MIXING. 213 



his game, and while skinning the animal, discovered that the 

 point of rock was auriferous quartz. In Mariposa county in 

 1855, a robber attacked a miner, and the latter saw the rock 

 behind his assailant sparkle in the sunlight, at a spot where a 

 bullet struck a wall of rock. He killed the robber, and found 

 that the rock was gold-bearing quartz. In Xevada county 

 several years ago, a couple of unfortunate miners who had 

 prepared to leave California, and were out on a drunken frolic, 

 started a large boulder down a steep hill. On its way down, 

 it struck a brown rock and broke a portion of it off — exposing 

 a vein of white quartz which proved to be auriferous, induced 

 the disappointed miners to remain some months longer in the 

 state, and paid them well for remaining. Science and experi- 

 ence do not appear to give much assistance in prospecting for 

 quartz lodes. Chemists, geologists, mineralogists, and old 

 miners, have not done better than ignorant men and new- 

 comers. Most of the best veins have been discovered by poor 

 and ignorant men. Not one has been found by a man of high 

 education as a miner, or geologist. No doubt geological 

 knowledge is valuable to a miner, and it should assist him in 

 prospecting ; but it has never yet enabled any body to find a 

 valuable claim. 



§ 204. Distribution of Gold in Quartz. — The rich quartz- 

 veins of California extend from Kern River to the Siskiyou, 

 are found on hills, in canons and in vales. They are at least 

 two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and not more 

 than ten thousand feet above it. Their course is generally 

 from north-northwest to south-southeast, and they dip steeply 

 to the eastward, sometimes being nearly perpendicular. They 

 differ in thickness from a line to sixty feet. Quartz veins are 

 very numerous in most of the mining districts, so the task is 

 not to find the veins, but rather to find those which are gold- 

 bearing. It is supposed that nearly all large veins come to 

 the surface of the bed rock or " country ;" but many of them 

 are covered with soil and thus are hidden. Hidden veins are 

 called " blind ;" those plainly visible on the surfiice are called 

 12* 



