254 BESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 



inches wide, and are connected by four ropes which run per- 

 pendicularly down. The rings are about three inches apart. 

 The " crinoline hose," thus made, is very flexible, and will sup- 

 port a column of water one hundred and fifty or two hundred 

 feet high. The pipe at the end of the hose is like the pipe of 

 a fire-engine hose, though usually larger. Sometimes the pipe 

 wall be eight inches in diameter where it connects with the 

 hose, and not more than two inches at the mouth ; and the 

 force with which the stream rushes from it is so great, that it 

 wall kill a man instantaneously, and tear down a hill more rap- 

 idly than could a hundred men with shovels. 



One or two men are required to hold the pipe. They usu- 

 ally turn the stream upon the bank near its bottom until a 

 large mass of dirt tumbles dow^n, and then they wash this all 

 away into the sluice ; when they commence at the bottom of 

 the bank again, and so on. If the bank is one hundred and 

 fifty feet high, the mass of earth that tumbles down is of 

 course immense, and the pipemen must stand far off, for fear 

 that they will be caught in the avalanche. Such accidents are 

 of daily occurrence, and the deaths from this cause probably 

 are not less than threescore every year in the state. Often 

 legs are broken ; still more frequently the pipemen have warn- 

 ing, and escape in time. When men are buried in the falling 

 dirt, the water is used to wash them out. In some claims, the 

 pipe will tear down more dirt than the sluice can wash ; in 

 other claims, the sluice always demands more dirt than the 

 pipe can bring dow^n. In the latter case, blasting may be used 

 to loosen the dirt, or the miners may undermine the bank, 

 leaving a few columns of dirt for support ; and then these be- 

 ing washed away by the pipe, the whole bank comes tumbling 

 down. 



In hydraulic claims, all the dirt is washed; in all other 

 kinds of claims, such dirt as contains no gold is thrown to one 

 side, or "stripped off." — "Hydraulic mining" is the highest 

 branch of placer mining ; it washes more dirt, and requires 

 more water, and a larger sluice, than any other kind of mining. 



