Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities

by George Payson

The 4th of July came hot and scorching as the breath of the Sirocco. We had celebrated it the year before at Ford's Bar by firing guns and drinking lemonade; but we now slightly varied these amusements. Above our dam, and formed by the backing up of the water, lay a swelling pond winding away a mile among the hills. Every day, as we penned in the water, it stole noiselessly farther and farther up the shore, drowning one after another the little islands and blades of grass that vainly standing on tiptoe stretched their heads above the surface. Embarked in our flatboat with only one companion, a pleasant young fellow from Philadelphia, we paddled softly up this newborn lakelet to a point on the farther shore, where another party had already accumulated a pile of earth supposed to contain a slight admixture of clay, which it was our duty to transport to the head of the canal. Here it was taken by a third set of workmen, and carried two hundred yards in handbarrows, over a most difficult path, to a part of the canal where the island was so low that a short dike was necessary to prevent the water from finding its way back into the river. After making several trips, we yielded our situation to two of the unfortunates on the bank, and took their place in digging and carrying. The hillside where they had been excavating was several hundred feet from the water, and the earth must be carried down to the shore on handbarrows, of all inventions the most ingeniously fatiguing. Clouds of dust rose from the parched ground, covering us from head to foot in an undistinguishable suit of reddish grey. The whole company were thus occupied a week in constructing a low wall not more than twenty feet in length, and this being finished, again returned to work on the dam, which we pushed forward with the fiercest energy.

We had now to settle a very important question, how we should drain the hollows or ponds that would remain after the river had been entirely diverted from its channel. Man-power, horse-power, and water-power were all proposed; but the first was altogether inefficient, and the other two well nigh impracticable. Nothing then seemed left but steam. We were all of us at first rather frightened at the thought of employing so powerful an auxiliary, but it soon became familiar, and now our only anxiety was lest we should be unable to obtain an engine of suitable qualifications. Capt. Sampson was despatched to San Francisco on this errand, and in the mean time our work went on as usual.

Walking one morning along the dam, now presenting a level path for half its length. I found in the middle where the water still rushed through, a large salmon, who had leaped the fall, but being jammed in among the stones was unable to overcome the force of the current. Another was found soon after in the same predicament—the eyes of both were gone—their noses worn off, and their bodies gashed with frightful wounds. This is the condition to which nearly all are reduced before reaching the sources of those rapid rivers; and perhaps nothing else can show so clearly the force of what may here at least be fairly termed a blind instinct.

Capt. Sampson returned in less than a week, bringing with him a small steam-engine, and a heavy pump of cast-iron, of a very peculiar construction, without valves or boxes, and working by centrifugal force alone. The whole apparatus weighed about four thousand pounds, and cost fifteen hundred dollars.

In the mean time, our dam had rapidly advanced to completion. We had nothing better than partially decomposed granite to stop the leaks, and were obliged to pick the whole of that from the solid ledge; yet it answered the purpose so admirably that all the water that found its way through a dam two hundred and fifty feet long and ten feet high, could easily be carried in a canvass hose six inches in diameter. A sudden rise in the river, occasioned by rain in the mountains, filled us with uneasiness lest it should overflow our dam, but by making great exertions we raised a small mound five or six inches high along the whole extent, and this slight embankment was sufficient to avert the threatened calamity. The next day the river had again fallen, and after that continued steadily to abate, till the top of the dam was nearly three feet above the surface.

It was the close of the third week in July that our patient perseverance at length prevailed over the waters. The next day, being Sunday, we saw from our elevated eyrie different members of the company with pan and shovel wandering about in the bed of the river, stopping here and there to dig and wash a small quantity of earth and then shaking their heads in a very dolorous and unaccountable manner. This process was several times repeated, and on every occasion the head-shaking grew more decidedly melancholy. Monday morning, on going to work as usual, we found the whole company, from Capt. Sampson down to the merest halfshare of them all, in a state closely bordering on distraction, and radiating the blues as fast as ever a redhot cannon ball radiated caloric. "Well, Mr. Raven," said Jimmy almost ready to cry, "our work's all lost. I'd sell my share for a hundred dollars and glad o' the chance;" and with this the said radiators glowed colder than ever. On requesting an explanation of this extraordinary conduct, we learned that they had dug ever so many holes the day before and had found nothing—so they had at once concluded that there was nothing to find. As we had been the principal movers and originators of the whole undertaking, they regarded us as in some sort the authors of their misfortunes, and hence we had to bear not only our own share of the common disappointment, but also their ill-concealed displeasure. Our situation was indeed deplorable—most of us had expended not only our labour but the greater part of our previous earnings in purchasing the engine and other matters, and if the dam should prove a failure we were utterly ruined. But would it prove a failure? We did not believe it would. In the whole party there was hardly one who knew any more about prospecting, at least in the river, than a hen of average intelligence. Most of them had passed their apprenticeship in the southern mines, and not one had ever had any thing to do with damming. We ourselves had been very slow to learn the nicer mysteries of our craft, but we knew enough to satisfy us that a claim like that could not be explored in a day. We squeezed the gloom out of our companions like water out of a sponge, and the next morning went to work prospecting in earnest. St. John sunk the first hole between a snug family of rocks just on the edge of our upper hollow—the earth paid from twenty cents to ten dollars a bucket, and in two hours he took out with my assistance sixty dollars. There was no more grumbling that day—Jimmy raised his price from one hundred to ten thousand dollars, and doubted whether he would sell even for that.

Hose was still wanting to convey the water that leaked through the dam quite across the upper hollow, so that it might not increase too much the labours of the engine,—and Wednesday I rode in a wagon to Sacramento to obtain canvass sufficient for this purpose. On my return the next day by stage I found that my companions had already moved the engine and pump across the river by means of rollers, and had set them up on a stout frame at the foot of the upper hollow. A short trough was constructed to lead the water from the pump directly into the round deep pool below, and we were all ready to begin.

Our affairs were now in a highly prosperous condition,—a half share was sold before the engine had made a stroke, for nearly a thousand dollars, and every day members of other companies, none of which had "got into the river," came to look, and admire, and wonder they had not bought shares when they could have done it so easily. The American Damming stock was now among the best in the market, and was quoted in the Sacramento papers at ten thousand dollars a share.

All this could not but be highly gratifying even to men of that meek and modest temper for which, I do not say our whole company, but some of us were remarkable. In the pride of our heart we could not help glorying a little over our neighbours, as if our good fortune had been entirely owing to our superior sagacity—and I noticed that one or two who had been led into the scheme almost against their wills, were now the loudest in this self-laudation. We met, however, with almost innumerable delays—the wood was wet, or the boiler leaked, or the belt slipt from the whirling drums. It was some time, too, before we discovered the secret of the pump—after working finely several hours, and lowering the water as many feet, the stream suddenly ceased to flow. We took the pump to pieces, and spent nearly all the rest of the day in trying to detect the cause of this interruption, but gained no more by our scrutiny than the child who cut open the bellows to find where the wind came from. After puzzling over it all night, we resumed our examination in the morning, but with no better success, and were all ready to despair, when suddenly the Captain and St. John both cried out at once, "Suppose we put the pump nearer the water, and see how that will work." Sure enough, it flashed upon us all in a moment that it was not a suction but a force pump—we accordingly lowered the frame on which it rested, and in this position found that it would drain the hole in six hours.

The harvest had now commenced that was to repay us for months of toil—we had thrust aside with strong arm the guardian river, and its treasures only waited our touch to be laid open to the light. We hastened to secure them with trembling hand. Rocks were torn from their deep foundations, and the thick-skinned granite scraped even to its quivering nerves. The bed where the old South Fork had lain, reposing in quiet, or restlessly tossing, so many generations, was now to be well shaken and made up afresh. Parties set to work at different points, and everywhere the short puff of the engine and droning hum of the pump mingled with the harsher tones of the rocker and the cheerful sound of pick and shovel. Our gains were all put into one common receptacle, and every evening we assembled at the Captain's tent to see them weighed and divided.