As we have above referred to Mr. T. H. Benton’s speech, delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 15, 1849, on the subject of land titles and sale of gold mines in New Mexico and California, we give a place here to his substitute for the bill then before the Senate, supposing it may be interesting to those who have not seen it. It is fortunate for California to have such a defender of her rights as the gifted Senator from Missouri. This is the substitute that defeated the bill in question:
“To recommit the bill to the Committee on Public Lands, with instruction to inquire into the expediency of reporting a bill for ascertaining the public and unappropriated lands in the territory of California, and for surveying and selling the same, and for granting donations to actual settlers, and permits to work the gold mines; and for that purpose to provide—
“First. For the appointment of a recorder of land titles, who shall have the custody of all the public archives in relation to the disposition of the public lands, and shall record all the grants and all claims that shall be discovered, made known to him, and shall make two abstracts of the same, one to be sent to the General Land Office in Washington city, the other to be delivered to the Surveyor General of California, that he may lay down the grants and claims on a map to be retained in his office, and of which map a copy to be transmitted to the General Land Office, and another to be filed with the recorder of land titles in California.
“Second. To provide for the ascertainment of invalid grants or possessions, by authorizing a scire facias to be issued from the United States District Court against the party in possession to come in and hear the objections to his claim and to show cause why the grant should not be annulled, or the possession vacated in every case in which the recorder of land titles, upon consultation with the district attorney, or by orders from the General Land Office, shall be so instructed, shall be of opinion that the same is not valid under the treaty with Mexico, the law of nations, and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States—the decisions of the district court to be final, if against the United Stales, in all cases where the land in question shall be worth less than five thousand dollars. But no pueblo or rancheria Indians to be disturbed in their possessions, without special orders from the General Government.
“Third. To provide for the appointment of a surveyor general, and for the establishment of three land offices.
“Fourth. To provide for donations of land to actual settlers, heads of families, widows, and single men over eighteen years of age, and an allowance of land for children under eighteen years of age, and for the wife in her own right, according to the provisions of the bill proposing donations to the settles in Oregon, which passed the Senate January 3, 1843.
“Fifth. To provide for preserving order in working gold mines, by appointing an agent to grant permits for working small lots, and settling summarily, and on the spot, all questions of boundary or interference among the diggers. The said permits to continue in force while the lot is worked by the person receiving it, and to be limited to —— feet square.”
It is not necessary for us to offer here any comments upon this substitute for the bill above alluded to, as we have already in anticipation expressed our opinion in relation to the measures to be adopted by the Government of the Union respecting land titles and gold mines in California.
ADVICE TO THE MINER.
On arriving in California, the gold hunters, if we may be pardoned the expression, first touch the shore at San Francisco.—There they look for information how and what are the means to get the precious pelf in large quantities, that they may not stay in the country too long; if they happen to have a letter to some one in the place, or if they meet an old friend, they put a thousand questions to him faster than he is able to answer them, evidently hurried by anxiety to lose no time and opportunity. Then they will tell him about their plans, how they are going to proceed in the business, what excellent machinery they bring from New York or some other place, to work with, and so forth. The Americans, and particularly those that call themselves, or are called, Yankees par excellence, have the reputation of putting many questions to people they happen to fall in with; but on this occasion, they are more, even than Yankees, in pouring upon the stranger they meet, their interrogatories. Now, we propose here to benefit both parties, the annoying and annoyed—we use the expression not to disguise the truth in obscure words as it is really the plain fact—and anticipate all such questions by suitable information, upon which they can put at least some reliance, as we are neither a merchant, a trader, or speculator in land or mines.
Neither San Francisco, the city of Sacramento nor Stockton are the places where reliable information is to be expected by one who proposes to go to the mines, as these places may be compared to the famous Dyonius’ ear, where the gentlest whisper is re-echoed a thousand times. Interest and ignorance frequently conspire in circulating extraordinary stories of success, on very slender foundation, for some never have been in the mines at all, and have not the slightest idea of them, crediting everything they hear; others have their posts established on some particular spot, where, of course, the mines must be very rich. The trading portion of the inhabitants of these places see gold brought in in large quantities, but they never trouble themselves with how much labor it is got out, who has failed and who has succeeded; in fine, they hear only of constant success. The fact is, that while there are many who succeed, there are others who scarcely pay their expenses. This should not be withheld from the knowledge of a new comer, since in case of failure in his mining expectations, he will be somewhat prepared for such an event, and will be able to make the best of it.
The new comer, on preparing himself to start for the mines, first should know what he wants for his expedition. Many start lumbered with baggage, imagining that they cannot and must not forego the indispensable comforts of life. All baggage is a burden and heavy expense to the miner; the cost and sometimes the difficulty of transportation forbid any such commodities; and besides, it will always impede his free movement, if he should want to go from place to place. He should have absolutely nothing more than what he can carry on a beast, if he be able to have one; or if not, what he can shoulder himself. The less one brings to the mines, the better prospects of success he may have, and the more he is loaded with goods, the more probably he will lose. This is the secret why all hard working men who are inured to hard labor and strangers to enervating comforts, such as sailors and mechanics, generally do very well. The miner needs good, stout and warm clothing, just enough in quantity for a change for the sake of cleanliness—a pair of stout boots or shoes, or both, two good blankets to sleep comfortable, warm and dry; his mining tools consisting of a pick-axe, spade, spade, crowbar, a tin pan to wash gold in, a good sheath knife, iron spoon and a trowel. The pick-axe and crowbar should be of a convenient size for handling, and well steeled on the ends. A washing machine is used when there are two or more working in partnership. All the machines that have been brought here from the States are absolutely useless; they have proved profitable only to the venders there. The simple machine which here is in common use consists of three light boards three feet long and about ten inches high, put together in the shape of a cradle with two rockers underneath; the bottom board is made a little narrower; the sides on the upper edge from the middle backwards, are bevelled off two or three inches, and the same is done forwards so that the board, when looked upon from the side, presents an irregular hexagon; at the head part of the machine, on the upper edges of the boards, rests a box of boards, called a sieve or riddle, from three to five inches high, with a tin or sheet-iron perforated bottom; it is fixed, sometimes, in a manner to be taken out when necessary, sometimes on hinges to be thrown backwards when it is necessary to throw away the washed stones. The head part of the machine is well boarded; at the opposite extremity a board is likewise placed, the upper half of which is cut out in the shape of a cresent, leaving about three or four inches at the bottom of it; this opening serves for a passage of dirt, stones and water that are thrown in at the head into the sieve. It has also one or two bars or cleets across the bottom board at the distance of a foot each, and about three inches high. The perforations of the sieve or riddle are sometimes triangular, whose base and sides are about an inch, sometimes they are circular, of the diameter of about three-quarters of an inch. Under the riddle, in the interior of the machine, a board inclined diagonally and backwards is fixed, leaving however a sufficient space at the lower edge of it for the passage of the stones, dirt and water; it is called by the miners an apron or screen; the object of it is to throw back the water that it may cover the whole bottom equally and run an even current. In the bottom board, about the centre of it, there is a hole an inch in diameter, made back and close to the first and second cleet, if there be but two of them, which is well stopped and opened only when it becomes necessary to take out the residue, dirt and gold, to separate the latter from the former by washing it in a tin pan, which should be of the size of milk pans used in the States. The tin pans are to be got at San Francisco at from three to four dollars, or in the mines at the trading posts for the double amount. The machines can be got at these posts by paying from two to four ounces; but it is so easily made that any one himself can make it and save the money. If put together by means of screws rather than nails, it could be taken apart and conveniently carried about when necessary. The machine requires also a piece of strong wood of from two to three feet long, to be firmly fixed to both sides across the box to be used as a handle for rocking. To work these machines, in some places, as on the banks of rivers, two persons only are required; while in dry diggings where water and gold dirt are not so conveniently situated, it requires three or four persons to do the same work; one to work the machine, another to dip and throw water on it, a third to carry dirt, and the fourth to dig it; or two to dig and carry, and two to wash dirt. However, according to circumstances these partnerships are formed, it can only be said that there is no occasion for more than four persons in a company, and frequently three or two do better than four. For protection and occasional service that one may require from another, it is always better to be in partnership with a suitable person or persons: in messing, for instance, it is better to have several in a mess for the sake of occupying the same tent, and having less cooking to do, as in such cases this is done by turns. The small machines have thus far been the best machines in use, and under the circumstances of pressing necessities of miners, in which they had their origin, nothing better or more convenient could have been got up; but they cannot be said to be the result of a scientific investigation and extensive experience. Recently, a very great improvement has been introduced into the method of washing placer gold. This improvement is the “Burke Rocker,” as improved by Jackson, and which is now generally used in Virginia for washing gold in similar deposites to those of California; it is there no longer an experiment as it has been used in those mines for thirty years past, after an examination of all the processes for washing gold both in Europe and America. This rocker has been found to be perfectly applicable to the soil here, as two of them have been in a successful operation on Mormon Island for some time past under the immediate superintendence of Mr. Jackson himself. It is destined to effect great changes in the process of washing gold in this country, and particularly when the miner that now works independently and alone will find his labor very hard and not paying him sufficiently, since this machine being worked with mercury, saves the most minute particles of gold that escape the eye, and thus gives in aggregate a greater result than can be sometimes obtained by washing large pieces alone. It requires five persons only to work one of these rockers; their great excellence can be summed up in a very few words: by the use of one about four times the quantity of earth may be washed by each man daily, and probably from two-fifths to three-fifths more gold is obtained from any given quantity washed. They will be doubtless ere long used with great success in going over the field already washed by the present imperfect method; as the bars and banks of rivers and the earth in “dry diggings,” for certain it is that the amount of fine gold dust inevitably lost by the smaller machines is greater than all that is saved ordinarily.
This machine is a simple trough about nine feet long with a bottom made of cast iron plates perforated throughout, the size of the holes increasing gradually as they descend towards the lower end; beneath these plates there are draws in which mercury is put; the dirt, as the machine keeps rocking slowly, is carried along the plates by the water thrown from above by a pump and washed down, gold together with finer particles of dirt descend into the draws to be amalgamated with mercury. The produce of such a washing is then put into a retort to separate the gold from the mercury. In the process of separation of the former from the latter, about two per cent. only of mercury is lost. These two kinds of machines are the only ones which we can recommend from our own observation; they are well adapted for these mines at least, and they can be easily procured here. Numerous inventions for this purpose were brought from the States, and none of them answered the sanguine expectations of their owners; they are not worth here even the cost of the materials they are made of.