316 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



when he cleans up with a cradle or pan. The puddling-box is 

 used in very few places in California. 



238. Tunnel Claims. Much of the placer gold has been 

 obtained from tunnel claims, most of which have been in the 

 beds of dead rivers, in places where the pay dirt was covered 

 by a great depth of barren or hard material, or where the 

 supply of water was not sufficient for hydraulic washing. 

 Thus, in the Tuolumne Table Mountain, tunnels were necessary 

 to reach the gold. Among the principal tunnel mining camps 

 are Forest Hill, Bath, Alleghany, Minnesota, Forest City, 

 Oregon City, and Rowland Flat, all on the lines of dead 

 rivers. A tunnel, in Californian mining, is an adit or drift 

 entering a hill-side, or running out from a shaft. Mining tun- 

 nels are usually nearly horizontal those entering hill-sides 

 having a slight ascent, for the double purpose of draining the 

 mine, and to facilitate the removal of the pay dirt. In a few 

 hills the tunnels run downward, at an angle of twenty degrees 

 or more, to avoid veins or ledges of rock, which would have to 

 be blasted through if the tunnel were cut horizontally ; but 

 this can only be done with safety in hills which are drained by 

 older horizontal tunnels. The mining tunnel does not run 

 through a hill, but only into it. The length of tunnels varies 

 greatly ; the longest are about a mile. The usual height is 

 seven feet, the width five feet. Ordinarily the top must be 

 supported by timbers*, to prevent it from falling in, and not 

 unfrequently the sides must also be protected by boards. The 

 cost of cutting a tunnel varies from two to forty dollars a 

 longitudinal foot, according to the nature of the ground, the 

 cost of getting timbers, etc. Tunnels are frequently made by 

 companies of eight or ten men, of whom one-half may bo 

 merchants, lawyers, physicians, or office-holders, and the 

 remainder laboring miners. The latter class do the work ; 

 the former furnish provisions and tools, and a certain amount 

 of cash weekly, until the pay-dirt is reached. 



