IN THE MINING DISTRICT 209 



which drain the water from the springs to the river are 

 often found to be rich in gold, and so it pays well at 

 times to work them; but this also can only be done during 

 the rainy season, because in the summer and even in the 

 spring, they are perfectly dry. The gold found there is 

 generally in fine scales, or in small pieces of the size of a 

 pin-head, and is only found in the uppermost region, 

 about 1 or 2 feet below the surface. The more rocky and 

 the harder the ground, the more gold it usually contains; 

 light soil with but few rocks in it will not pay wages, not 

 once in a hundred times. 



And now to the Water Diggings or to the so-called 

 River Bars. 



You can get the best idea what a bar is, if you think 

 of the bleaching ground in Bartenstein; but instead of 

 the grass, there are at the bar only sand and rocks, simi- 

 lar to the sea shore. Such bars, alternately larger and 

 smaller, are found one after the other, on either one or 

 the other side of the river, just as it changes its course, 

 and they are on nearly all the rivers of North America 

 wherever they emerge from the mountains, when they 

 begin to flow .less swiftly and consequently can deposit 

 the sand and the stones which the rapid current has torn 

 loose in the mountains. The higher up in the mountains, 

 the smaller and the more rocky are the bars, and the 

 more coarse and heavy is the gold found there— the fur- 

 ther down the stream, the broader and the more sandy is 

 the bar, and the finer and lighter the gold. 



You are aware that I have as yet not seen much of the 

 different mining districts of California; but I feel confi- 

 dent that, if I succeed in giving you a good description 

 of Long Bar, where I am working now, and of a miner's 

 life and work, you can form a correct idea of the 

 bars in general, because in the main they all resemble 

 each other, and the life of a miner is the same on all of 

 them. 



Long Bar is one of the lowest bars on the right bank 

 of the Yuba river, a tributary to the Feather river, and 

 is distant from Marysville a' tout 20 English miles; a very 



