Yuba County

History

Chapter XLVIII - Mining

The history of gold-digging in California presents features peculiar to itself, and the appliances for extraction and separation, - oftentimes the suggestion merely of first necessity, - have answered their purposes with comparatively few improvements.  These various appliances, together with those evidences upon which miners rely as tests of the presence of the precious metal, form a brief, but interesting chapter for the perusal of the general reader.

THE LOCATION OF THE LEADS

In quartz mines, the "leads" or veins are generally on bed-rock, or in its crevices, but they are sometimes found several feet above it.  These leads generally vary somewhat in thickness, from a few inches to several feet in "hill diggings," depending, however, for their length, upon the locality.  If the vein is struck high upon the mountain it generally "runs out," or terminates at the bottom of the first canyon towards which the bed-rock inclines.  Following the latter, the miner drifts into the mountain, exploring all its branchings, which are plainly distinguished from the surrounding deposits, having underneath it the hard bed-rock, and above, and surrounding on either side, the soft, reddish or grayish deposit, while, within the crevices, or near the bed-rock, is pressed the hard, smooth, glassy mass of the quartz lead.  In case the lead is struck near the foot of the mountain, its course can only be determined by working it, though the general rule predetermines its course to be northwesterly.  If the lead be found near the  bottom of the first canyon, lying northwesterly from this "prospect," and the bed-rock inclines but slightly in that direction, the end of the gold deposit is supposed to be near, and it will probably run out in that canyon;  but if the inclination of the bed-rock is great, the lead may lie below the nearest canyon, and run out in a deeper one beyond the intervening hill or mountain.  If the lead be struck near the foot of the canyon with indifferent results, and the bed-rock rise in a northwesterly direction, into the body of the mountain, the search will be useless, - it being a general rule that the yield of gold increases toward the bottom of the canyon, and if only a small quantity be found there, a larger quantity may not be anticipated at a higher elevation.  Quartz differs in color, being gray, rose, white or brown, some being a coarse, hard quality, at other times crumbly, and generally opaque though sometimes transparent.  The metal is deposited in the quartz in minute particles, or in larger deposits, often spread in the seams and crevices in the form of leaves or layers.  A blow of the hammer separates the latter from the quartz body.

"COYOTE" OR "HILL DIGGINGS;"

Are named after the "Coyote" (Kiote) or wild dog which burrows in the hills.  The gold is found in "grain," unconnected with quartz.  The bed-rock and surrounding deposits generally have some resemblance in color; this, if the latter resembles a brick mass, the former is dark brown or black;  but if the latter resembles ashes, the former is gray, the gray being much harder than the dark, while the gold in the dark bed is coarser, and therefore less pure than on the gray bed;  for the smaller the particles of gold the less impurities they contain.

"SURFACE DIGGINGS"

Are generally confined to the gorges and low lands.  Any surface may be broken, without respect to "color" with reasonable expectation of a "find," and in passing through, the "prospect" may be readily determined by the experienced miner.  By the term "low-land" may be comprehended all the valleys and table lands, many miles in extent, and very elevated.  In these grounds gold is generally found within the depths of two or three feet, and sometimes to bed-rock when in coarse gravel.  The gold is generally in small elongated particles or mere scales, varying in size from less than a pin's head to that of a pea; the larger pieces being known as "lumps and nuggets."

"WET SURFACE DIGGINGS"

These are the beds of streams laid bare by "fluming."  The waters embosom rich deposits of gold, generally finely grained and very pure, which are carried downward over the gravelly bed of the stream until it pauses upon a bar or impediment in the stream higher than the  general bed, when owing to the check given to its progress, it sinks sufficiently to be caught, thus forming the "Bars."  It will be observed that the whole bed or the deep places seldom ever become deposiss <sic> of gold.  The theory is the same in respect to eddies and whirlpools, which become deposits by checking the progress of the metal coming in contact with their sides.

"FLUMING" AND "DIVERSION OF STREAM,"

Is accomplished by the construction of conduits varying in length from forty to one hundred feet, and more, and are generally about two feet in width, by one foot deep.  They are constructed in sections, each being the length of a plank;  and one end of each section is so much narrower than the other, that they fit into each other, thus forming one continuous length.  This the waters of a river are carried through them, often several feet about their old channel, leaving their bed dry for the search.  Nearly all the creeks and rivers of the northern and eastern portions of the State have thus been "flumed" at various points.  Great labor and expense is necessary to erect and keep the flume in repair, and is determined principally by its height.  To erect a flume twenty-five feet high costs about twice as much as to lay one on the ground, and sixty feet, it costs about four times as much.  A box flume forty inches wide by twenty inches deep with a grade

call it "Last Chance" or "Murphy's Luck."  "Cut Eye Foster's Bar" was so named, because Foster, the locator, had a cut over his eye.  The reasons for naming the following are beyond our knowledge, and we simply give the names, leaving the fertile imagination of the reader to supply the rest: - Whisky Gulch, Lousy Level, Liars' Flat, Shirt Tail Bend, Moonshine Creek, Old Hat Hollow, Stud Horse Canyon, Grub Ravine, Pinch 'Em Tight, Jackass Ravine, and many others.  A man's full name was seldom known, except by his personal friends, as it was customary to call him by his given name, or a nickname was applied on account of some personal peculiarity, or the place from which he came, such as: - Bob Kentuck, Big Jones, Red Mike, Whisky Bill, Sandy Jim, Judge,  Three-Finger Jack, Curly Sam, Poker Bob, Limpy Jim, Big Foot Charlie, Texas Jack, Missouri Bill, etc.

The habit of carrying revolvers and Bowie-knives was universal, and not until 1852 and 1853, was this discontinued.  Most of the emigrants, in addition to the never-failing revolver brought from the States, rifles and shot-guns which were found inconvenient and useless in the mines, and were placed in the stores to be disposed of or thrown away.  The condition of society was such that every man had to rely on himself for protection, and the revolver and knife being conveniently carried, were always ready to protect life and property, or to avenge real or fancied insult. 

The Chinese found abundant employment in the mines in the early days.  Soon after their first appearance, a prejudice against them began to gain ground among the miners, although with a few exceptions, they were allowed to work peaceably on their claims.  After claims were deserted by white miners, the economical Chinese located them again, and by diligent toil managed to make them pay handsomely.

At first large numbers of Indians were employed by firms and mining companies, and many of the more independent Diggers worked for themselves.  They knew nothing of the value of gold, and at first were contented if they  had enough to eat, and a few beads and sugar thrown in for luxuries.  Later, however, they began to learn that this yellow sand was worth something, and refused to dig for the whites, preferring to keep the result of their labors with which to buy blankets, dresses, beads, etc., and for which they refused to pay the fancy prices at first charged.  They had in 1848-49 given a cup of gold for a cup of beads, and a pound of gold for a pound of sugar.  Theodore Sicard was the favorite of the daughter of a chief, and consequently, of the chief himself, and thus managed to accumulate a large amount of "spangle gold."  Mr. Babb says that he was shown by Sicard four or five claret bottles full of this gold, and judges that he must have had at least seventy thousand dollars, all of which he had obtained from the Indians.  David Parks got rich in 1848 trading with the Indians at Parks Bar.  William Foster worked Indians at Foster Bar early in 1849.  All along the river in 1848, the whites had Indians to help them.  Claude Chana used them near Rose Bar.  He says that the largest day's work he ever saw was in September, 1848, at Rose Bar.  Four Indians, who were working for two white men, washed out fourteen hundred dollars, an average of three hundred and fifty dollars each.  The white men did nothing but superintend and take the gold.

To give an idea of the richness of the mining bars we give a few instances reported in 1851-2: -

PARKS BAR

In August, 1851, the Ohio Company were taking out one hundred ounces per day, the Canal Company eighty ounces, and the Squad Company forty ounces.  Miners were receiving six dollars per day.  The Ohio Company consisted of seven members and each received on his share about $1,400 per week.  One week the Canal Company divided $25,905 among its thirty-three members.  In September, 1851, one bank claim here took out in one week four pounds of gold, or over $1,000.

INDUSTRY BAR

A company of five men took out $5,000 in three days in October, 1851.

FOSTER BAR

The Falls Fluming Company worked over old ground and averaged four to eigth <sic> ounces per man daily.  October 31, 1851, eight men took out seventy-two ounces, or about $140 each.

LONG BAR

In the spring of 1852, they began to go over the ground for the third time, and made it pay well.  Also at Ousley's Bar.  The usual wages made at the various bars were from five to twenty-five dollars per day;  anything more than that was unusual.  New discoveries were made at Parks Bar in 1852, yielding $150 to $250 per day.

Among the many devices for securing the gold in the bottom of the rivers, was a dredging scheme, the history of which is best related in the words of Joseph Tryon, President of the Yuba River Gold Dredging Company, under whose charge the work was carried on.  In a communication to the Herald, July 20, 1851, he says:  "Early in the summer of 1850, it was a common opinion that the beds of the rivers contained large and very rich deposits of gold.  Many companies were formed, and various were the means resorted to, either to dam or drain our mountain streams;  and it is a notorious fact that eight out of every ten failed of success.  The reason: - the river beds, to the astonishment of all,  contained no more gold than the banks and bars, except upon some rapids where the bedrock could be found within a few feet of the surface.  The geographic changes in  the streams, where they leave the Sierra Nevada and enter the plains, are curious, and they have not unfrequently  been diverted from former courses, and worn out new and deeper beds, in very many places, leaving their former localities entirely dry.  It was in  the early part of last summer, laboring under the common error of supposing the beds of streams to be so rich, that a small company was formed, and in a few days the steamer 'Phoenix,' which had been dispatched from the Atlantic States with a complete set of machinery, was moving towards our present location."

"Much disappointment was manifested by numbers that they could not procure an interest in this enterprise;  and as an evidence of the good opinion entertained by the public, stock changed hands at one hundred per cent advance in less than sixty days after our commencement as a company.  After eight months' time and forty thousand dollars outlay, the company place the steamer upon her present ground, Ousley's Bar.  Expectation, based upon her first operation, was extravagant.  On the thirteenth of March, she was placed upon the ground and commenced operations.  The working of her dredge was perfect; she elevated about eighteen buckets in a minute, and raised large stones, weighing from one to five hundred pounds with ease.  Some minor changes were found necessary, which her discerning commander, Captain William M.P. Moore, readily adjusted.  The earth was poured out when brought up, and to our astonishment - in a place on Ousley's Bar reported to be very rich - little if any gold was found; while upon the banks and bars strata were paying from three to twenty cents to a pan.  Her position was changed from place to place, and in no instance but one - when she struck a narrow stratum about four feet below the surface and a foot in width, paying about twenty cents to the pan, did she succeed in elevating dirt as rich as could be found in certain layers upon Ousley's Bar.."

"Some difficulties arose, from the irregular motion caused by the labor of the dredge among the boulders, in our washing the elevated dirt, as quicksilver required a regular movement and an even keel to enable it to take up all the gold.  After about twenty days, during which the whole reach had been prospected, and finding many Companies that had drained rivers whose beds did not contain the rich deposits supposed, it was thought proper to abandon the dredging and commence washing dirt, to be brought from the shore, upon which laborers were at work, earning from five to ten dollars to the hand.  Thus, gentlemen, this enterprise of dredging was not abandoned because it failed in its mechanical capacity,  nor on account of pecuniary embarrassments, but because the bank of the river presented greater prospects, and gave inducements of more certainty in application of our power, washing and pumping.  The machinery was afterwards set to work running a number of quicksilver rockers."

In the early years there were two kinds of mining, river and placer, or surface.  The first was carried along in the bottoms of rivers and along the banks, the water being carried off by means of dams, flumes and ditches.  This method was in most places confined to a small portion of the year, during the dry season.  After the first rains the water rose, frequently carrying away the mining appliances and improvements without any warning.  During the winter and rainy months, work was therefore abandoned, and the miners fell back into the ravines.  Here they made from sixteen to twenty-five dollars per day, a result not at all satisfactory in those days, but enough to pay expenses.  With the return of dry weather the miners went back to the river, only to be driven out in the winter.  This was kept up until about 1860, when the rivers became pretty well exhausted.  Not satisfied with the ravines, the miners prospected among the hills in winter, doing a little surface work here and there, and thus many rich placer and hill diggings were developed.

The rivers beginning to fail, it was necessary that attention should be directed to some other kind of mining, and in 1855 hydraulic mining began to be used in the hills.  The debris washed down from the mountains by this system of mining, has settled on the bottoms of the rivers, and covered up the old "diggings" to such a depth that it would be futile to attempt now to work them.  An expensive and fruitless attempt was made in this direction last year, near Long Bar, where some parties thought they could run a tunnel in to a spot that had never been worked over.  The only kinds of mining carried on now to any extent, are quartz and hydraulic, of which we will speak later.

While fortunes were being made on the bars, the proprietors of stores, saloons, hotels and gambling houses, were speedily becoming rich.  Gambling was a mania in the mining towns, and many a hardworking miner lost in a few moments a the gaming table, that which he had toiled months to accumulate.  Drinking was also a universal practice, and thousands of dollars annually went into the pockets of the men who sold vile cigars and viler whisky, and "their name was legion."  The great majority of the people were single men and large numbers of them boarded at hotels, of which there were from one to a dozen in every mining town, coining money for their proprietors.   But the merchant was the man who, with good judgment and prudence, was able to accumulate wealth the most rapidly.  Every mining town had its stores, and every few miles, wherever people were at work, could be found the trading post.  Goods were bought in large quantities, and consumed, wasted, or destroyed rapidly.  Gold was plentiful, prices were high, and the trader lived in clover.  Jonas Spect had a store at Rose Bar, in the fall of 1848, at which he charged the following prices: - Shirts $6; hats $10; cotton pants $16; blankets (serapes) $80; white beads sold to Indians for their weight in gold, about $250 per pound.  The following bills illustrate the wholesale prices of articles in 1848-9, to which the trader added a liberal per cent when he sold them to the consumer: -

GOODS BOUGHT OF SAMUEL BRANNAN

 BILL OF GOODS BOUGHT OF SAMUEL BRANNAN & CO.

The Gold Lake excitement, a description of which has been given in a previous chapter, caused great commotion among the miners and many changes in their locations.  Every day or two exciting news came to the old mining camps.  A man, thinking that he had found an unusually rich place, would start off secretly at night, using every means to avoid detection and pursuit.  The mountains were full of these prospectors, and the excitement led to the discovery of numerous mines, such as Canyon creek, Slate creek, Rabbit creek, and other tributaries of the Yuba.  Sometimes provisions would become scarce at these little camps and sell for two and one-half cents per pound.  Traders and packers in other parts of the region would hear about it and all start for the same locality, and the first to arrive would sell his wares at a high figure.  The demand being satisfied, the market fell and all subsequent comers were compelled to sell their goods at a great sacrifice, in order to get rid of them.  No man bought anything for the future, consequently, as soon as the supply on hand was consumed, no other traders having visited the place meanwhile, prices went up again, and the same scene was re-enacted.  Nearly everything in case goods, fruits, vegetables, meats, were from $4 to $16 per can.

On the tenth of April, 1849, the miners at Rose Bar held a meeting to make laws and regulations by which their mining enterprises should be governed.  Hon. Jonas Spect presented to the meeting a code of mining laws which were adopted.  Mr. Spect claims these to be the first mining laws framed in the State, and that the Legislature in enacting laws for the government of mining claims followed these laws very closely.

HYDRAULIC MINING

Hydraulic mining was first inaugurated in this county on a small scale, in the hill claims near Timbuctoo, in 1854.  At that time there was no Timbuctoo or Smartsville, both of those towns being the outgrowth of the hill mining.  In its infancy hydraulic mining was but a puny business, and gave little promise of its present giant proportions.  The early method was to drift into the hill and then perforate it with cross drifts, until the hill was left standing on pillars about six or eight feet square.  Then a stream of water was directed on to it until it crumbled and was washed away.  The pipe first used was a two inch canvas duck, with a nozzle scarcely an inch in diameter.  This was soon increased to a four inch pipe with a two inch nozzle.  Improvements have been gradually made in size and material, until at present the pipe is of heavily ribbed boiler iron, eighteen inches in diameter, and the stream, usually about seven inches, is thrown through a machine that admits of management by one man with perfect ease, and can be moved from side to side, depressed or elevated with great readiness.  A few nozzles in use are of nine inch diameters.  The great quantity of water used is brought in ditches from creeks and rivers sometimes a distance of over twenty miles.  The water is let down into the mines in these heavy boiler iron pipes, and the presure <sic> of the fall is the only force used in throwing the stream.  A fall of two hundred feet will throw a stream with terrific force a distance of one hundred and seventy-five feet.  It is only of late years that powder has been used to loosen the dirt.  The method in use now is to tunnel into the hill and make cross and lateral drifts until enough room is made for the amount of powder designed to be used.  Then kegs of powder are placed in the drifts, the mouth of the main tunnel stopped up with sand, leaving a train of powder to its mouth.  A fuse is placed in it, lighted and then the workmen seek places of safety.  Soon a dull, heavy report is heard, the hill raises up and settles, stones are sent flying about and the thing is over.  The stream is turned on, and the dirt is washed down through the tunnel.  In a good blast about five hundred kegs of powder are used.  The largest explosion at Smartsville was twenty-two hundred kegs.

The tunnels are sometimes very long, and are the most expensive adjuncts of hydraulic mining, varying from five hundred to four thousand feet in length, and costing from twelve to over fifty dollars per foot.  The tunnel is cut through the bedrock from the river or creek into which the "tailings" are to be discharged, slanting upward so as to give a fall to the water, and opening at the bottom of the mine.  They are large enough for a man to walk through.  The bottom is boxed in water tight and paved with rock.  At the end of the tunnel is a flume for discharging the "tailings" into the river.  The flume has "riffles" in it, and here and in the tunnel is scattered the quicksilver that gathers up the gold as it is carried along in the mud and water.  The Blue Gravel mine near Smartsville is said to be the richest in the State.  The yield from March, 1864, to August, 1866, was $599,948.  Hydraulic mining is being carried on at the range along Timbuctoo, Smartsville and Sucker Flat, also near Camptonville, Sicard Flat, Brownville, and other points in the county.

The hills washed away are sometimes over two hundred feet high, and consist of layers of gravel, clay, and, at the bottom, a mixture of clay and gravel, called cement.  This is all washed away to the bed-rock, which discloses the well-defined channel of an ancient stream, and in mining, the course of this is followed in its meanderings.  After the rock is washed as clean as possible with the pipe, the Chinamen buy the claim, and with knives scrape the dirt out of the crevices, washing it in a rocker, and make good wages.  It is said that on one claim in Timbuctoo, for which they paid $200, they made $30,000.

QUARTZ MINING

Quartz mining in Yuba county has generally been a failure, and there have been but few of the many quartz mines developed, that have not proved disastrous in the long run, and to-day there is not a large quartz mine in the County that is a paying one.  In the last part of 1851, Sir Henry Huntley, and Englishman representing the Anglo-American Gold and Silver Company, built a quartz mill and commenced to work the ore.  After sinking $30,000 he abandoned the enterprise.  Early the next year other mines were developed near Brownsville, but were unsuccessful.  The scene of the most extensive quartz mining was at Brown's Valley.  Here a great many ledges were located and opened, three stamp mills erected, and mining carried on briskly for several years after 1863.  Some of them, especially the Jefferson Mine, paid well for a while, but all were finally abandoned.  The Bullard Mine was located near Timbuctoo, in 1858, and worked at paying rates for two years.  The Marc Anthony claim was located there in 1863, a ten-stamp mill erected, a shaft sunk, and there it rests.  A small two-stamp mill is being worked at the Lone Tree mine, on Lone Tree hill, in Rose Bar Township, that pays in a small way.  Hundreds of ledges have been located all through the mountains, but few of them are being worked, and these with little success.

MINING DITCHES

The construction of mining ditches was commenced in 1850, and the water was used in mining the river bars and hills.  When hydraulic mining was commenced there was a great demand for water and hundreds of miles of ditch were constructed, leading to all the mines where the water was needed.  In 1858 the following ditches were in operation in Yuba county: -

In all twenty-four ditches aggregating 218 miles.

*The Tri-Union was a combination of Union, built in 1850 and 1851, Miner's, built in 1852, and the Riffle Box, built in 1852.  These were the pioneer ditches of the county. ~  +  The Excelsior ditch cost $250,000; it was carried across a ravine in an iron pipe 3,000 feet long and twenty inches in diameter, costing $20,000.  In 1861, the Excelsior and Tri-Union ditches united, forming the Excelsior Canal Company.  In 1877, they combined with the mining companies, forming the Excelsior Water and Mining Company.  They own all the claims from Mooney Flat to Timbuctoo, except the Blue Point, Golden Gate and Young America.  They have a reservoir back of Empire Ranch, with a capacity of 5,000 inches, also one in Nevada county, capacity 6,000 inches.  One hundred and fifty men are employed along the ditches and in the mines.

MINING DEBRIS

The mining debris question is one which is being agitated very thoroughly at the present time.  Both farmers and miners have rights which they feel disposed to defend.  There is no doubt but that an amicable settlement will be arrived at, whereby both parties will be satisfied, and neither agriculture nor hydraulic mining be discontinued.  Under present circumstances one or the other must cease;  a result which would, in either case, be disastrous to the interests of this County, and the City of Marysville.  They both depend on the products of the farms and mines for their support and maintenance, and it is for the interest of all to strive for a settlement that will be satisfactory to both enterprises.  The argument of the miners is a priority of right, that it is the leading industry of the region, and that large sums of money have been invested.  The agriculturists claim that there never was any grant to miners of a right to destroy agriculture, and that they should not be deprived of the use of their lands in order that the miners might carry on their business.

The deposit of "tailings," although noticed and commented upon, created no general alarm until the great floods of 1861-2, by which overflow great quantities of debris were brought down and deposited on all the bottom-lands, commencing that work of destruction that has laid waste some of the fairest land in the valley.  The surface of the country has undergone a change;  the streams, diverted from their obstructed channels, have been compelled to seek new courses and outlets for their mud-burdened waters.  The banks of Feather, Yuba, and Bear rivers were formerly several feet above the ordinary level of the water, and the streamers and sailing vessels were enabled to make easy and convenient landings.  The streams were as clear as crystal at all seasons of the year, and thousands of salmon and other fishes sported in the rippling waters, their capture being a favorite amusement of both the white man and the native.  But now the channels have became choked with sediment, the water heavy and black with its burden of mud, and the fish been compelled to seek other localities. 

At Timbuctoo ravine it is claimed that the Yuba river has been filled up with a deposit eigthy <sic> feet in depth.  Above this point it increases, and below it makes an inclined plane, extending far down the lower rivers.  At Marysville the depth of the deposit is about twenty-two feet.  At a point in front of the City the river was considerably deeper than at any point above or below;  this has been filled up to the regular line of the bottom, the deposit being over thirty feet in thickness.  The bottom-lands along Yuba and Bear rivers, have been covered to a depth of five to ten feet, extending, in some places, one and one-half miles back from the streams.

Peter Grass, who has been farming on the Yuba river since 1860, says that at that time the river bed was from fifteen to twenty-five feet lower than at present, and the lands on both sides were fertile and exceedingly valuable.  Peaches that could not be surpassed, and other fruits were raised in abundance.  Large orchards were all along the river, that have since been destroyed by the sand and water.  Expensive levees have to be maintained in order to protect those lands that have not yet been completely ruined and abandoned, and these are not a sufficient guard, as the backing up of the water, caused by the large grades built by the County to protect the lands back from the river, raises the river so high that great breaks are made in the levees, or the water flows over the top, flooding the whole river bottom, destroying the soil by its deposit of sand, and killing the fruit trees that were spared by former ravages.  The Grass Brothers have expended $2,000 for levees around their orchard and vineyard, and it does them but little good, as they are overflowed more or less from December until May.  They have lost 3,000 fruit trees, besides an orchard that yielded 1,000 boxes of apples annually.  Some of the ranches and orchards that have been destroyed, are given below, with their value in 1860: -

Mr. Grass says, "This is the land that Horace Greely said 'flowed with milk and honey,' now is a land of sand and mud."

Along Bear river all the bottom-land has been destroyed except a small strip near Wheatland that has been protected by Levee District No. 1.   The fine ranch and orchard owned by Claude Chana, opposite Johnson's Crossing, and for which he refused an offer of $60,000 in 1860, has been destroyed, and abandoned.  Near Wheatland the river has altered its course for several miles, making a new channel half a mile south of the old bed.  The banks of this stream were once twenty-five to thirty feet high.  Its channel has been filled up, and the water is so thick and heavy with sediment that in summer there is scarcely any stream at all.  From 1866 to 1869 the stream almost ceased to run except on Sundays, the water on other days being used by the miners. 

The bed of Feather river, from Oroville to the mouth of Yuba river, has been raised six to eight feet.  The extraordinary deposit near the bridge at Yuba City is caused by the meeting of the waters of the two rivers.  Since the construction of the bridge, the river bed has been raised eleven feet at that point.

A suit has been commenced by the City of Marysville against the miners along Yuba river, which is designed to thoroughly test the rights of all parties.  We deal in facts and not in speculation, and therefore leave the merits of the case to the interested parties and the courts.  We hope, however, that it will result in a speedy determination of the question involved, and that a conclusion will be arrived at that will be prejudicial to neither party, but redound to the benefit of all.

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