MINIXG. 297 



hundred and fifty miles in aggregate length, the average 

 length being twenty-four miles. 



"Indian Diggings," says Mr. Capp, "is a mining village 

 twenty-five miles southeastward from Placerville, on the bank 

 of Indian Creek. In this district, a belt of limestone, or blue 

 and white marble, rises in ridges through the slate bed-rock, 

 and is in places cut by the Avater into long and deep channels, 

 some of which serve as natural tail-races for the miners, but it 

 oftener renders large amounts of blasting necessary. The 

 claims in the bed of the creek formerly paid well, as the tail- 

 ings washed dowm from the hydrauhc clahiis above continually 

 enriched them. In some of the creek claims, in the middle of 

 the channel, deep holes were found, filled with a kind of dirt 

 diff*erent from that above it. This w^as sometimes extremely 

 rich, and in one claim a single panful paid three dollars. An- 

 other singular feature connected with these deep places, is that 

 they seem to have subterranean outlets, for in one instance a 

 hundred inches of w^ater poured in for three days, with all the 

 dirt it washed down, failed to have any perceptible efiect in 

 filling it up. It was finally stopped with bushes and gravel, 

 and the water turned ofi*. A mUe or more above this, in an- 

 other claim, a similar hole was discovered, and forty inches of 

 water poured in for several hours produced no visible progress 

 toward filling it. Here the miner was in doubt w^iether there 

 was a rich deposit of gold aw^aiting him down there, or w^hether 

 the bottom of his claim had fallen out altogether." 



Amador county adjoins El Dorado, with the Cosumnes for 

 its northern boundary and the Mokelumne for the southern. 

 The principal mining towns are Jackson, Volcano, Butte City, 

 Dry ton, Fiddletown, Sutter Creek, and Lancha Plana. Much 

 of the bed-rock is marble. The county is rich in auriferous 

 quartz, and has thirty-two mills, of which six are at Sutter 

 Creek, five at Amador City, four at Dry Creek, at Volcano, 

 Clinton, Contreras, and North Fork of the Mokelumne, two 

 each, and at Big Bar Bridge, Butte City, Drytown, Grass 

 Valley, Gales' Ranch, Herbertsville, Oneida, and Rancheria 



