Tour of the Gold-fields 209 



are generally deserted before that depth is reached. 

 A smooth, flat stone is usually preferred by the 

 Indians to begin on, and if the country suits their 

 purposes, and the lodges remain any length of 

 time in the neighborhood, the stone is often marked 

 with thirty or forty of these mortar holes. 



[No date.] Leaving "Rich gulch," we took a 

 southerly course over the ridge, and wound down 

 the branches of the Calaveras, until the various 

 rivulets united and formed what is called the 

 "north branch of the Calaveras." Where we 

 crossed, it was about eighteen inches deep, and 

 runs over a rough bed of various-sized pebbles, 

 with larger lumps of granite and quartz for the 

 horses to stumble over, making the ford when the 

 stream is muddy from recent rains, very treach- 

 erous. The soil is of the same character for a 

 mile or two, occasionally of a reddish loam, con- 

 taining both clay and sand, mixed with gravel, of 

 angular formation, very small, and with more or 

 less quartz, equally various as to the size and quan- 

 tity of the pieces. 



The pits dug by the miners at the Chinese Dig- 

 gings, five miles from the Tuolome [Tuolumne] 

 River, and midway between the mountains and 

 plains, among the hills, present ordinarily a super- 

 ficial loam of from six to eighteen inches, rich, at 

 times, but again of the light bluish clay; the next 

 stratum is of reddish clay and gravel, and very 



