IN THE MINING DISTRICT 207 



The mines are not any longer what they have been, 

 even as late as a j r ear ago, and with all my heart do I 

 pity those poor fellows who come here with the illusion 

 that they can make a fortune in a short time, and that 

 with little work, too. They look exceedingly blue when 

 they see the daily increasing pile of rocks, and us at work 

 about them, with the perspiration streaming down under 

 a burning sun, and that to make only poor wages, which 

 often stand in no comparison with the amount of work 

 done. 



Nobody with you seems to have a correct idea of 

 how the gold is found here. The erroneous idea pre- 

 vails that it is found in pieces of different sizes. By far 

 the largest quantity of gold found here in California is 

 washed out by machines of widely different construction 

 of which more anon. 



As there is a difference in the machines used in wash- 

 ing out the gold, so there is a difference in the Diggings, 

 or the mines proper. They are divided into the so called 

 Dry Diggings and Water or Wet Diggings. The former 

 you will find almost everywhere in this part of California, 

 gold being— strange to say— to such a degree diffused 

 throughout the whole soil in many localities that wher- 

 ever you may wash a pan of dirt, be it in the woods or 

 in a meadow, on the top of a hill, or in the valley, you 

 will at least find one or two small "scales" of gold, or to 

 use the common expression of the miners, you will find 

 "the color." At first it will not pay you wages, because 

 dirt that docs not pay at least V/2 cents to the bucketful 

 is not worth working. But the further you go from the 

 low laud into the Sierra Nevada, the richer you find the 

 soil; and dirt that pays 6, 8 or 10 cents or even a dollar 

 to the bucket is even now no rarity in California. Un- 

 fortunately such localities are generally so far away from 

 water that they cannot be worked. Grounds which are 

 often exceedingly profitable, but which can be worked 

 only during the rainy season, or with water brought 

 there in an artificial way, are called Dry Diggings. 



Gold is not so much found in the upper region as fur- 



