I. 



RECENT OPERATIONS AT AND NEAR DUTCH FLAT. 



161 



year 1874.* At the time of Mr. Skidmore's examination, the " Indiana Hill 

 Blue Gravel Mining Company " was running a tunnel, in the channel itself, 

 from the extreme southerly end of their claim, on the canon of the North 

 Fork of the American River. No rim-rock tunnel being necessary, the 

 channel was followed northerly on the bed-rock by means of a main tunnel, 

 1,600 feet in length, with side-drifts toward the west, where the richest ground 

 was discovered. A width of about 110 feet was carried forward in this way, 

 and a thickness of six or seven feet of gravel excavated. The material taken 

 out is " cement/' and has to be stamped in a mill run by water-power. In 

 spite of this, the material appears to be so rich as to have paid handsomely, 

 the company having made a profit, from the time of their incorporation (April, 



12) up to the close of the season of 1874, of $ 34,853.47 on 

 $ 75,422.47, the cost of mining and milling having been $ 



Ac- 



$ 



$ 2.90, and the profit $ 

 i, $ 1 ? 000 worth of gol 



It is said that, in 



thirty-nine cubic feet) of dirt. Mr. Skidmore adds : * The Indiana Hill is 

 the only notable successful enterprise in operation in California of mining 

 gravel by the crushing or mill process." 



From the above-cited authority we also learn that an extensive consolida- 

 tion had taken place, immediately after Professor Pettee's examination, in 

 the region about Gold Run, where the " Gold Run Ditch and Mining Com- 

 pany" had acquired an area of 328 acres, together with an extensive system 

 of ditches.f To reach the deep gravel in this consolidated claim, the posi- 

 tion of which will be understood from the description given in the preced- 

 mg pages, the new company was engaged, in 1874, in running a bed-rock 

 tunnel from Canon Creek towards the " '49-Shaft," in the supposed centre of 

 the channel in the deep gravel. This tunnel was intended to be 2,200 feet 

 long, and twelve feet wide and nine high, and it was begun in July, 1873. The 

 total cost was estimated at $ 125,000 ; and it was expected to be completed 

 m about two years. The Cedar and Sherman claims, near Gold Run, were 

 also sold to an English company, and preparations were making, in 1874,$ 



* Seventh Report of the Commissioner of Mining Statistics, pp. 99 - 102. 



t See the large map, appended to this volume, on which it appears that a patent had been issued under 

 the naine of " Church and Golden Gate," for an extensive gravel claim near Gold Run. 



X The most astonishing stories of the richness of the surface of the bed-rock struck in a prospecting 

 W«ft sunk by this company, were reported by the Superintendent. The shaft is said to have reached the 

 ed-roek at the depth of 181 feet, and the dirt at the bottom to have " prospected" at the rale of $ 2 per 

 pan, or $> 232 per cubic yard. 



