218 



THE AUKIFEKOUS GRAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



near Georgetown.* The claim is said to belong to E. A. Heath, and the gold 

 to be exceedingly fine, and seeming to come directly from decomposed aurif- 

 erous quartz seams which abound in the clay slates on the eastern side of 

 the excavation. 



It is also reported that, in 1872, an extensive body of gravel was found at 

 a point, on the very summit of the Sierra, twelve miles south of Susanville, 

 which would be somewhere near the peak designated by the Geological Sur- 

 vey as Red Butte, at the head of Light's Canon. 



It is also stated that a large gravel deposit has been discovered on the 

 Susan River, a few miles west of Susanville, near Big Spring. This deposit 

 is said to rest upon the granite, to have a thickness of about sixty feet, and 

 to be capped with volcanic rock. The gravel, as is stated, is auriferous from 

 top to bottom of the mass. If these statements and those in the last para- 

 graph be true, — and, from what has been mentioned in regard to the de- 

 posits on Spanish Peak and Clermont, there is no reason why they should 

 not be, — the difficulty of making out a connection between the Plumas 

 County gravel channels is not by any means lessened. The elevation of the 

 gravel on the range south of Susanville must be one or two thousand feet 

 greater than of the deposit on Susan River. At all events, it would appear 

 that gravels exist in Plumas County in localities of very different altitude, 

 and that all attempts to trace a continuity in the channels in that region 

 must be given up until more detailed explorations shall have been made to 

 the north of the Middle Feather. Nothing is known to the w r riter of the 

 existence of gravels, sufficiently extensive to be worked by the hydraulic 

 process, at any point north of Honey Lake Valley. 



* See ante, p. 115. 



