On the banks of a little stream which wound around the base of the cliff, stood the old smelting house and ruined ranches of the Mexican miners. Most of them were roofless and crumbling to decay. The ground about them was shaggy and choked up. There were briers, mezcal plants, and many varieties of cactus; all luxuriant, hirsute, and thorny. These we speedily cleared away, and selecting one of the largest of the old smelting houses, we soon put in order for work. Besides our "quartz" mining in the old shafts and in new ones which we opened we also engaged in "gulch" and "surface" mining in the vicinity.
As some account of the different modes employed to get at the precious metals, with which the rocks and soils of the far western states are so richly stored, may not be uninteresting to the reader, I will briefly give it.
Mining for gold alone is divided into two general classes: that which seeks the metal from the solid rock or quartz, and that which finds it in sand, gravel, or soil. The former process is the universal and familiar one of all rock mining, following the rich veins into the bowels of the earth with pick and powder, crushing the rock and separating the infinitesimal atoms of metal from the dusty, powdered mass.
The theory of the geologists is, that this is the original form or deposit of the precious metals; that the gold found in gravel, sand, or soil, lying as it does almost universally in the beds of rivers, or under the caves of the mountains, has been washed or ground out of the hard hills by the action of the elements through long years. Washing with water is the universal means of getting at these deposits of the gold. But the scale on which this work is done, and the instrumentalities of application vary from the simple hand-pan, pick, and shovel of the original miner, operating along the banks of a little stream, to grand combination enterprises for changing the entire course of a river, running shafts down hundreds of feet to get into the beds of long ago streams, and bringing water through ditches and flumes, and great pipes for ten or twenty miles, and withall to wash down a hillside of golden gravel, and extract its precious particles. The simple individual pan-washers are the first in the field, but it soon ceases to be profitable to this class of operators, and they soon move on in search of richer "diggings." The other means are employed on greater or less scales of magnitude, by combinations of men and capital. All the forms of gold-washing run into each other, indeed; and companies, sometimes consisting of only two or three persons, with capitals of a few hundred dollars merely, buy a sluice claim, or seize a deserted bed, and with shovel and pick, and a small stream of water, run the sands over and over through the sluiceways, and at the end of the day, or week, or month, gather up the deposits of gold in the bottoms and at the ends of their sluices. From this, operations ascend to a magnitude involving hundreds of thousands, and employing hundreds of men as partners or day laborers for the managers. Sometimes, too, the enterprise is divided, and companies are organized that furnish the water alone, and sell it out to the miners or washers, according to their wants.
The raising of auriferous sands and gravel from the deeply covered beds of old streams, by running down shafts and tunnels into and through such beds, is called "deep diggings," or "bed rock diggings;" and in their pursuit, the bottoms of ancient rivers will be followed through the country for mile after mile, and many feet below the present surface of the earth. The miners in this fashion go down until they reach the bed rock along which the water originally ran, and here they find the richest deposits.
The other sort of heavy gold washing, employing powerful streams of water to tear down and wash out the soil of hillsides that cover or hold golden deposits, is known as "hydraulic mining." This is the most unique and extensive process, involving the largest capital and risk. The water is brought from mountain lakes and rivers, through ditches and flumes, sometimes supported by trestle work, fifty or one hundred feet high, to near the scene of operations. Then it is let from the flumes into large and stout iron pipes, which grow gradually smaller and smaller. Out of these it is passed into hose, like that of a fire engine; and through this it is discharged with terrific force into the bank or bed of earth, which is speedily torn down and washed with resistless separating power into narrow beds or sluices in the lower valleys; and as it goes along these, the more solid gold particles deposit themselves in the rifts or slight barriers placed for that purpose across its path.
Usually, in large operations of this kind, the main stream of water is divided in the final discharging hose into two or more streams, which spout out into the hillside as if from so many fire engines, but with immensely more force. One of these streams would instantly kill man or animal that should get before it; and fatal accidents frequently happen from this source. Sometimes a water company taps lakes fifteen or twenty miles off in the mountains, and turns whole rivers into its ditches. There are in some localities supposed rich gold banks and beds, which only require water for development, but to get which would require an outlay for ditches of many hundred thousand dollars. It is probable that it would be richly paying investment, however, and the principal reason why it is not undertaken is the lack of certain laws, regulating mining claims, and the conflicts and doubts that are occasioned by the neglect of the government to establish the terms of ownership in mining lands. As it is now, possession is the principal title to mining properties; prospectors and miners have established a few general rules for determining the rights of each other, and they can occupy the properties that they discover or purchase to a certain limited extent. No one person is permitted to take up more than a certain amount in feet or acres. The government so far has done nothing with these mineral lands, whose real ownership is still in itself, and derives no revenue from them.
Whenever difficulties arise and are brought before the courts, the regulations of the miners of the district where the properties are located has generally been sustained. But the apprehension that the government will yet assume its rights and establish different rules for the possession and use of these lands, and the uncertainty and controversies growing out of the present loose ways of making and holding claims, are a serious obstacle to large enterprises, and a hindrance to the best sort of mining progress and prosperity throughout all the western mining country. The profits obtained in some cases of extensive deep diggings and hydraulic mining are very great. A thousand dollars a day is often washed out by a company holding rich soil and employing a large force; and a run of several weeks, averaging from fifty to one hundred dollars a day for each man employed is frequently recorded. A single "cleaning up" after a few weeks' washing in a rich place has produced fifty thousand dollars in gold dust and nuggets; and in some cases, even one hundred thousand dollars has been reported. These are the extreme cases of good fortune, however; other enterprises are run at a loss, or with varying result; but the gold washing, as a general thing pay good wages, and a fair return to the capital invested.
It is hardly possible to imagine, and wholly impossible to describe the ruin and wreck to be seen everywhere in the path of the larger gold washing operations. Streams naturally pure as crystal, become changed to a thick, yellow mud, from this cause, early in their passage out from the hills. Many of them are turned out of their original channels, either directly for mining purposes, or in consequence of the great masses of soil and gravel that come down from the gold washings above. Thousands of acres of fine lands along their banks are ruined forever, by deposits of this character. The mining interest respects no rights but its own. A farmer may have his whole estate changed to a barren waste, by a flood of sand and gravel from some hydraulic mining up the stream. If a fine orchard or garden stands in the way of the working of a rich gulch or bank, orchard and garden are doomed. They are torn down, dug out, washed to pieces, and then washed over side hills. Where the process of hydraulic mining has been, or is being carried on, the country presents an appearance of devastation and ruin that is scarcely imaginable; forming a frightful blot upon the face of nature.
For this sort of mining on a large scale, we had no facilities, so we were compelled to work in a very small way, and be satisfied with correspondingly small results. News of our successful establishment of the old mine, in some way reached Santa Fé, and, rushing to the conclusion that we had found a new Eldorado, all the floating population of that decaying city swooped down upon us, and we soon found quite a populous settlement growing up around us.