been said that in October and November, 1845, a Mexican was shot at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) on account of having a bag of gold dust, and when dying pointed northward and said, " Legos! Legos!" (yonder), indicating where he had found the gold dust.
It has been claimed, and with a considerable degree of probability, that the Mormons who arrived in San Francisco on the ship Brooklyn found gold before the famous discovery of Coloma. The circumstances in connection with this discovery are somewhat romantic. The Mormon people had established themselves at Nauvoo, Illinois, a point where they believed themselves to be beyond the reach of persecution. However, the country there became populated by those not of their faith, and the antagonism against the Mormons resulted finally in bloodshed, and the founder of the church, Joseph Smith, was shot by a mob and killed. The Mormons then determined to remove farther west, and into a section of country beyond the reach of the Government of the United States. They selected California as their future home. Their land expedition started across the plains, and a ship named the Brooklyn carried from the eastern side of the continent a number of the believers. Samuel Brannan, who was prominent in the early history of Sacramento, San Francisco and the State, was one of their leading men who came with the sea voyagers. When the Brooklyn emigrants landed at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) they found that the United States forces had taken possession of California, and that they had landed upon soil possessed by the nation from which they were endeavoring to flee. Couriers were sent overland to intercept the land party, and it is said that they found them at the place where Salt Lake City is now located. The overland party determined to locate at that place, although it was then sterile and unpromising. Those who came on the Brooklyn dispersed in California, and some of them located at Mormon Island, in Sacramento County; and it is claimed that they found gold long before the discovery at Coloma, but that they kept their discovery a secret. However that may be, it is a fact that mining was prosecuted by them about the time of Marshall's discovery.
At a banquet of the Associated Pioneers of the Territorial days of California, held in the city of New York, on January 18, 1878, Colonel T. B. Thorpe, a veteran of the Mexican War, who had been on the staff of General Zachary Taylor, stated that while he had been employed as a journalist in New Orleans, several years before the discovery of gold at Coloma, a Swede, evidently far gone into consumption, called upon him and represented that he was what in his country was called a "king's orphan;" that he had been educated at a governmental institution, on condition that after he had received his education he should travel in foreign lands, observe and record what he had seen, and deposit his records with the government. He stated that he had visited California, remained several days at Sutter's Fort, enjoying the hospitality of Sutter; that while there he closely examined the surrounding country and became convinced that it abounded richly in gold. Colonel Thorpe stated that the Swede gave him this opinion in writing. At that banquet General Sutter was present, and Colonel Thorpe called upon him to say whether he had any recollection concerning the Swedish visitor. Sutter replied that he did recollect the visit, which had occurred about thirty-four years before; and he also remembered that the Swede expressed himself regarding the presence of mineral wealth in the neighboring hills; "but," added the General, " I was too much occupied at the time with other concerns to devote any time or attention to it. My crops were ripe, and it was imperative that they should be gathered as quickly as possible; but I do recollect the scientific Swedish gentleman."
The report of the remarks delivered at that banquet were published, and in it is contained a copy of the manuscript to which Colonel Thorpe referred, in which the "king's orphan" wrote: "The Californias are rich in minerals. Gold, silver, lead, oxide of iron, manganese and copper ore are all met with throughout the country, the precious metals being the most abundant."
There is another account of an early gold discovery, which was published in the New Age, in San Francisco, the official organ of the Odd Fellows, in September, 1865. It purports to have been an extract written by the Paris correspondent of the London Star, who wrote that in the city of Paris he visited a private museum, and that its owner exhibited to him a nugget of gold, and stated that twenty-eight years before a poor invalid had presented himself and took out of his tattered coat a block of quartz, and asked the proprietor of the museum if he would purchase it, assuring him that it was full of gold. The stranger said: "I have come to you to apply to the Government to give me a vessel and a crew of 100 men, and I will promise to return with a cargo of gold." The proprietor of the museum presumed that the man was mad, and gave him a napoleon as a matter of charity, but retained a piece of the quartz. Afterward the quartz was analyzed, and it was proved to contain pure gold. Fifteen years elapsed, and a parcel and a letter were left at his door. The parcel was wrapped in a handkerchief, and was heavy. The letter was worn and almost illegible. On deciphering it, it proved to be the dying statement of the poor traveler, which, through the neglect of the lodging-house keeper where he had died after the interview referred to, had never been delivered. The package contained a block of quartz, and the letter was thus worded:
"Yon alone listened to me; you alone stretched out a helping hand to me. Alas! it was too late! I am dying. I bequeath my secret to you. The country from whence I brought this gold is called California."
THE GREAT GOLD DISCOVERY OF 1848.
The credit, however, for the practical discovery of gold in California is due to James W. Marshall. It is true that a gold mine had been worked in 1841 in the lower part of the State, and that gold from that mine had been sent to the Philadelphia mint for coinage as early as July, 1843. The mine, however, proved unprofitable and was abandoned. The story of the discovery by Marshall, at Coloma, in January, 1848, is confused, and the precise date upon which it was made can perhaps never be settled. Marshall was employed by Captain Sutter, and was in charge of a party of men erecting a saw-mill at the present site of Coloma, in El Dorado County. A race-way was dug and the water turned in. In examining the race afterward, Marshall's attention was attracted by a shining object. He picked it up. It was gold. Other particles of the metal were collected, and Marshall came with them to Sutter's Fort and exhibited them to his employer, Sutter. They were tested in a crude way, and Sutter became convinced that the metal was gold. Afterward specimens were sent to Monterey, then the capital of the Territory, and exhibited to General R. B. Mason, the military governor, and to W. T. Sherman, at that time an obscure officer of the United States army, but who has since risen to national notoriety. The integrity of the metal was established, the news of the discovery sent forth, the world was electrified, and immigration poured in from every civilized country.
James W. Marshall was horn in Hope Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, October 8, 1810. On arriving at man's estate he removed to Indiana, afterward to Illinois and Missouri, and arrived in California in 1844. In 1845 he came to Sutter's Fort, and was employed by Captain Sutter. He took an active part in the California revolution of 1846. After his discovery of gold the Legislature of the State pensioned him for a time. Subsequently he settled on a small piece of land at Coloma, near where he had discovered the gold, and made his living by farming. About 5 o'clock on the morning of August 10, 1885, he was found dead in his cabin, and was buried near the spot where gold was first found by him. He was never married.
A fine statue of Marshall has recently been erected by the State at the point where he made his famous discovery.
We add Sutter's account here, as it gives so many interesting details in connection with the discovery of gold:
"It was on the first of January, 1848, when the gold was discovered at Coloma, where I was building a saw-mill. The contractor and builder of this mill was James W. Marshall, from New Jersey. In the fall of 1847, after the mill seat had been located, I sent up to this place Mr. P. L. Wimmer [Weimer], with his family, and a number of laborers from the disbanded Mormon battalion; and a little later I engaged Mr. Bennett, from Oregon, to assist Mr. Marshall in the mechanical labors of the mill. Mr. Wimmer had the team in charge, assisted by his young sons, to do the teaming, and Mrs. Wimmer did the cooking for all hands. I was very much in need of a sawmill to get lumber to finish my flouring-mill, of four run of stones, at Brighton, which was commenced at the same time and was rapidly progressing; likewise, for other buildings, fences, etc., for the small village of Yerba Buena, now San Francisco. In the City Hotel (the only one) this enterprise was unkindly called "another folly of Sutter's," as my first settlement at the old Fort near Sacramento city was called by a good many "a folly of his ;" and they were about right in that, because I had the best chances to get some of the finest locations near the settlements; and even well stocked ranches had been offered me, on the most reasonable conditions. But I refused all these good offers and preferred to explore the wilderness and select a territory on the banks of the Sacramento.
"It was a rainy afternoon when Mr. Marshall arrived at my office in the fort, very wet. I was somewhat surprised to see him, as he was down a few days previous, when I sent up to Coloma a number of teams with provisions, mill irons, etc. He told me then that he had some important and interesting news which he wished to communicate secretly to me, and wished me to go with him to a place where we should not be disturbed, and where no listeners could come and hear what we had to say. I went with him to my private rooms. He requested me to lock the room; I complied, but told him at the same time that nobody was in the house except the clerk, who was in his office in a different part of the house.
After requesting something of me which he wanted, which my servants brought and then left the room, I forgot to lock the door, and it happened that the door was opened by the clerk just at the moment when Marshall took a rag from his pocket, showing me the yellow metal. He had about two ounces of it; but how quick Mr. Marshall put the yellow metal in his pocket again can hardly be described. The clerk came to see me on business, and excused himself for interrupting me; and as soon as he left I was told, "Now lock the door. Didn't I tell you that we might have listeners?" I told him he need fear nothing about that, as it was not the habit of this gentleman; but I could hardly convince him that he need not be suspicious.
"Then Mr. Marshall began to show me this metal, which consisted of small pieces and specimens, some of them worth a few dollars. He told me that he had expressed his opinion to the laborers at the mill that this might be gold; but some of them were laughing at him and called him a crazy man, and could not believe such a thing.
"After having proved the metal with aqua fortis, which I found in my apothecary shop, likewise with other experiments, and read the long article "Gold " in the Encyclopedia Americana, I declared this to be gold of the finest quality—of at least twenty-three carats. After this Mr. Marshall had no more rest or patience, and wanted me to start with him to Coloma; but I told him I could not leave, as it was late in the evening and nearly supper time, and that it would be better for him to remain with me till the next morning, and I would then travel with him. But this would not do; he asked me only, "Will you come to-morrow!" I told him Yes, and off he started for Coloma, in the heaviest rain, although already very wet, taking nothing to eat. I took this news very easy, like all other occurrences, good or bad, but thought a great deal during the night about the consequences which might follow such a discovery. I gave all the necessary orders to my numerous laborers, and left the next morning at seven o'clock, accompanied by an Indian soldier and a vaquero, in a heavy rain for Coloma. About half way on the road I saw at a distance a human being crawling out from the brushwood. I asked the Indian who it was. He told me, "The same man who was with you last evening." When I came nearer I found it was Marshall, very wet. I told him he would have done better to remain with me at the Fort than to pass such an ugly night here; but he told me that he went to Coloma, fifty-four miles, took his other horse and came half way to meet him. Then we rode up to the new El Dorado.
"In the afternoon the weather was clearing up, and we made a prospecting promenade. The next morning we went to the tail-race of the mill, through which the water was running during the night, to clear out the gravel which had been made loose, for the purpose of widening the race; after the water was out of the race, we went in to search for gold. This was done every morning. Small pieces of gold could be seen remaining on the surface of the clean-washed bed-rock. I went into the race and picked up several pieces of this gold. Several of the laborers gave me some which they had picked up, and from Marshall I received a part. I told them I would get a ring made of this gold as soon as it could be done in California; and I have had a heavy ring made, with my family's coat of arms engraved on the outside; and on the inside of the ring is engraved "The first gold, discovered in January, 1848." Now, if Mrs. Wimmer possesses a piece which had been found earlier than mine, Mr. Marshall can tell, as it was probably received from him. I think Mr. Marshall could have hardly have known himself which was exactly the first little piece among the whole.
"The next day I went with Mr. Marshall on a prospecting tour in the vicinity of Coloma, and the following morning I left for Sacramento. Before my departure, I had a conversation with all hands. I told them I would consider it a great favor if they would keep this discovery secret only for six weeks, so that I could finish my large flour-mill at Brighton, which had cost me already about $24,000 or $25,000. The people up there promised to keep it secret so long. On my way home, instead of feeling happy and contented, I was very unhappy, and could not see that it would benefit me much; and I was perfectly right in thinking so, as it came just precisely as I expected. I thought, at the same time, that it could hardly be kept secret for six weeks; and in that too I was not mistaken; for, about two weeks later after my return, I sent up several teams, in charge of a white man, as the teamsters were Indian boys. This man was acquainted with all hands up there, and Mrs. Wimmer told him the whole secret; likewise the young sons of Mrs. Wimmer told him that they had gold, and that they would let him have some too; and so he obtained a few dollars' worth of it, as a present. As soon as this man arrived at the Fort he went to a small store in one of my outside buildings kept by Mr. Smith, a partner of Samuel Brannan; he asked for a bottle of brandy, for which he would pay the cash. After having the bottle he paid, with the small pieces of gold. Smith was astonished, and asked if he meant to insult him. The teamster told him to go and ask me about it. He reported it to Mr. Brannan, who came up immediately to get all possible information, when he returned and sent up large supplies of goods, leased a larger house from me, and commenced a very large and profitable business. Soon he opened a branch house at Mormon Island.
"So soon as the secret was out my laborers began to leave me, in small parties at first, but then all left, from the clerk to the cook; and I was in great distress. Only a few mechanics remained to finish some necessary work which they had commenced, and about eight invalids who continued slowly to work a few teams, to scrape out the mill-race at Brighton. The Mormons did not like to leave my Mill unfinished; but they got the gold fever, like everybody else. After they had made their piles they left for the great Salt Lake. So long as these people had been employed by me they have behaved very well and were industrious and faithful laborers; and when settling their accounts there was not one of them who was not contented and satisfied.
"Then the people commenced rushing up from San Francisco and other parts of California, in May, 1848. In the former village (San Francisco) only five men were left to take care of the women and children. The single men locked their doors and left for "Sutter's Fort," and thence to the El Dorado. For some time the people in Monterey and further south would not believe the news of the gold discovery, and said it was only a ruse de guerre of Sutter's, because he wanted to have neighbors in his wilderness. From this time on I got only too many neighbors, and some very bad ones among them.
"What a great misfortune was this sudden gold discovery to me ! It has just broken up and ruined my hard, industrious and restless laborers, connected with many dangers of life, as I had many narrow escapes before I became properly established. From my mill buildings I reaped no benefit whatever; the mill-stones, even, have been stolen from me. My tannery, which was then in a flourishing condition and was carried on very profitably, was deserted. A large quantity of leather was left unfinished in the vats, and a great quantity of raw hides became valueless, as they could not be sold. Nobody wanted to be bothered with such "trash," as it was called. So it was in all the other mechanical trades which I had carried on; all was abandoned, and work commenced, or nearly finished, was left, at an immense loss to me. Even the Indians had no more patience to work alone, in harvesting and threshing my large wheat crop; as the whites had all left, and other Indians had been engaged by some white men to work for them, and they commenced to have some gold, for which they were buying all kinds of articles at enormous prices at the stores. When my Indians saw this they wished very much to go to the mountains and dig gold. At last I consented, got a number of wagons ready, loaded them with provisions and goods of all kinds, employed a clerk and left with about 100 Indians and about fifty Sandwich Islanders, which had joined those which I brought from the Islands. The first camp was about ten miles from Mormon Island, on the south fork of the American river. In a few weeks we became crowded, and it would no more pay, as my people made too many acquaintances. I broke up the camp and started on the march further south, and located my next camp on Sutter Creek, now in Amador County, and thought that I should there be alone. The work was going on well for a while, until three or lour traveling grog shops surrounded me, at from one-half to ten miles distance from the camp. Then, of course, the gold was taken to these places, for drinking, gambling, etc., and then the following day they were sick and unable to work, and became deeper and more indebted to me, particularly the Kanakas (Sandwich Islanders). I found it was high time to quit this kind of business and lose no more time and money. I therefore broke up my camp and returned to the Fort, where I disbanded nearly all the people who had worked for me in the mountains digging gold. This whole expedition proved to be a heavy loss to me.
"At the same time I was engaged in a mercantile firm at Coloma, which I left in January, 1849, likewise with many sacrifices. After this, I would have nothing more to do with the gold affairs. At this time the fort was the great trading place, where nearly all the business was transacted. I had no pleasure to remain there and moved up to Hock farm, with all my Indians who had been with me from the time they were children. The place was then in charge of a major-domo.
"It was very singular that the Indians never found a piece of gold and brought it to me, as they very often did other specimens found in the mountains. I requested them continually to bring me some curiosities from the mountains, for which I always recompensed them. I have received animals, birds, plants, young trees, wild fruits, pipe-clay, red ochre, etc., but never a piece of gold. Mr. Dana, of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, told me that he had the strongest proof and signs of gold in the vicinity of Shasta Mountain and further south. A short time afterward, Dr. Sanderson, a very scientific traveler, visited me and explored a part of the country in a great hurry, as time would not permit him to make a longer stay. He told me likewise that he found some signs of gold, and was very sorry that he could not explore the Sierra Nevada. He did not encourage me to attempt to work and open mines, as it was uncertain how it would pay and would probably be only profitable for a government. So I thought it more prudent to stick to the plow, notwithstanding I did know the country was rich in gold and other minerals. An old attached Mexican servant, who had followed me from the United States, as soon as he knew that I was there, and who understood a great deal about working in placers, told me he found sure signs of gold in the mountains on Bear Creek, and that we would go right to work after returning from our campaign in 1845; but he became a victim to his patriotism and fell into the hands of the enemy near my encampment, with dispatches for me from General Micheltorena, and he was hung as a spy, for which I was very sorry."
EARLY MINING.
As would naturally be expected, the first devices adopted for washing and collecting gold would, in a great measure, be imperfect and unsatisfactory, and improvements would be constantly made. The first eager rush for the shining treasure hurried the seeker on in so great haste that he could hardly take time to invent apparatus or machinery. Therefore numbers of experiments were introduced by thoughtful immigrants, but nearly all devised without practical knowledge. Many excellent ideas were, however, obtained from men conversant with the methods of other countries, and these suggestions assisted in unfolding one method after another.
In 1850 the "long tom" began to supplant the cradle, of which it formed practically an extension, with a capacity five-fold and upward greater. This apparatus was an inclined, stationary, wooden trough or box from ten to thirty feet in length, a foot and a half wide at the upper end and widening at the lower end, where perforated sheets of iron were let into the bottom, under which was placed a shallow, flat riffle-box four or five feet long, with crossbars to catch the running gold. Such bars were sometimes nailed also across the bottom of the upper box to assist in catching the gold. Upon the mass of dirt shoveled into this trough a
continuous stream of water was permitted to flow from a pond above. Other men below assisted 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 with long perforated iron top throughout, above the riffle-box, above each of whose bars some quicksilver was placed to absorb the gold, which was regained by squeezing the mercury through buckskin and retorting its amalgam.
But both of the above were replaced within two or three years by the more effective permanent 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 auxiliary apparatus is due the immense increase in the production of gold during the early mining period.
Operations on river bars soon led to explorations 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. Boulders 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 introduction of dredges with fair success, the buckets of which discharged the dirt into huge rocker-riffles. Along the northern coast of California 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-bearing deposits with profit in the gravelly banks and hills, which had moreover to be removed before richer underlying strata could be profitably 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 Frenchman named Chabot used a hose without a nozzle 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 California for hydraulic mining, costing $6,342,000. But on account of this process throwing down upon the fertile valleys so great an amount of debris, called "slickens," thus rendering valueless the most profitable horticultural and agricultural 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 legislation of course depreciated the value of the mining districts, causing the towns and camps to run down, the remaining residents to continue poor, while the people of the valleys rejoice; and it is still a question with many whether the prohibition will finally result in a net gain for the State. The main consideration 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 determining 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, when ancient river channels began to attract attention. Fully half the early attempts resulted in failure, owing to miscalculations and insufficient adjuncts. 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 American.
Shaft and drift mining became more identified 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 isthmus, 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 successes. Assay upon assay demonstrated that California ore was ten to one hundred-fold richer than well-paying lodes abroad, and explorations revealed that auriferous rock existed throughout the State. But the extraction of gold from quartz at first, on account of ignorance 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 pockets, which were about cleaned out by other methods. Hundreds were financially ruined, and quartz-mining fell into disrepute. A few, however, persevered patiently until they attained 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 Australia 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 Calaveras, 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 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 prospectors and itinerant miners. In 1852 the average yield for each of the 100,000 men engaged in mining was only $600, while wages for common 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 tongue, 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 representatives. 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 sought for one of these deposits ever since the discovery of gold in 1848, and it has continually 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 rioting in wealth. But the greater number who toil year after year and make no rich 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 exceptional 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 Pliocene 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 aggregate 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 readily 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 from 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, Amador, 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 remains 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 canons 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 fifty miles, thence with much steeper grades to the headwaters, only a thousand or so feet below the summit of the Sierras. The narrow ridges between the cañons rise from the plains with mean grades of from 100 to 150 feet to the mile, to summit elevations of from 0,000 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 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 ancient river the counterpart of the present Yuba. The main stream can be traced up the "Ridge," as it is locally known, lying between the Middle and South Forks of the Yuba to about Moore's Flat, thence northward into Sierra County. Remains of what must have been its tributaries 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 convincing that there is not one main great blue-lead channel 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 considerable certainty. In the southern portion the remains of the old channels are very fragmentary, either as a result 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 less isolated fragments of these channels comes from in disputable evidence that there were two, and in some localities 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 result 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 ancient 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 not, 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 corresponding 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 tentable, as no trace of it appears in the channels, and remains of flora and fauna are found that indicate, if not a temperate, certainly a subarctic climate. Le Coute 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 channels 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, California—andesite after Becker, United States Geological Surveyor), 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 completely altering the surface of the country. This covering up and obliteration of the surface was not the result of one season of eruptive activity, but of several, separated by enormous intervals of time only less than that which has elapsed since the final dying out of the plutonic forces. Discussion of this volcanic action is somewhat 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, and 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 channels 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 eruption a completely new topography was forming, the beginning of the present.
The lessening area to the south covered by the successive 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 of the existing river channels are the original ones cut deeper into the country rock, the volcanic flows not obliterating them at all, or only temporarily. This is particularly 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 hundred 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, depressions in the surface of the country rock filled with river sands, gravels, and clays, and capped with lava, volcanic ashes, and tufa, with possibly wash gravels lying between the volcanic flows—the remains 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 eruptive 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
80 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 boulders, 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 in 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 different location. Comparatively few shafts have been sunk through these lava flows, the mining of the auriferous gravels underneath being most practicable through tunnels, and in the sinking of the shafts but little attention 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 superimposed 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 fifty 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 beyond the limits of the lowest channel depression.
QUARTZ MINING AND MILLING.
The following, from Hittell's Resources of California, is a concise description of quartz mining and methods:
No doubt, geological knowledge is valuable to a miner, and it should assist him in prospecting; but it (that which the professional geologist has above the practical miner) has never yet enabled anybody to find a valuable claim. [Similar observations are made with regard to oil and gas discoveries in the East.] Chemists, geologists, mineralogists and old miners have not done better than ignorant men and newcomers. Most of the best veins have been discovered by poor and ignorant men.
Auriferous quartz lodes are often found by accident. Some good leads have been found by men employed in making roads and cutting ditches. The quartz might be coveted 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 cañon, and this 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 miner was attacked by a robber, and the former saw a sparkle behind his assailant 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, a number of years ago, a couple of unfortunate miners who had prepared to leave California and were out on a drunken frolic, started a large boulder clown 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. This induced the miners to remain some months longer in the State, and paid them well for remaining.
After all, the author proceeds to compile a few scientific rules for gold-hunting, as follows:
It is useless to prospect for auriferous quartz in a country where no placer gold has been found. If the metal exists in the rock, some of it will also be found in the alluvium, and it can be discovered there more readily than in the vein. After the placers have been found, search should be made for the quartz. The following rules are serviceable:
1. If a ravine is rich in gold to a certain point and barren above, look for a quartz vein in the hill-sides just above the place where the richness ceases.
2. A line of pieces of quartz rock observed in a hillside probably indicates the course of a quartz vein.
3. If a ravine crosses a quartz vein, fragments of the rock will he found in its bed below.
4. A large quartz vein will often show its presence in the topography of the country by forming hills in those spots where the rock happens to be very hard.
5. Quartz can be found and the veins traced with comparatively little labor in the steep banks of cañons where the rock is bare or is covered with but little soil.
6. If a quartz vein contains gold, some of the metal may be perceptible to the naked eye.
The extraction of auriferous quartz does not differ materially from that of other ores in narrow veins. The rules for running tunnels and drifts for stoping, draining, ventilating and timbering are precisely the same. Extraction, however, requires much experience and judgment for proper management. The dip, the thickness and material of the vein, the horizontal length and the dip of the pay chute, the character of the walls, the supply of water and the situation of the mill must be taken into consideration. Access must be had to the lower works by a horizontal tunnel or vertical shaft, or an incline running down on the dip of the lode. There are, however, very few auriferous quartz mines in which the lower works can be reached profitably by a tunnel. Ordinarily an incline is preferred, which goes down in the vein-stone, and sometimes, but rarely, pays for the work of taking it out. After the shaft or incline is down, levels or drifts are run off horizontally as far as the pay rock extends, at intervals usually of a hundred feet, and the levels are numbered from the surface; so when we read that they have found good rock in a certain mine at the eighth level, we presume that it is about 800 feet below the surface. The rock between two levels is broken down or stoped out, and it falls to the drift or level below, where it is loaded in a car and hauled to the shaft, in which it is carried up.
Nearly all the quartz of California is crushed by stamps or iron hammers ten inches in diameter and weighing 500 pounds. The stamp is fastened to a vertical iron stem about six feet long, and near the top is a projection by which a cam or revolving shaft lifts the stamp a foot high and then lets it fall. Five stamps are placed side by side in a battery, and they fall successively, each making about forty blows in a minute. The quartz is shoveled in on the upper side, and when pulverized sufficiently it is carried away through a wire screen on the lower side of a stream of water, which pours into the battery steadily.
The arrastra 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 arrastras, the rude and the improved. The rude arrastra is made with a pavement of unhewn flat stones, which are usually laid down in clay. The pavement of the improved arrastra is made of hewn stone cut very accurately and laid down in cement. In the center of the bed 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 300 to 500 pounds. It is so hung that the forward end is about an inch above the bed, and the hind end drags on the bed and crushes the quartz.
The pulverized auriferous quartz, as it comes from the stamps, consists of fine particles of rock and gold mixed together, and the aim of the miner is to separate them, save the metal and let the other material escape. Here again a small sluice, similar in principle to that used in mining, is employed; but instead of riffle bars the bottom of the sluice is copper covered with quicksilver, or is a rough blanket, in which the gold and heaviest sands are caught. 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 thus caught. Next to the battery is the apron, a copper plate covered with quicksilver, on which a good share of the gold is caught.
Below the aprons, different devices for catching the gold are used in different mills. The blanket is the most common. This is a coarse article, laid at the bottom of the sluice, through which the pulp from the battery runs, and the gold, black sand and sulphurets are caught in the wool, while the lighter material runs off. The blanket is washed out in a tub at intervals of half an hour to an hour.
In some mines nearly half the gold is mixed with pyrites and refuses to be caught with quicksilver. In such a case a sluice may be used to separate the sulphurets, which may form three per cent of the pulverized rock. This separation is called concentration, and the material obtained is concentrated tailings. The sulphurets are five times as heavy as water and twice as heavy as quartz; so the separating is not difficult when the supply of water is abundant.
In roasting for chlorination we have, first, to oxydize the iron and next, by the introduction of salt, to chloridize certain other substances which vary with the locality from which the ore is obtained. When this is rightly done, we have usually formed either oxydes or oxychlorids of all the base metals in the ore treated, leaving gold as the only free metal to absorb the chlorine gas. In order to be successful in roasting the ore, attention must be given to the construction of the furnace. If the arch over the hearth is too high, the ore will not be oxydized; so also if the flues are too large or the damper is opened too wide, as the excess of cold air or draft cools the ore. The cost of the entire process does not exceed $20 per ton.
Many fine fortunes have been lost in gold-quartz mining; and it is proper to give warning to the ignorant against the dangers that beset the business.
1. Gold-quartz mining is one of the most uncertain of all occupations.
2. No amount of experience, scientific knowledge and prudence will secure the investor against loss.
3. Many of the men engaged in it are very bold, and their statements must not be accepted without great caution, even when there is proof of their sincerity.
4. No one should risk more in gold quartz than he can afford to lose without serious inconvenience.
5. The presence of large lumps of gold in a vein is no evidence of a profitable mine. Most of the best mines have had little rich rock; and the finest specimens have come from mines that are not now worked. It is the large supply of paying quartz, and not the extraordinary richness of small pieces, that makes the great mine.
6. There is no occupation in which it is easier to waste money by inexperience, carelessness or folly.
7. No business has greater need of the presence and constant attention of an economical, attentive and capable manager, directly interested in the business.
8. For persons of small means, the only safe way to work a small mine is to make it pay as it goes along, and to abandon it when the outgo exceeds the income.
9. Many of the best quartz mines in the State were rich at the surface, and have yielded more than enough from the beginning to pay for all the work expended upon them.
10. Not one in five of the mines which did not pay at the surface, and has been worked to a depth of 100 feet, has ever paid.
11. The richness of a vein at one point is no evidence of its richness at another.
12. Not one quartz miner in a thousand has made a moderate fortune.
13. Nearly all the owners of the rich quartz mines of California are capitalists, who made money in other business, and then could afford to risk considerable sums in ventures which they considered uncertain.
14. Do not build your mill until you have opened your mine and got enough pay rock in sight to pay for it. An old mining engineer says: " In 1858 there were upward of 280 quartz mills in California, each one of which was supplied with quartz from one or more veins. The number of stamps in these mills was 2,610, and the total cost of the whole mill property of this nature in the State exceeded $3,000,000. In the summer of 1861, only three years afterward, there were only some forty or fifty mills in successful operation, several of which were at that time leading a very precarious existence."
HYDRAULIC MINING
was invented in April, 1853, at American Hill, by E. A. Matteson, who was still living in 1885, in the upper part of Nevada County. This process came into general practice, but, on account of its filling up the streams of valleys below with debris and thus threatening to throw the water out upon the rich horticultural lands and ruining them, the Legislature of 1882 prohibited the practice; and it still remains a question with those living among the foothills whether the gain in horticultural area will ever equal the loss they suffer in mining interests.
PACKING IN THE MOUNTAINS.
The following account is the substance of an article written in 1857 upon the above and collateral topics, and published in Hutchings' California Magazine:
In some of the more isolated mining localities the arrival of a pack train is an event of some importance, and men gathered around it with as much apparent interest as though they had expected to see some dear old friend stowed away somewhere among the packs. This necessity has created an extensive packing business with the cities of Stockton, Marysville, Shasta and Crescent City, but very little with Sacramento at the present time. There are generally forty to fifty mules in a train, mostly Mexicans each of which will carry from 300 to 500 pounds, and with this they will travel twenty-five to thirty miles a day without being weary. If there is plenty of grass they seldom get anything else to eat. When fed on barley—which is generally about three months out of a year, November, December and January —it is given only once a day, and in the proportion of seven to eight pounds per mule. They seldom drink more than once a day, even in the warmest weather.
The average life of a mule is about sixteen years. The Mexican mules are tougher and stronger than the American; for while the latter can seldom carry more than 200 to 250 pounds, the former can carry 300 to 1,000. This superiority may arise from the fact that the Mexicans are more accustomed to packing and traveling over a mountainous country, while the American are used only for draft. The Mexican mule, too, can carry a person forty miles a day for ten or twelve days, over a mountainous trail; while it is very difficult for an American mule to accomplish over twenty-five or thirty miles a day. The Mexican mule can travel farther and endure more without food than any other quadruped, and with him it makes but little difference apparently whether he is fed regularly or not. The Mexican mules are also easier under the saddle and are not so fatiguing to ride.
The packing trade of Marysville gives employment to about 2,500 mules and between 300 and 400 men. From the town of Shasta, during the winter of 1854–'55, 1,876 mules were employed, not including the animals used by individual miners. The Shasta Courier claims there were 2,000. From the above data it was estimated the amount of trade at the respective points. The packing trade from Marysville is most extensive with Downieville, Eureka of the North, Morrison's Diggings, St. Louis, Pine Grove, Poker Flat, Gibsonville, Nelson's Point, American Valley, Indian Valley and all the intermediate and surrounding places in the counties of Sierra and Plumes; and the trade of Shasta is with Weaver (Weaverville), Yreka and the settlements around them. One is astonished to see the singular goods that are often packed across the Trinity and Scott mountains to those places, such as buggies, windows, boxes, barrels, bars of iron, chairs, tables, plows, etc. In the fall of 1853 an iron safe nearly three feet square, and weighing 352 pounds, was transported on a very large mule from Shasta to Weaverville, a distance of twenty-eight miles, over a rough and mountainous trail, without an accident (!), but after the load was taken off the mule lay down and died within a few hours. A man in Yreka once sent among other things a rocking-chair and a looking-glass, "and when I reached there," said he, " I found that the chair back was broken, the rockers off and one arm in two pieces; and the looking-glass was as much like a crate of broken crockery as anything I ever saw."
A gentleman had also informed us that in the summer of 1855 two sets of millstones were packed from Shasta to Weaverville, the largest weighing 600 pounds. Being looked upon as an impossibility for one mule to carry, it was first tried to be "slung" between two mules; but that being impracticable, the plan was abandoned and the stone packed upon one.
When the Yreka Herald was about to be published, a press was purchased in San Francisco, at a cost of about $600, upon which the freight alone amounted to $900.
The bed-piece, weighing 397 pounds, was placed upon one mule, with ropes and other equipage, so that the whole load was 430 pounds. On descending Scott mountain this splendid animal slipped a little, when the load careened over and threw the patient mule down a steep bank and killed him. Many of the older Californians have breathed their last in a ravine where accident had tossed them, to become the food of wolves and coyotes. One train was passing the steep side of a mountain in Trinity County, when a large rock came rolling from above and struck one of the mules in the side, frightening others off the track and killing one man and three mules. During the severe winter of 1852–'53, a pack train was snowed in between Grass Valley and Onion Valley, and out of forty-five animals only three were taken out alive. The amount of danger and privation to which men following this business are sometimes exposed, is almost incredible.
It is truly astonishing to see with what ease and care these useful animals pack their heavy loads over the deep snow, and to notice how very cautiously they cross holes where the melting snow reveals some ditch or stream beneath, and where some less careful animal has "put his foot in it" and sank into "deep trouble." We have often watched them descending a snow-bank when heavily packed, and have seen that as they could not step safely they would fix their feet and brace their limbs and unhesitatingly slide down with perfect security over the worst places.
There is something very pleasing and picturesque in the sight of a large pack train of mules quietly descending a hill, as each one intelligently examines the trail, and moves carefully step by step on the steep and dangerous declivity as though he suspected danger to himself or injury to the pack committed to his care.
In the deep and otherwise unbroken stillness of the dark pine or redwood forests the loud hippah and mulah of the Mexican muleteers sound strangely to the ear. During these trips the Mexican sings no song and hums no tune.
Muleteers were also exposed to highway robbers and Indians. Sometimes they were plundered of their whole train and cargoes, and they themselves murdered. The trail from Sacramento to Yreka was so infested that it was entirely abandoned for two years or more.
Before attempting to pack a mule, the Mexicans invariably blindfold him; he then stands quietly until the bandage is removed. A man generally rides in front of every train, for the purpose of stopping it should anything go wrong, and acting as guide to the others. In every train there is also a leader called the bell-mule. Most of these animals prefer a white mule for a leader. They seldom start before nine o'clock in the morning, after which they travel until sunset before stopping, unless something goes wrong.
When about to camp, the almost invariable custom of packers, after removing the goods (near which they always sleep in all kinds of weather), is for the mules to stand side by side in a line or in a hollow square with their heads in one direction, before taking off the aparajos (a kind of pack-saddle, a leathern sack stuffed with hair, and generally weighing from twenty-five to forty pounds), and then in the morning, when the train of loose mules is driven up to camp to receive their packs, each one walks carefully up to his own aparajo and blanket, which he evidently knows as well as does the packer. When the toils of the day are over and the mules are peacefully feeding, begins the time of relaxation to the men, who, while they are enjoying the aroma of their fine-flavored cigaritas, spend the evening hours telling tales of some far-off but fair señorita, or make their beds by the packs, and as soon as they have finished their supper lie down to sleep.
HABITS OF THE MINERS.
When the lucky prospector had found a paying claim, the next thing was to set up his household. From two to four was the usual number of the mess, and though their humble collection of goods was somewhat exposed they were tolerably secure from depredation. A stray horse or ox would sometimes get into the flour sack or bread sack, upset the sugar or make a mess of the table ware; wandering Indians would pilfer small things or take away clothing, but these were the principal depredations. The houses, often the initial points of towns, were generally located near some spring, if practicable. Bottle Spring (Jackson), Double Springs, Mud Springs, Diamond Spring and Cold Springs at once suggest their origin. Logs were generally at hand, with which to build. The ground served for a floor. The sleeping places were as various as the minds of men; but generally bunks were made by putting a second log in the cabin at a proper elevation and distance from the sides and nailing potato or gunny sacks across. A second bunk over this was sometimes made in a like manner. Some fern leaves or coarse hay on the sacks, with blankets, made a comfortable bed. A good fire place was also provided; and a vigorous fire was often required, as most of the mining had to be done in water, which wet the clothes. Some of these fireplaces would be six feet across, and built of granite or slate rocks, as each abounded. Very little hewing was done to make them fit. Four or five feet up an oak log was laid across for a mantel-piece and as the base for one side of the chimney. A couple of rocks served as andirons.
A shelf or two of shakes, or sometimes an open box in which something had been shipped around the Horn, would serve for a cupboard, and in this the stock of table ware would be kept, consisting of a few tin plates and cups and two or three cans containing salt, pepper and soda. A table of moderate size was also made of shakes, sometimes movable but oftener nailed fast to the side of the house. Sometimes the tail gate of a wagon was used for a table. A frying-pan, coffee-pot, Dutch oven and water bucket completed the list of kitchen utensils. Cooking was sometimes done "turn about" for a week, and sometimes it seemed to fall to the lot of the best-natured one in the crowd, the others bringing wood and water by way of offset. Dishwashing was generally omitted altogether. The cooking of course was of the simplest kind, and very often of the poorest, especially in respect to bread; and therefore for the latter the famous flap-jack was generally relied upon. Two frying-pans would often be used to make these, for convenience of turning the cake, which as done by turning one over the other.
Game sometimes entered into the miner's bill of fare. Quails, rabbits, coons, squirrels and hawks were all converted into food, as well as deer and hare. Some Frenchmen in 1852, during a time of scarcity, killed and ate a coyote, but their account of his good qualities was not such as to induce others to try the experiment. In 1851, some miners, getting out of both money and meat, shot a young and fine-looking hawk, cooked him and ate him, declaring that "he was better nor a chicken !" Some neighbors tried the same experiment, but unfortunately killed the old fellow that was preserved from drowning a great many years ago through the kindness of one of our forefathers. His flesh was about the color and consistency of sole-leather; and after boiling him for three days in the vain attempt to reduce his body to an eatable condition he was cast away. Even the rice with which he was boiled acquired no hawk flavor, which induced one of the miners to remark, "They's much differen ee'n hawks as'n women." A second trial resulted in a splendid dish, and after that hawks learned to avoid that settlement. But, with all the simplicity and supposed monotony of the miner's bill of fare, it was almost a constant series of comicalities as well as nuisances.
The washing of clothes was scarcely ever attended to, with such results as may better be imagined than described. The vermin which were consequently so abundant were after some years vanquished; but whether by the neater habits of miners or the sanguinary flea is still an open question. The fleas were sometimes caught in large numbers in dishes of soap suds set around lighted candles at night. Later the bed-bug drove out to some extent the flea. Rats also became numerous.
Rattlesnakes sometimes crawled in between the lugs, and first made their presence known by the sharp rattle of their chain or the deadly thrust of their poisonous fangs into the sleeper's limbs. As the miners got to building their cabins of sawed lumber and elevating them above the ground, snakes, rats, mice and skunks became less frequent visitors; when dogs and cats were called in as friends and protectors the people could sleep without fear or disturbance.
THE GREAT IMMIGRATION.
The greater part of the overland immigration took the route by way of the valley of the Platte River, the south pass of the Rocky Mountains and the valley of the Humboldt, entering California by the Pit River route, or Lassen's Cut-off, or the valley of the Truckee and the Bear River Ridge; and a stream poured through the Carson Pass into the Central Mining Region. Many thousands took the old Santa Fe trail through the valley of the Arkansas to the Rio Grande, thence by the road followed by the Colonel Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, through northern Sonora to the Gila River, crossing the Colorado into California and reaching the southern mining region of the Mariposa and Tuolumne rivers several months later than those who followed the northern route.
There were many estimates of the number of people crossing the plains in 1849, some placing the number as high as 100,000; but later investigations greatly reduced the estimate. Many returned to the East by steamer before the close of the year, some with small fortunes acquired in the mines or by speculation, others disheartened and homesick, and death claimed also his portion. At the commencement of the year the nationalities were estimated as follows: Native Californians, 13,000; Americans, 8,000; foreigners, 5,000; total, 26,000. At the close of the year it was: Natives, 13,000; Americans, 76,000; foreigners, 18,000; showing an increase of 68,000 Americans and 13,000 foreigners; a total of 81,000 increase and a total population of 107,000. This large increase, of which so large a majority were Americans, redeemed California from a wilderness and made it a State of the Union.
On the first rush for gold, of course nothing was thought of the location and development of towns, every miner pitching his tent with reference only to the temporary residence he expected to maintain during a short period of mining. Naturally, however, as some of these mining camps became more permanent, towns were made from them, and also at landing places along the streams; and within two or three years interested parties would have counties formed, seats of government designated and trading centers developed. According to the rough and ready nature of the period, these towns mostly received rough and ready names, far beyond the "record" of the past: a list need not be given here, as every one is familiar with a large stock of them.
The larger proportion of the camps, however, disappeared with the decline of mining; some fell as rapidly as they had risen, when the rich but scanty surface gold which gave them life was worked out. Everything partook of the precarious and unstable characteristics marking this era of wild speculation aim gambling. "Never was there a place or people," says Bancroft, "where the changes of life, its vicissitudes and its successes, were brought in such bold relief as here. The rich and the poor, the proud and the humble, the vile and the virtuous changed places in a day. Wild speculation and slovenly business habits, together with the gambling character of all occupations, and the visitations or benign influences of the elements, and a thousand incalculable incidents usually classed in the category of 'luck,' were constantly lifting up one and putting down another, replacing this town or district and shriveling that."' Even the central El Dorado and Placer districts are becoming known as vinicultural rather than gold-mining sections of the State. Alpine County relies upon her pastures, and most of the gold belt depends upon tillage.
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.