320 KESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



243. Quartz Mining. Quartz mining differs much from 

 placer mining. For the former, more capital, more experi- 

 ence, more complicated machinery, and richer material, are re- 

 quired than for the latter. The placer miner throws the dirt 

 into the water, which then does the work ; whereas the pul- 

 verizing of rock is a nice operation. Quartz requires a mill 

 and water power ; placer dirt is washed in a simple sluice. 

 Dirt containing ten cents in the cubic yard may pay the 

 hydraulic miner, but the quartz miner must have a hundred 

 times as much in a cubic yard of vein- stone, or he cannot 

 work. The placer gold, when freed from the baser material 

 surrounding it, is much of it in coarse particles, which are 

 easily caught by their specific gravity ; the quartz gold must 

 be reduced to a fine powder before it can be set free, and with 

 the fineness of the particles increases the difficulty of catching 

 them. 



244. Prospecting for Quartz. Auriferous quartz lodes are 

 often found by accident. Not unfrequently it happens that 

 a rich streak of pay-dirt in a placer claim is followed up to the 

 quartz claim from which it came. While miners are out walk- 

 ing or hunting, they occasionally will come upon lodes in 

 which the gold is seen sparkling. Some good leads have been 

 found by men employed in making roads and cutting ditches. 

 The quartz might be covered with soil, but the pick and 

 shovel revealed its position and wealth. In Tuolumne 

 County, in 1858, a hunter shot a grizzly bear on the side of a 

 steep canon, and the animal tumbling down, was caught by a 

 projecting point of rock. The hunter followed his game, and 

 while skinning the animal, discovered that the point of rock 

 was auriferous quartz. * In Mariposa County, in 1855, a miner 

 was attacked by a robber, and the former saw a sparkle behind 

 his assailant 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 Nevada County, several years ago, a couple of un- 

 fortunate miners who had prepared to leave California, and 



