CHAPTER XV 



IN THE SIEEEA FOOT-HILLS 



MURPHY'S CAMP is a curious old mining-town 

 in Calaveras County, at an elevation of 2400 

 feet above the sea, situated like a nest in the cen 

 ter of a rough, gravelly region, rich in gold. Gran 

 ites, slates, lavas, limestone, iron ores, quartz veins, 

 auriferous gravels, remnants of dead fire-rivers 

 and dead water-rivers are developed here side by 

 side within a radius of a few miles, and placed in 

 vitingly open before the student like a book, while 

 the people and the region beyond the camp fur 

 nish mines of study of never-failing interest and 

 variety. 



When I discovered this curious place, I was tracing 

 the channels of the ancient pre-glacial rivers, instruc 

 tive sections of which have been laid bare here and 

 in the adjacent regions by the miners. Rivers, ac 

 cording to the poets, " go on forever " ; but those 

 of the Sierra are young as yet and have scarcely 

 learned the way down to the sea ; while at least 

 one generation of them have died and vanished 

 together with most of the basins they drained. 

 All that remains of them to tell their history is a 

 series of interrupted fragments of channels, mostly 

 choked with gravel, and buried beneath broad, 



