FOREST CITY AND VICINITY. 



439 



grains are thick, and owe their present forms largely to their original vein shape, the modifications 

 occurring principally about the edges." He also says that the gold from Rock Creek and that 

 from Bald Mountain " seem to have come from the same kind of gravel." 



Ci 



a m 



top of the grave 



To the right the Sierra Buttes are in 



The gravels of Monte Cristo and Craycroft's, as will 



ity of Six is at the head of Slug Canon, near the Downieville trail, and about three quarters of 

 ile to the north of Rock Creek, from which it is separated by a lava ridge. The summit of the 

 trail across the ridge is 230 feet above the mouth of the Ruby Tunnel. Tunnels or drifts used to 

 connect City of Six with Rock Creek, and gold to the value of several hundred thousand dollars 

 was taken from the gravel. The grade of the bed-rock is said to have been about two and a half 

 feet to the hundred, sloping downwards towards Rock Creek. At City of Six there are open 

 gravel banks, but they have been so long deserted that it did not seem worth while to stop to 

 make any examination in detail. High bed-rock rises both to the east and the west of the canon 

 above the level of the gravel, indicating a northern source for the old stream. The view from the 



d bank at City of Six is very extensive toward the north and northeast. In front 

 there is the canon of the North Fork of the North Yuba, 

 full view. Monte Cristo to the left is just hidden from sight by a projecting spur. But over all 

 the area which the eye can sweep there is nothing to guide one in a search for the continuation of 

 the old river. There are no gravel banks, no towns, no mining camps in sight; nothing to give 

 a hint as to where the stream came from, 

 be seen later, are indeed at a higher altitude than that of City of Six, but the difference is not so 

 great as to force one to a belief that these places were ever connected. 



Above Forest City there has been nothing accomplished which can be called decisive as to the 

 existence of a northeastern main channel or a northeastern tributary. The Bald Mountain Exten- 

 sion Company, which must not be confounded with the Bald Mountain Company, has acquired a 

 laro-o extent of territory immediately to the east of the Bald Mountain ground, and lias begun 

 a tunnel with the expectation of being obliged to go nearly four thousand feet before striking the 

 rich channel. About one third of this distance is now completed. The mouth of the tunnel is at 



an altitude of 4,600 feet. 



The Pliocene shaft, near the crest of the ridge, at the sag where the heads of Rock Creek and 

 Kanaka Creek most nearly approach each other, was started with the expectation of reaching an 

 underlying gravel channel beneath the lava capping. The present depth of the shaft, I was told, 

 is about 180 feet. Further sinking has been suspended on account of the great influx of water, 

 and no time can be set for the resumption of the work. The altitude of the mouth of the shaft is 



about 5,400 feet. 



At several places on the southern slope of the lava ridge and about the heads of Kanaka Creek 



exploratory tunnels have been began, and gold-bearing gravel has been found in small quantity ; 



but so far, there is nothing either in the character of the gravel, or in the relative positions of the 



tunnels, to prove the existence of any extensive continuous channel under the lava. That there is 



gravel in the Kanaka Creek canon, at a higher altitude than the old channel at Alleghany and 



Chips's Flat, admits of no question ; the deposits, however, so far as developed, have no necessary 



or even probable connection with each other further than this, that they may all have been on 



streams tributary to some main river. 



The Crescent tunnel, at Buzan and Cauch's claim, was the only one I had an opportunity to 

 visit. This tunnel is at the head of Barrett Creek, one of the forks of Kanaka Creek, between two 

 and a half and three miles from Forest City. Its altitude is 4,855 feet, and the crest of the ridge 

 above is about GOO feet higher. It lies in a depression between two spurs of bed-rock, which are 

 about a quarter of a mile apart, and rise at least 150 feet above the mouth of the tunnel. The 

 general course of the tunnel, which is not straight, is N. 30° W. (magnetic). Its length is 650 



feet and its grade, following the line between bed-rock and gravel, is about 2| feet to the hundred. 

 At the shaft, which was sunk fifty-one feet to bed-rock, there were six feet of gravel covered 

 first with a bluish clay, showing impressions of leaves, and then to the surface with mountain 

 cement. The gravel which I saw contained considerable float bed-rock, together with quartz 



