l6 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiil. 



also the Post Office, on every mail day purchasers are 

 sure to arrive with horse or mule to carry off their 

 necessaries. It is curious, too, that practically there is 

 no current money ; everything is paid for in gold dust or 

 nuggets. Then there is the Saw Mill, the most important 

 adjunct of the Camp, where some fine saws, driven by 

 water power, are constantly at work cutting up the 

 lumber, which is used for the bulk-heads, sluices, and 

 flumes, by means of w^hich the water is controlled and 

 utilised. Of course, every building is made entirely of 

 wood, for every single thing that comes to the Camp, 

 except timber, has to be carried on mule back, over most 

 difficult trails, for a distance of nearly 80 miles, where the 

 nearest point on the railway is struck. There is a train 

 of about 24 mules, led, as is usual in California, by a grey 

 mare, kept constantly at work for the use of the Camp 

 and Store. 



About a quarter of a mile below the Camp the stream 

 makes a somewhat wide detour to pass round a huge 

 mass of stone which obstructs the valley, and through 

 this mass a tunnel has been constructed, by means of 

 which placer-working has been rendered possible for the 

 whole length of the stream above it. Down every valley 

 through which a stream runs there are beds of gravel, 

 certainly in the existing course of the current, and 

 probably also in many places now high and dry, but 

 where the stream flowed at some former time. In Coffee 

 Creek and in many another Californian stream and river, 

 these deposits are all more or less gold-bearing, and the 

 problem of placer-working is to extract this gold from the 

 gravel. This can only l)e done where hydraulicking, or 

 sluicing is possible. 



In order to explain the position, I had better describe 

 what placer-working is, as applied to a stream such as 

 Coffee Creek. 



