'■ 



144 



THE ATJKIFEROUS GRAVELS OF THE SIEEEA NEVADA. 



of Elmore Hill are about on a level with the Liberty Hill bed-rock. This 

 gives a good and sufficient grade, with no intervening obstacles. Since the 

 time when the river flowed from Liberty to Elmore Hill, the present channel 

 of Bear River has been cut several hundred feet deeper, although not in a 

 materially different direction, the angle between the old and the new clian- 



A 



nels not exceeding ten or twelve degrees. Elmore Hill is on the Tight, and 

 Liberty Hill on the left bank of a stream whose general course is nearly 

 straight. If any additional evidence were needed, to show that there was 

 once a connection between these two points, it is found in a deposit of 

 gravel on one of the projecting spurs just below Liberty Hill, nearly on a 

 line between the points in question, and at the proper altitude. From the 

 other end of this gravel deposit, that is from Indiana Hill, the Iowa Hill 

 gravel is plainly in sight, and with such a position and relative elevation 

 that there is no difficulty in imagining that there was formerly a connection 

 in this direction, as will be noticed farther on. 



The presence of gravel in a continuous mass between Elmore and Indiana 

 Hills seems sufficient proof of the existence of a continuous channel between 

 those two points. But to actually trace this channel through the various 



■ 



workings along its line, so as not only to prove its existence but to recog- 

 nize its exact position and grade from point to point, is by no means an 

 easy matter. Among the miners in this channel there were, in 1870, and 

 probably still are, various conflicting views as to the direction of the current, 

 and these will be alluded to and discussed in a future chapter. After a long 

 series of patiently-conducted observations for level on the bed-rock, at all 

 points where this was visible, under the gravel, or where gravel had pre- 

 viously existed, Professor Pettee came to the conclusion that the evidence, 

 although contradictory in some points, was, on the whole, in favor of the 

 theory that the channel from Liberty and Elmore hills at one time found an 

 outlet by way of Indiana Hill. 



Taking that portion of the gravel range between the line of the railroad 

 and the Cement Mill, near Indiana Hill, the eastern and western rim of the 

 channel is pretty well defined, although it is not always easy to tell exactly 

 where the line between the slate and the gravel shall be drawn. On the 

 west is Cold Spring Mountain, near Gold Run Station, 3,679 feet above the 

 sea-level. The main body of this elevation is slate, capped by a broad, flat, 

 volcanic table, covering an area of as much as a hundred acres and about 200 

 feet in thickness. The height of the bed-rock is such here that there is no 



i 



I 





