The soil in the ravines here is mostly clay, but from time to time partakes of the sandy red clay so common in this country, resembling very much the gravelly hills of the post-oaks of Texas. The ride up the stream to "Mokolumne rich gulch," is very interesting, passing between two hills, or lines of hills, with occasional ravines leading down to the creek we were following.
We passed an Indian village of six huts; the squaws were pounding acorns to make "payote," in natural mortars, formed by the slight indentations being used constantly; the pounding of the stone (small granite boulders, water-worn smooth), sometimes wear the holes a foot deep; but they are generally deserted before that depth is reached. A smooth, flat stone is usually preferred by the Indians to begin on, and if the country suits their purposes, and the lodges remain any length of time in the neighborhood, the stone is often marked with thirty or forty of these mortar holes.
[No date.] Leaving "Rich gulch," we took a southerly course over the ridge, and wound down the branches of the Calaveras, until the various rivulets united and formed what is called the "north branch of the Calaveras." Where we crossed, it was about eighteen inches deep, and runs over a rough bed of various-sized pebbles, with larger lumps of granite and quartz for the horses to stumble over, making the ford when the stream is muddy from recent rains, very treacherous. The soil is of the same character for a mile or two, occasionally of a reddish loam, containing both clay and sand, mixed with gravel, of angular formation, very small, and with more or less quartz, equally various as to the size and quantity of the pieces.
The pits dug by the miners at the Chinese Diggings, five miles from the Tuolome [Tuolumne] River, and midway between the mountains and plains, among the hills, present ordinarily a superficial loam of from six to eighteen inches, rich, at times, but again of the light bluish clay; the next stratum is of reddish clay and gravel, and very hard, ending in slatey rock, soft and dead to pick at, and having the usual friability of the trap slate that is so plentiful all over the country, sticking up in places like the headstones of a deserted churchyard. At Wood's Diggings the same appearance is seen, but with the slate in more upright strata and hard.
March 18th. At Murphy's New Diggings, the gulch is full of lumps of granite and heavy gravel; in the part called "The Flat" in the lower part of the valley the soil is of great depth, in places eight to ten feet, less in others.
March 20th. From Murphy's New Diggings to Angel's Camp is six miles; the country just undulating, inviting the squatter to put up his log house, made from the few pines that, from time to time, form little clusters, but so far apart as always to arrest the attention, and call forth the admiration of the wanderer through these lonely hills, where the want of woods to me gives more solitude than our densest forest; so much for habit, for I recollect well that "Beaver," my Delaware Indian guide in Texas, always was anxious for the prairie, whenever I took him into the deep swamps of the Brasos or Guadaloupe.
"Angel's Diggings" is one of the many repetitions of the same thing seen every day. A beautiful little brook, with precipitous sides, and gravelly or rocky beds; high hills of red clayey loam, mixed or sprinkled with bits of quartz and slate, forming continual amphitheatres at almost every bend of the creek. Here I met a gentleman who had, for many years, been washing gold in the Carolinas; he had a quicksilver machine of his own invention, price one thousand dollars, which he was working with six men. He told me he was getting a pound a day from the sands he was washing, which had been washed already in the common rocker. He did not feel so sure of its efficacy in the clay diggings, but for sand it certainly was admirable. These diggings like all I have seen that were worth anything were completely riddled; first by the top washing, and "dry" washing of the Mexicans, then by the hurried, superficial "panning out" of the lucky American who came first and reaped his fortune; next better dug out by the gold digger for his three ounces a day, and now toil and hard labor gave the strong determined washer from small amounts to, occasionally, an ounce a day, when the water will permit him to work.
March 23d. Our road to Cayote [Coyote] made a "V" from Murphy's, over a poor soil, with nothing of interest along the six miles but a small elevation of semi-basaltic sand-stone, mixed with granite, with large particles of crystal-like spar.
The approach to Cayote is down a red clay hill, of course, and is on a point made by two little rivers (I should call them streams) which meet at the lower end of the diggings. The larger one is called the Cayote River, a branch of the north fork of the Stanislaus, and the diggings are about ten miles up if you follow the windings of the creek, but by the road only five to the Stanislaus.
The first year these diggings were worked many large amounts of gold were dug here with little labor; the second year required harder labor for poorer results, and it is its early reputation that keeps it up, though some holes are still paying well; I was told four, out of the fifty then being worked. The largest amount taken in the time I have been here, two days, was found by five Englishmen, two pounds and three ounces; others are well content with an ounce a day and do not give up their holes if much less than that is the result of ten hours or more work.