66 Review of M. Tuomey 9 s Final Report 



pebbles of quartz, which occur in low places, in valleys and along 

 the beds of streams. These streams, it is stated, can have had 

 tio agency in their formation, as no cause now in operation would 

 account for the wide spread extent of these deposits, or for the 

 rounding and polishing of the pebbles contained in them. Some 

 of the branch mines, however, are mentioned as having had a 

 later origin than those referred to, in which the quartz pebbles 

 are angular and mixed with detritus of the adjoining hills. The 

 gold of these can generally be traced to its original source in the 

 rock, and thus most of the vein mines of the state have been 

 discovered. 



From the notices of the different mines it appears that there is 

 generally but poor management in the working of them. Speak- 

 ing of Brewer's mine, one of the principal of them, upon which 

 about two hundred men are employed, Mr. Tuomey writes, 

 14 when I first saw this mine, open-cast excavations in several 

 places were commenced, and in some spots prosecuted to the 

 depth of fifty feet. When I revisited the place, after an interval 

 of two years, it was scarcely possible to recognize it as the same 

 mine. Had a detachment from an enemy been sent to destroy 

 the mine, I cannot imagine how they could have executed their 

 task more completely. * * * The whole grows out of the system 

 of letting prescribed by the owners ; and truly ' killing the goose 

 to get the golden eggs,' seems here scarcely a fable. 



" A portion of the mine, equal to about twelve square feet of the 

 surface, is let to a company numbering from three to six persons, 

 who work as they think proper, and abandon it when they please. 

 It requires no argument to show that where twenty or thirty 

 such companies are working in this independent manner, there 

 can be little system arid less mining, in the proper sense of the 

 term. No grinding apparatus has been used to any extent — the 

 soft portion of the gangue alone being washed for the precious 

 metal ; and even that is excavated in the most reckless and un- 

 workmanlike manner : and in washing, the worst form of the 

 common rocker is the only instrument used. In a common de- 

 posit mine, where the auriferous bed is only a few feet thick, the 

 loss from this mode of working would be very considerable ; but 

 where a mine is worked to the depth of fifty or sixty feet, it must 

 be incalculable." 



We have now passed over that portion of the work which treats 

 of the ancient primary deposits of the state, and proceed to no- 

 tice what is said of those of a later period. 



Paleozoic rocks. — In a locality on Thompson's creek, Mr. 

 Tuomey observed strata of highly inclined rocks, which he was 

 disposed to refer to this period. He found no fossils, however, to 

 corroborate this idea. 



















