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114 



THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS OE THE SIERRA NEVADA 



At the Mountain Gate Tunnel, near Damascus, the gold is generally not very coarse, although it 

 is sometimes so, a piece weighing nine ounces having been found here. The coarser gold is gener- 

 ally well-rounded and smooth, the finer is often flaky or scraggy, and sometimes pieces of consid- 



erable size are found very scraggy, with more or less quartz adhering to them. 



The gold from the 



Cement Mill Claim, at Damascus, is not so coarse as that from the Mountain Gate Tunnel, and is 



worth about $ 18.25 per ounce. 



At Sterrett's Claim, in Sailor's Canon east of Canada Hill, some coarse gold is found on the 

 bed-rock, and finer gold in the gravel above. The gold is well washed. 



Nearly all the gold in Weske's Claim, near Michigan Bluff, even when the pieces arc quite large, 

 is in thin, scaly, and tabular forms, which are generally pretty well water-worn and smooth. 



In the Van Emmons Claim, at Michigan Bluff, the gold in the quartz gravel is not in such thin 

 tabular forms as at Weske's Mine, but is thicker and rounder and more water-worn ; it is also 

 duller and darker in color, and is said to be worth $ 19.50 per ounce. The gold from the quartz 

 gravel at this locality is said to be worth a little more per ounce than that from the so-called 

 " black gravel," which contains less quartz and more metamorphic rocks. 



Mr. Strobel, who has been for many years a purchaser of gold-dust at Michigan Bluff, states 

 that the fine gold is always richer than the coarse. For example, if coarse gold from a given 

 locality be worth $ 17.25, the fine gold from the same locality will be worth $ 18.00 per ounce. 



The gold from El Dorado Hill, near Michigan Bluff, is generally well water-worn, and about as 

 coarse as that from Weske's Mine, but thicker and heavier, and often very black ; it resembles 

 that from the quartz gravel at Michigan Bluff. 



At the Specimen Claim, in Byrd's Valley, many handsome specimens have been obtained of 



crystallized gold. 



Mad Canon, near Byrd's Valley, is said to have been very rich in scraggy gold, furnishing many 

 beautiful specimens, with foliated and tabular crystalline forms. Ladies Canon also paid well, 

 but yielded little fine gold, the metal being mostly in large pieces, or " slugs," very rough and 

 scraggy, and often associated with quartz. 



In the Paragon Mine at Bath, the gold now obtained is always fine, a piece worth as much as 

 five cents being very rarely seen. Yet the pay-streak is rich, and portions of it have yielded five 

 dollars per car-load, the cars holding but little over a ton each. But Mr. Wheeler, one of the 

 owners of this mine, states that while working the front portion of the mine, and for a distance of 

 2,400 or 2,500 feet back from the mouth of the tunnel, considerable coarse gold was found, and 

 pieces worth from two to five dollars each were not uncommon. But absolutely no coarse gold 

 at all has been found more than 2,500 feet back from the mouth of the tunnel. 



In the New Jersey Mine, at Forest Hill, the gold from the back channel is not worth so much 

 as that from the front. The gold from the quartz boulders contains considerably more silver than 



that from the gravel. 



At Smith's Point, between First and Second Brushy canons, a stratum worked by drifting, 

 some forty or fifty feet above the bed-rock, was quite rich in rather coarse gold, while the gravel 

 beneath it is far poorer, and the gold much finer. The gold here is generally fine and scaly, but 

 the coarse gold is pretty well worn and heavy. Considerable " shot gold " is also obtained from 



points in this region. 



The <*ol<l in Castle Hill, a short distance above Georgetown, is pretty coarse, well-rounded and 

 heavy ; it is often more or less covered with a kind of blackish incrustation. 



At the Excelsior Claim, near Placerville, the gravel was drifted at two different levels, once on 

 the bed-rock, and then again at twenty feet higher. The bed-rock gold is rather coarse, much of 

 it being in pieces of from five cents to twenty dollars in value ; it is also very smoothly rounded, 

 and it averages about $ 19.10 per ounce in value. The gold from the upper streak is rather line, 

 not quite so well washed as that from the bed-rock, and is worth, on the average, one dollar more 

 per ounce than that. This gold is said to contain but a mere trace of silver. 



