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those in which no gold has as yet been found, and which latter approximate and 

 form in some few instances the eastern borders of the phins. 



I will here quote from my report of 1853, the original description of this 

 section of the State. I have seen no reason to change the opinion then enter 

 tained, but believe that all subsequent events to the present time are fully cor 

 roborative of that position. 



" This district of country is situated in the lower foot-hills and immediately 

 on the eastern edge of the valley. It maintains a very uniform breadth of about 

 four miles, (from the base of the hills,) and is almost uninterrupted throughout 

 the valleys adjoining the foot-hills to the east. A large part of the mining dis 

 trict of the county of Sacramento is a true example of these lands, though the 

 principal range alluded to is situated a short distance west of those points in 

 which mining operations are conducted at the present time. 7 ' 



This district is strongly marked throughout its entire extent, and in passing 

 over it either from the mountains or from the valley to the mineral districts 

 proper, -the transition is so marked that it cannot fail to attract the attention of 

 the most careless traveler. It will recur to the mind of almost every person who 

 has passed from the valleys into the interior, that at the distance of some four 

 teen miles east of the Sacramento River, that he enters very suddenly a district 

 of the plains thickly strewed with small angular pebbles of quartz, the belt is 

 scarcely less than two miles in width at any point and in some places much 

 broader, (extending often to four miles.) On reaching the eastern verge of the 

 plains, the transition is equally marked and sudden as in the first instance; the 

 angular pebbles disappear and a few round pebbles mixed with alluvium, replace 

 them for a short distance, when these are immediately succeeded by the outcrop 

 of the slates." 



" From what the writer has seen of this district, I feel no hesitancy in saying 

 that it must in a few years become the busy field of active and extensive mining 

 operations, and I think this opinion will meet the concurrence of those persons 

 who are intimately acquainted with the localities and are engaged in mining 

 operations, at the present time, within the limits prescribed." 



" It is not to be understood that this section of country will prove as highly 

 productive in a short space of time as the superficial deposits of the interior 

 sections, nor can it with any degree of propriety be expected, but as a compen 

 satory principle, they will possess the double advantage of being readily acces 

 sible and though yielding a lower, they will render a more continued remunera 

 tion for labor and a surer prospect of success " 



In quoting the first part of the last paragraph I would not be understood as 

 entertaining the same opinion at this time, for the development of these placers 

 since that day has furnished grounds for a change of opinion in that particular, and 

 I taka this opportunity to recall it. 



"Within the past year, where the advantages of water in sufficient quantity existed 

 to conduct operations in mining, these districts have yielded as fair average returns 

 for labor as any district of the State. And though situated so far to the west and 

 into the plains, where we should have expected to have found little else than fine 

 " drift gold," it is proved that in the majority of those localities which have been 

 opened, that metal equally coarse with much found in the more elevated districts 

 has been taken from the valley mines. This fact is sufficient to do away with the 

 idea that the deposits of the plains are merely accidental, as they have been termed ; 

 they have evidently been derived in a great measure from the breaking down of the 

 adjacent sedimentary rocks, which contain veins of auriferous quartz, the disintegra 

 tion of which has furnished the material which we now find distributed throughout 

 the range, and from that cause we may expect that these placers will prove equally 

 advantageous for operation on an extended scale as many of the more ancient beds 

 of the Sierra Nevada. ^ 



