EXCEPTIONALLY HEAVY GKAVEL DEPOSITS. 277 



distant and its lowest passes eastward were at least one thousand feet 

 higher than the stream at Meadow lake. 



Grade : 

 Meadow lake to Milton, 11 miles, 73 feet per mile. 



THE SOUTH FORK. 



Badger I fill to Dutch Flat— From Badger hill to Dutch Flat or Gold 

 Run extends, about parallel to the axis of the Sierra, a series of extraor- 

 dinarily heavy gravel deposits, largely denuded of their volcanic cap and 

 especially adapted for mining by the hydraulic process. It formed a 

 part of the old " blue lead," that mysterious stream which was formerly 

 believed to have flowed north and south along the Sierra with a supreme 

 disregard for grades and high slate ridges. The true relations of the 

 deep channelin these deposits have been extensively discussed, especially 

 in the "Auriferous gravels ; " but Mr Pettee, who carefully examined the 

 gravel mines along this line, was unable to form an opinion which could 

 reconcile the apparently conflicting facts of grades and directions. 



Mr Pettee stated* his belief that no deep channel will ever be found be- 

 tween Badger hill and Grizzly hill, but afterward suggested f that a con- 

 nection existed between Blue Tent and Badger hill by way of Grizzly hill : 



" It seems most probable that this portion of the gravel field represents a broad 

 estuary or lake-like expansion of water at the junction of two streams or where 

 two streams by the filling up of their channels and the covering of the low inter- 

 vening ridges became practically one. If this latter view is correct, it is not im- 

 possible that there may once have been a current from Grizzly hill toward Colum- 

 bia hill even if the slope of the deep bed-rock is just in the opposite direction." 



Mr Pettee^ ^ ee ^ s confident that no deep channel exists between Blue 

 Tent and Scotts flat. He did not. however, examine the intervening 

 ground. The continuity of the deep flat channel between Quaker hill 

 and Dutch Flat is not denied, but he believes that there is also a deep 

 channel with slight grade between Dutch Flat and Indiana bill, which 

 would complicate matters greatly, for the channel at Indiana hill drains 

 directly toward the deep channel of the Neocene American river. 



After stating the facts based upon his excellent barometrical measure- 

 ments, which 1 have extensively used in this paper, Mr Pettee says: 



"It does not seem possible that there was ever a deep channel flowing in either 

 direction between Quaker hill and Indiana hill. Dutch Flat or Thompson hill 

 must have stood at a parting of the Mays, and it is very probable that there was 

 another such parting between You Bet and Red Dog." 



* Auriferous Gravels, p. 393. 



t [bid., p. 415. 



J; Auriferous Gravels, p. 413. 



