Six months in the gold mines

by E. Gould Buffum

Throughout this whole region there is not a stream, valley, hill, or plain, in which gold does not exist. It seems to be the natural product of the soil, and is borne like the sand along the river courses. In travelling over some three hundred miles of this territory, I have never yet struck a pick or a knife into any spot where gold would be likely to be deposited, without finding it in greater or less quantities. Until lately, it was supposed that the gold existed only in the ranges of the Sierra Nevada, and that what is called the “Coast Range,” bordering the whole coast of California, was destitute of it. But experience has already proved the incorrectness of this theory. A party headed by Major P. B. Reading, some time in the spring of 1849, struck into the Coast Range of mountains, about two hundred miles north of Sacramento City, and are still labouring there very successfully, having found gold not only in quantities, but in large pieces and of the finest quality; and I doubt not that when the placers at the base of the Sierra Nevada shall have become partially exhausted, labour will be performed in various portions of the Coast Range with as good success as has already crowned the efforts of the diggers in the present gold region.

I do not believe, as was first supposed, that the gold-washings of northern California are “inexhaustible.” Experience has proved, in the workings of other placers, that the rich deposits of pure gold found near the surface of the earth, have been speedily displaced, and that with an immense influx of labouring population, they have totally disappeared. Thus, in Sonora, where many years ago fifteen and twenty, and even fifty dollars per day, were the rewards of labour, it is found difficult at present with the common implements to dig and wash from the soil more than from fifty cents to two dollars per day to a man. So has it been partially in the richer and more extensive placers of California. When first discovered, ere the soil was molested by the pick and the shovel, every little rock crevice, and every river bank was blooming with golden fruits, and those who first struck them, without any severe labour, extracted the deposits. As the tide of emigration began to flow into the mining region, the lucky hits upon rich deposits, of course, began to grow scarcer, until, when an immense population was scattered throughout the whole golden country, the success of the mining operations began to depend more upon the amount of labour performed than upon the good fortune to strike into an unfurrowed soil, rich in gold. When I first saw the mines, only six months after they were worked, and when not more than three thousand people were scattered over the immense territory, many ravines extending for miles along the mountains were turned completely upside down, and portions of the river’s banks resembled huge canals that had been excavated. And now, when two years have elapsed, and a population of one hundred thousand, daily increasing, have expended so great an amount of manual labour, the old ravines and river banks, which were abandoned when there were new and unwrought placers to go to, have been wrought and re-wrought, and some of them with good success. Two years have entirely changed the character of the whole mining region at present discovered. Over this immense territory, where the smiling earth covered and concealed her vast treasures, the pick and the shovel have created canals, gorges, and pits, that resemble the labours of giants.

That the mere washings of pure gold will at some day become exhausted is not to be doubted, although for fifty years at least they will be wrought to a greater or less extent. In the ravines of dry diggings that have been, in mining parlance, entirely “dug out,” any man, with a mere sheath-knife and crowbar, can extract five dollars a day. The earth here has been thrown up from the body of the ravines in reaching the rock, and in other places the ground has been merely skimmed over, and many parts of the ravine left untouched; and upon the rivers banks the very earth that has been thrown aside as useless, and even that which has been once washed, will still, with careful washing in a pan, turn out from three to ten dollars per day. It is therefore evident, that so long as even such wages as these can be made, men will be found to work the placers. The starving millions of Europe will find in the mountain gorges of California a home with profitable labour at their very door-sills, and the labouring-men of our own country will find it to their interest to settle among the auriferous hills. The miserably suicidal policy, which some of our military officers in California have attempted to introduce, has already proved not only its worthlessness, but the absolute impossibility of carrying it into effect. Never in the world’s history was there a better opportunity for a great, free, and republican nation like ours to offer to the oppressed and down-trodden of the whole world an asylum, and a place where by honest industry, which will contribute as much to our wealth as their prosperity, they can build themselves happy homes and live like freemen.

Long after the present localities, where the washing of gold is prosecuted, are entirely abandoned, gold-washing will be continued by manual labour upon the plains and hills where the gold lies at a much greater depth beneath the soil than it does in the ravines and river banks, and where of course more severe labour is required. The era which follows the present successful gold-washing operations will be one, when, by a union of capital, manual labour, and machinery, joint-stock companies will perform what individuals now do. While gold can be found lying within a few inches of the earth’s surface, and the only capital required to extract it consists in the capability to purchase a pick and a shovel, there is no need of combination; but when the hills are to be torn to their very bases, the plains completely uprooted, and the streams, which flow down from the Sierra Nevada to be turned from their channels, individuals must retire from the field, and make room for combined efforts.

Never in the history of the world was there such a favourable opportunity as now presents itself in the gold region of California for a profitable investment of capital; and the following are some of the modes in which it may be applied. I have before shown, and experience and observation have demonstrated it to me, that the beds of the tributaries to the two great rivers that flow from the Sierra Nevada are richer in gold than their banks have yet proved to be. There are many points, at each one of which the river can easily be turned from its channel by a proper application of machinery. Dams are then to be erected and pumps employed in keeping the beds dry. Powerful steam machines are to be set in operation for the purpose of tearing up the rocks, and separating the gold from them. The hills and plains are also to be wrought. Shafts are to be sunk in the mountain sides, and huge excavators are to bring to the surface the golden earth, and immense machines, worked by steam power, made to wash it. The earth, which had been previously washed in the common rockers, is to be re-washed in a more scientifically constructed apparatus, and the minute particles of gold, which escape in the common mode of washing, and which are invisible to the naked eye, are to be separated by a chemical process.

As yet no actual mining operations have been commenced in the gold region of California, for the two reasons, that they require a combination of labour and capital, and that the gold-washings have thus far proved so profitable as to make them the most desirable. But there is a greater field for actual mining operations in California than was ever presented in the richest districts of Peru or Mexico. The gold-washings, which have thus far enriched thousands, are but the scum that has been washed from the beds of the ore. I would not wish to say one word to increase the gold mania, which has gone out from California, and has attracted from the whole world thousands upon thousands of men who were not at all fitted to endure the hardships consequent upon a life in her mountainous regions, or the severe labour which was necessary to extract gold from the earth. It is to be hoped that this mania, however, has now given way to the “sober second thought,” and that men have learned to listen to facts, and take the means to profit by them in the most proper manner. I should not consider myself as acting in accordance with duty, were I to assume the responsibility of publishing to the world an account of the gold mines of California, did I not, like the witness upon the stand, “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Throughout the range on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, and in every little hill that branches from it, runs a formation of quartz rock, found sometimes at a few feet below the earth’s surface, and sometimes rising above it in huge solid masses. This rock throughout the whole mining region has been proved by actual experiment to be richly impregnated with gold. Some of it exhibits the gold to the naked eye, while in other cases a powerful microscope is requisite to discern the minute particles that run in little veins through it. Experiments have been made in the working of this rock, which establish beyond a doubt its great richness. Hon. George W. Wright, one of the present representatives elected to Congress from California, has employed nearly the whole of the past summer in exploring the gold region, with a view of ascertaining the richness and extent of the quartz rock, and his experiments have proved so wonderful, as almost to challenge credulity even among those who have seen the progress of the mining operations in California from their commencement to the present period.

In pulverizing and extracting the gold from about one hundred pounds of this rock, Mr. Wright found, that the first four pounds yielded twelve dollars worth of gold, which was the largest yield made, while throughout the whole the smallest yield was one dollar to the pound of rock, and this in many cases where not a particle of gold could be discerned with the naked eye. Mr. Wright has now in his possession a specimen of this quartz weighing twelve pounds, which contains six hundred dollars, or more than one quarter of its weight in pure gold; and one dollar to the pound of rock is the lowest amount which he has ever extracted.

In the gold mines of Georgia, where at present nearly all the profits result from the extraction of gold from the quartz rock, a fifteen horse power machine, working twelve “stamps,” will “stamp” or pulverize a thousand bushels of the rock per day. The pulverization is the most important item in the extraction of the gold, as after the rock is reduced to powder, the gold can be very easily secured either by washing or making an amalgam of quicksilver, or by a combination of both processes. Now, in Georgia, if each bushel of rock should produce twelve and a half cents, the profits would be good. If twenty-five cents, greater; and if fifty, enormous. A bushel of the quartz rock weighs about seventy-five pounds, and we thus find that instead of, as in Georgia, yielding from ten to twenty-five cents to the bushel, the gold rock of California at its lowest estimate will yield seventy-five dollars, and in many cases much more. Let us pursue this subject a little farther. If a fifteen horse power engine will pulverize a thousand bushels, or seventy-five thousand pounds per day, at the estimate which has here been made, from seventy-five to one hundred thousand dollars would be the result of a day’s labour, the whole performance of which with suitable machinery would not require one hundred men. Even lowering this estimate one-half, profits are exhibited that are indeed as startling as they are true. Here is an immense field for the investment of capital throughout the world, and for the employment of a large portion of its labouring population.

The city of Sacramento had assumed a very different aspect at the time I reached it on my return from the northern mines, from that which it exhibited when I previously left it. Where the old store-ship used to be, on the banks of the Sacramento, tall-masted ships were moored, and the extensive plain on which I pitched my tent was dotted with houses. Around the fort itself, which is nearly two miles from the bank of the river, houses had begun to spring up. Building-lots which, four months previously, had sold at from fifty to two hundred dollars, were now held by their owners at from one to three thousand. I looked on with astonishment at the remarkable progress, and then little thought that the ensuing six months would develope a growth, both in size and prices, which would entirely outstrip what I then witnessed.