DISAPPOINTMENT AND DISGUST.
I do not think either of us was ever harder worked and more weary than at the end of that day. We had pains enough all over our bodies to set up a window market, and if we did not sleep well that night, it was not for lack of weariness. We were a trifle disgusted to find that in our verdancy we had been washing what the miners call “strippings,” that is, the surface earth which lies above the pay dirt. We might as well have washed the sweepings of Broadway, and hope to obtain gold. We learned something by experience, as a great many others have done. “Working the rocker,” we concluded, was too severe for lazy men, and we speedily gave it up.
LVI.
GOLD MINING.
VARIOUS WAYS OF MINING GOLD.—SLUICING AND HYDRAULIC MINING.—ACCIDENT TO A MINER.—A NARROW ESCAPE.—POWER OF WATER IN HYDRAULIC MINING.—EFFECT ON RIVERS AND BAYS.—A SCENE OF DESOLATION.—QUARTZ MINING.—QUICKSILVER AND ITS AMALGAM.—STOCK OPERATIONS.—THE MARIPOSA MINES.—THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.—HAYWARD’S MINE.—MANIPULATION OF MARIPOSA.—FUNNY STORY OF A SEA CAPTAIN.—HOW HE SUPERINTENDED A MINE.—HIS MANAGEMENT OF A MILL.—ACCIDENTS ON PURPOSE, AND HASTY FLIGHT.
Underground work in gold mining does not properly begin with the surface washings. It is true the earth is torn out, and large excavations are made; but they are all done by the light of day, and where the open air circulates through them. As heretofore stated, the primitive form of gold-digging is with the pan and the rocker. After the rocker, there are several forms of sluicing, or washing away of the earth. The ordinary construction of a sluice is a long box, with a current of water running through it. The earth is thrown into the sluice, washed towards its lower end, and carried away by the water. The stones, of various sizes, are thrown out with a shovel or fork; the gold and black sand fall by their weight, and are caught in the riffles, or cleats, nailed across the bottom of the sluice. Earth which will not pay for working with the pan or rocker can be made profitable in this mode of operation, for the reason that one man or two men can wash with the sluice many times the quantity of earth that they could work with the primitive process.
Another form of sluice, known as “Long Tom,” is generally elevated upon posts, a foot or two above the ground. At its upper end there is a covering of sheet iron, very much like that which covers the rocker. Another system of surface mining is that which is known as hydraulic mining, and by means of it, earth that will not pay for washing in any other way can be worked to advantage. By this process the miners will tear down large banks and hills, and wash them entirely away. The process was invented in 1852, by Edward Mattison, a native of Connecticut, and introduced by him to great advantage. The water is conducted through iron tubes, terminating in a flexible hose with a nozzle like that of a fire engine. The “head” of the water must be many feet higher than the place where it emerges from the hose, so as to give an enormous pressure.
Equipped in this way the miner washes away the base of the bank. In a little while the upper part falls, and as the gravelly ground is composed of pebbles, and is naturally rather loosely consolidated, large masses of the hill come down with a violent crash. The greatest danger to life in this kind of mining is in the falls of the earth.