Nevada County, California (PH 1-19)(1926) (19 pages)

MINING > It would require a great circle having a radius of about fifteen miles trom the center of the map to encompass the vast reservoir of precious metals in Nevada County Mining District. On the northern side of that circle would be the districts of Graniteville, Washington, Bloomfield, Columbia Hill and French Corral; on the western side would be the districts of Newtown, Rough and Ready and Deadman Flat; on the southern side would be the districts of Forest Springs and Spenceville; and on the eastern side of the circle would be the districts of You Bet, Little York, Quaker Hill and Meadow Lake. All of these districts have their own individual vein systems and within this circle there are more than 600 known gold-bearing quartz ledges. The limited space in this small booklet does not permit describing the different mining districts of the county, or does space permit publishing a map of these districts of sufficient size to be of value. This map is a reproduction of Folio No. 29 of the United States Government Geological Survey. This map contains about 25,000 acres and less than one-sixth of that acreage has been prospected with depth. Yet that small percentage of this highly mineralized area has produced approximately $200,000,000 in gold and the geological formation of most of this entire area is such that it is reasonable to expect that deep mining will disclose many additional mines. Conceming the section encompassed in the above map, the Government Geologist—Waldemar Lindgren—states: “Although gold is widely distributed over the Sierra Nevadas in veins and placer mines, there are but few regions in it which show such a concentration of valuable deposits within a narrowly circumscribed area as occurs in the districts described in this folio.” Meaning Folio No. 29. A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST Bean's History of Nevada County, published in 1866, states: “The mines of Nevada were, when first discovered, exceedingly rich and casy of development. The first claims were on river bars or in ravines where men with a common rocker, without more than a few hours to a day or two of preparation, could proceed to collect from a half ounce to two ounces per day, and in frequent cases hundreds of dollars per day to the man were extracted. Men in a few wecks were known to return to the eastern states carrying from ten to fifty, and up to as high as a hundred and sixty pounds of gold dust each, as a reward for their enterprise.” Mr, Benjamin P. Avery mined in Nevada County in 1849, and later became the editor of the San Francisco Bulletin. An excerpt from a letter written by Mr. Avery to the editor of “Bean's History’ concerning this carly period states: “The mines yielded wonderfully. From an ounce to twelve ounces a day was common with cradles; while many a long-tom party took home to their cabins at night a quart tin full of gold, much of which was as course as wheat grains. Many a lucky fellow left with a fortune in the spring.” “The Diary of A 49’er,” a narrative of this carly mining period, intimately and conservatively describes this period of the carly history of Nevada County, Tt sets forth graphically the successive steps in gold mining, from the pan and rocker to the ground sluice and flume, and the quaint belief of the pioneers that the supply ol gold deposits would soon give out, that the sojourn was but a transient one and that nothing remained but a return to the States ARROW No.1 WHERE SLUICE MINING ORIGINATED ARROW No, 2~WHERE HYDRAULIC MINING ORIGINATED ©. 3 -WHERE THE FIRST GOLD BEARING QUARTZ LEDGE WAS DISCOVERED ARROW NGO. 4~ WHERE THE FIRST QUARTZ MILL WAS BUILT ARROW N' We wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the publishers of “The Diary of A 49°er’—Houghton-Mifflin Company, of Boston — in permitting us to quote the following excerpts from that interesting book. THE HERO'S EXPERIENCE IN SELLING GOLD May 19, 1850. Will sell no more dust to M— He allowed only $17 an ounce and then blew out two dollars’ worth of fine gold; said it was not clean. Jerry Dix, who is only two claims above me on the creck, gets $18.50 for his at the store, but it always weighs short, yareallin a ring to rob us poor miners. Sent an eleven dollar specimen home to Dad. COURTING THE FICKLE GODDESS OF CHANCE jane 9, 1850. Went into the Bella Union gambling saloon. The place was full and running over with gamblers and miners, and the latter seemed to be trying to get rid of their money as fast as possible. At some of the tables they were playing high stakes, as much as one hundred dollars on the turn of a card. Monte was the most popular game and while . was there “Texas Bill” tapped one of the banks for two thousand dollars and won the first pull. Then he took the dealer's seat and the banker quit until he could raise another stake. BIRTH OF THE LONG TOM July 21, 1850. Anderson offers me a share in his claim. He's working on a dry gulch just about a_half-a-mile north of the cabin. It’s rich on the bed-rock, but has to strip off about ten fect of top dirt and then pack the gravel down to the creek a couple of hundred yards. He Offers me a one-half share in the ground if . will help him cut aditch from the creck to the claim to carry water to it. We will have to dig about a quarter of a mile. He says there is anew way of taking out gold by a machine called a Long Tom. He saw it working at IXellog’s claim on Brush Creek and as much dirt can be put through it in a day as one can with a rocker in a week. . will go over and look at it tomorrow. FIRST GROUND SLUICING August 18, 1850. We finished the ditch on Thursday and turned in the water, It carrics a lot more than we need and when we ran it into the gulch, Anderson got a new idea. We put a trench down through the middle of the ravine and there was a pretty heavy fall, The top dirt is nothing but red clay and he began picking the dirt and watching it run off into the creck and then he said, “What is the use of shoveling this all off when the water will do it for us?” Sure enough, it worked like a charm, we pulled off our shoes, turned up our overalls, jumped into the trench and worked like beavers, and the water did more work in one day than both of us could have stripped shoveling in a week (Note: Thus was ground sluicing originated.) WHERE GOLD GROWS September 1, 1850. A lot of miners have gone about forty miles north of here on another branch of the river where they say rich, coarse gold diggings have been dis covered, A pack mule lead of geld was brought into town from there last week and there was one piece worth $3000, and lots from an ounce to twenty ounces Many of the miners think this ts the discovery of the sourec of gold, that ts, where it grows. There ts one fact which bears out thistheory. The higher the miner gets up in the mountains, the coarser the gold. On Kanaka Creek

MINING > It would require a great circle having a radius of about fifteen miles trom the center of the map to encompass the vast reservoir of precious metals in Nevada County Mining District. On the northern side of that circle would be the districts of Graniteville, Washington, Bloomfield, Columbia Hill and French Corral; on the western side would be the districts of Newtown, Rough and Ready and Deadman Flat; on the southern side would be the districts of Forest Springs and Spenceville; and on the eastern side of the circle would be the districts of You Bet, Little York, Quaker Hill and Meadow Lake. All of these districts have their own individual vein systems and within this circle there are more than 600 known gold-bearing quartz ledges. The limited space in this small booklet does not permit describing the different mining districts of the county, or does space permit publishing a map of these districts of sufficient size to be of value. This map is a reproduction of Folio No. 29 of the United States Government Geological Survey. This map contains about 25,000 acres and less than one-sixth of that acreage has been prospected with depth. Yet that small percentage of this highly mineralized area has produced approximately $200,000,000 in gold and the geological formation of most of this entire area is such that it is reasonable to expect that deep mining will disclose many additional mines. Conceming the section encompassed in the above map, the Government Geologist—Waldemar Lindgren—states: “Although gold is widely distributed over the Sierra Nevadas in veins and placer mines, there are but few regions in it which show such a concentration of valuable deposits within a narrowly circumscribed area as occurs in the districts described in this folio.” Meaning Folio No. 29. A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST Bean's History of Nevada County, published in 1866, states: “The mines of Nevada were, when first discovered, exceedingly rich and casy of development. The first claims were on river bars or in ravines where men with a common rocker, without more than a few hours to a day or two of preparation, could proceed to collect from a half ounce to two ounces per day, and in frequent cases hundreds of dollars per day to the man were extracted. Men in a few wecks were known to return to the eastern states carrying from ten to fifty, and up to as high as a hundred and sixty pounds of gold dust each, as a reward for their enterprise.” Mr, Benjamin P. Avery mined in Nevada County in 1849, and later became the editor of the San Francisco Bulletin. An excerpt from a letter written by Mr. Avery to the editor of “Bean's History’ concerning this carly period states: “The mines yielded wonderfully. From an ounce to twelve ounces a day was common with cradles; while many a long-tom party took home to their cabins at night a quart tin full of gold, much of which was as course as wheat grains. Many a lucky fellow left with a fortune in the spring.” “The Diary of A 49’er,” a narrative of this carly mining period, intimately and conservatively describes this period of the carly history of Nevada County, Tt sets forth graphically the successive steps in gold mining, from the pan and rocker to the ground sluice and flume, and the quaint belief of the pioneers that the supply ol gold deposits would soon give out, that the sojourn was but a transient one and that nothing remained but a return to the States ARROW No.1 WHERE SLUICE MINING ORIGINATED ARROW No, 2~WHERE HYDRAULIC MINING ORIGINATED ©. 3 -WHERE THE FIRST GOLD BEARING QUARTZ LEDGE WAS DISCOVERED ARROW NGO. 4~ WHERE THE FIRST QUARTZ MILL WAS BUILT ARROW N' We wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the publishers of “The Diary of A 49°er’—Houghton-Mifflin Company, of Boston — in permitting us to quote the

following excerpts from that interesting book. THE HERO'S EXPERIENCE IN SELLING GOLD May 19, 1850. Will sell no more dust to M— He allowed only $17 an ounce and then blew out two dollars’ worth of fine gold; said it was not clean. Jerry Dix, who is only two claims above me on the creck, gets $18.50 for his at the store, but it always weighs short, yareallin a ring to rob us poor miners. Sent an eleven dollar specimen home to Dad. COURTING THE FICKLE GODDESS OF CHANCE jane 9, 1850. Went into the Bella Union gambling saloon. The place was full and running over with gamblers and miners, and the latter seemed to be trying to get rid of their money as fast as possible. At some of the tables they were playing high stakes, as much as one hundred dollars on the turn of a card. Monte was the most popular game and while . was there “Texas Bill” tapped one of the banks for two thousand dollars and won the first pull. Then he took the dealer's seat and the banker quit until he could raise another stake. BIRTH OF THE LONG TOM July 21, 1850. Anderson offers me a share in his claim. He's working on a dry gulch just about a_half-a-mile north of the cabin. It’s rich on the bed-rock, but has to strip off about ten fect of top dirt and then pack the gravel down to the creek a couple of hundred yards. He Offers me a one-half share in the ground if . will help him cut aditch from the creck to the claim to carry water to it. We will have to dig about a quarter of a mile. He says there is anew way of taking out gold by a machine called a Long Tom. He saw it working at IXellog’s claim on Brush Creek and as much dirt can be put through it in a day as one can with a rocker in a week. . will go over and look at it tomorrow. FIRST GROUND SLUICING August 18, 1850. We finished the ditch on Thursday and turned in the water, It carrics a lot more than we need and when we ran it into the gulch, Anderson got a new idea. We put a trench down through the middle of the ravine and there was a pretty heavy fall, The top dirt is nothing but red clay and he began picking the dirt and watching it run off into the creck and then he said, “What is the use of shoveling this all off when the water will do it for us?” Sure enough, it worked like a charm, we pulled off our shoes, turned up our overalls, jumped into the trench and worked like beavers, and the water did more work in one day than both of us could have stripped shoveling in a week (Note: Thus was ground sluicing originated.) WHERE GOLD GROWS September 1, 1850. A lot of miners have gone about forty miles north of here on another branch of the river where they say rich, coarse gold diggings have been dis covered, A pack mule lead of geld was brought into town from there last week and there was one piece worth $3000, and lots from an ounce to twenty ounces Many of the miners think this ts the discovery of the sourec of gold, that ts, where it grows. There ts one fact which bears out thistheory. The higher the miner gets up in the mountains, the coarser the gold. On Kanaka Creek