268 RESOUIiCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



§ 199. River-Mining. — River-mining is mining for gold in 

 the beds of rivers, below low-water mark. The only practi- 

 cable method of doing this is by damming the stream, and 

 taking the water out of its bed in a ditch or flume. It has 

 been proposed by persons who never saw the mines, to get the 

 gold by dredging, or with a diving-bell ; but such schemes are 

 absurd in the eyes of miners. The rivers in which the gold is 

 found are mountain-torrents, in which a canoe can scarcely 

 float in suinmer, much less a dredgiug-machine ; and any large 

 scoop working under water would miss the crevices and cor- 

 ners in the rocks, where most of the gold is found. As the 

 water is very seldom more than a couple of feet deep, a diving- 

 bell would be of little service. The flume, the ditch, and the 

 wing-dam, are the chief tasks of the river- miner. The ditch is 

 rarely used, because the banks of the mining-streams are usu- 

 ally so steep, high, rocky, and crooked, that a flume is cheaper. 

 The wing- dam is not often used, because the river-beds are in 

 most places too narrow. The flume is almost universally em- 

 ployed. 



The work of river-mining can be done only during the sum- 

 mer and fall, while the water is low, and while the miner can 

 have confidence that it will not rise. It may be as low in Jan- 

 uary as in August, but the winter is the season of rains ; and 

 when the flood comes, it sweeps dams, flumes, and every thing 

 before it. If the dam and flume be commenced too earlv in 

 the season, they may be carried off" before they are finished ; 

 and it frequently happens that they are destroyed in the fall 

 just when the miners are commencing to reap the reward of 

 their summer's labor. 



Kiver-mining has many disadvantages, as compared with 

 other branches of mining. The miner cannot work at it more 

 than half the year; he cannot j^i'ospect the dirt which is hid- 

 den under water ; he must erect expensive dams and flumes, 

 which can be used for only a few months ; and then he is ex- 

 posed to floods which may come and destroy all his work 

 before he has commenced to wash. These disadvantages, and 



