Miners Making a "Clean-up" from Their "Jig-box."
Then there is placer mining, so-called because it is a place on the bank of a river where the gold is found. "Placer" is Spanish and means "pleasure." A prospector's outfit for finding gold by the latter process is very crude. He goes into the mountains with two pack ponies. These pack animals learn to climb over the rocks and along the precipitous mountain sides like Rocky Mountain sheep. On their backs are strapped his tent and simple belongings, among which is a wash basin. The prospector seldom uses it for the purpose for which it was made. He bathes in nature's basin—golden basin; that which a King might envy him—the stream, the rushing, tumbling stream, clear, cold and pure; fortunate man! he bathes in liquid gold. The pan he fills two-thirds full of dirt, then with water, rocks it gently with his hands, letting the water run over the sides, carrying the dirt away and leaving the particles of gold, which are heavy, at the bottom of the pan. When the miner finds it there, he does not call it gold, he calls it "color." This rude device that is simply motion, water, and a receptacle for the particles of gold, is the same process elaborated upon by expensive machinery, that tears up and runs through the mill thousands of tons of material found along streams, and in gulches, where streams ran ages ago, and which, changing their channels, have left their deposits of gold containing the wash from the lump or quartz gold, found in the veins of ore.
A sluice is where water is made to run through a ditch into a trough that has cleats nailed across the bottom to check the water and form ripples. Into this the pay-dirt is shoveled, and the water flowing through it leaves the gold at the bottom and carries the dirt away. Gold dust is not fine like flour. A piece weighing less than a fourth of an ounce is called "dust." Above that it becomes a "nugget." Small counter-scales were kept in the early days by all business men, who weighed the money in, and weighed the flour and bacon out. An ounce of gold was taken over the counter from the miners at sixteen dollars, but when it left the Mint refined, which meant the elimination of all impurities, it brought twenty dollars. It is never entirely pure until refined.
The nearest approach we now have to the hunter, trapper and scout, is the prospector hunting for gold. We find him wandering alone through the mountains, a silent figure, the pack pony, his only companion, sometimes driven ahead, sometimes following on behind. This quiet spoken, unobtrusive, hermit-like man is usually tall, gaunt, bearded, hopeful, always believing in the lucky find that is sure to be his—soon. Mining laws vary with different states and mining communities. But ordinarily they are the same in effect, that a miner must show good faith, do the work required to establish his claim, and must post a notice on the ground claimed by him; the spelling in the notice does not seem to matter. We do not hear that the following were rejected on account of errors or threats:
"Notis—to all and everybody. This is my claim, 50 feet on the gulch. Cordin to Clear Creek District law backed up by shot gun amendments,
(Sgd.) "Thomas Hall."
"To the Gunnison District:
"The undersigned claims this lede with all its driffs, spurs, angels, sinosities, etc., etc., from this staik. a 100 feet in each direcshun, the same being a silver bearing load, and warning is hereby given to awl persons to keepe away at their peril, any person found trespassing on this claim will be persecuted to the full extent of the law. This is no monkey tale butt I will assert my rites at the pint of the sicks shuter if legally Necessary so taik head and good warnin accordin to law I post This Notiss,
(Sgd.) " John Searle."
Singular it is that the laws governing mining claims originated with the miners themselves, and found their way through the Courts and Congress for ratification, which was done with hardly any changes, while the laws covering all other forms of ownership of Government lands originated in Congress. The author of much of our early land legislation, to whom our country can never be grateful enough, was that eminent statesman Alexander Hamilton.