Journal of Travels From St. Josephs to Oregon / With Observations of That Country, Together With Some Description of California, Its Agricultural Interests, and a Full Description of Its Gold Mines.

by Riley Root

SECOND VARIETY

The second variety of gold is that which is creek-washd,—the corners and edges of which are rounded off by attrition among moving pebbles and sand of the tertiary deposits of creeks, during the time of freshets. This gold, whether found in plates, or rounded masses, is most of it too heavy to float in running water, being carrid onward to its place of rest, by the united agency of gravitation, moving water, and the tertiary sediment.

The creeks and large rivers receive their gold from the mouths of ravines and hills contiguous to the creeks and rivers.

Gold is found in dry ravines, creeks, and in basins of rivers, weighing several ounces.

In some places along the creeks, the miner finds angular gold deposited in the banks of the streams at the foot of a hill, where it had not slidden down sufficiently far to reach the power of the waters of the stream.

Lost, or erratic gold is sometimes found in the creeks among the creek-washd sand and gravel of the stream, being subject to occasional removals, by subsequent freshets. Such gold seems to be on its way to its final deposit or resting place in situations where subsequent freshets can take no effect upon it for further removal.

Some of this gold is in pieces of several dollars value, but most of it is in fine grains, with a mixture of floating gold.

The fine gold is found in situations above the rock, in deposits of loose sand, where every violent freshet gives it another removal, till it is ultimately carrid downward and deposited in the bars of the large rivers.