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Volume 010-4 - October 1956 (2 pages)
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Page: of 2
Nevada Gounty Historical Society
October 1956 Vol. 10, No. 4
HYDRAULIC MINING IN NEVADA COUNTY
By Herbert J. Nile
Hydiaulic Mining itself would probably never have been regarded as
historically important to the development of the Mother Lode area were
it not for the fact that it was responsible for the creation of so many of the
major industries of today.
The Minerstof ‘49 and the 50s scon
found that water was nearly as precious as the gold itself, for it took water to pan, to run the Long Toms,
rockers, sluice boxes and for ground
sluicing. It certainly took water to
separate the gold from the earth.
They experimented with water under pressure and developed a pipe,
hose and nozzle method which was
the quickest and cheapest way to
get the gold where they could catch
it in sluice boxes. Next came the
Monitor with the ball and socket
joint. This was the greatest improvement yet brought into use. I was
the first flexible power and preceeded the Universal Joint and the Pelton
Wheel which was developed much
later.
Jim Hutchinson, who still lives in
Nevada City, heh build the first
Pelton Wheel. is Pelton Wheel
took the water which was carried by
ditches, flumes and pipe lines from
reservoirs and rivers and converted
it into power. It became the chief
source of power for mining purposes
after Hydraulicking was stopped by
the Collier Act in the early ‘80s.
Soon Monitors were playing on the
gravel deposits, and reservoirs were
built at practically every place where
a ditch would lead to a point where
there would be sufficient pressure to
reach the gold bearing gravel. These
ditches and flumes had to be watched constantly for breaks, so the ditch
tender always lived over them and
used a float that would slide a lot of
tin cans from a shelf near his bed
whenever a break occurred, and the
noise would awaken him before a
great deal of damage had been
caused.
The advent of the Telegraph system later enabled the mine operators
to get word to the ditch tenders to
hold water in storage until the necessary repairs had been made. The
first long distance telephone was
established in 1878 the Ridge
Companies operating from French
Corral to the Malakoff and later it
was extended to the intake of the
ditches and reservoirs.
Within three months from the time
the Ridge phones were installed, telephones replaced the telegraph machines at Rough and Ready, the Nile
Ranch, and the Smartville office of
the Excelsior Company. Later they
were installed in every ditch tender's
anywhere in the world.
This hydraulicking was kept up
day and night as long as there was
water abailable to run the Monitors,
so it was essential that they have
some kind of lighting. First they
bumed pitch on the ground, later
they made cradles or large baskets
of tire iron mounted on sharp iron
bars so that they could be moved
quickly and used to better advantage. Then followed the Kerosene
Lanterns with large reflectors. As
soon as Generators were made for
electric lightings, the Excelsior Com-