THE CANONS OF THE RIVERS. 



65 



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rock, as the section is intended to exhibit the position of the surface of the 

 slates on which the more recent detrital materials have been accumulated* 

 An examination of the table of altitudes given in the Appendix to this work 

 will also illustrate the statements here made as to the great elevation of the 

 surface between the streams above their present beds. As we go north from 

 the South Yuba, the depth of the canons increase. The difference of level 

 between the Middle Fork of the Feather at Nelson's Point and the summit 

 of the adjacent lava-capped mass of Pilot Peak is fully 3,050 feet. The ele- 

 vation of Mount Clermont, on top of which is a mass of gravel covered by 

 lava, is 3,570 feet above the valley at its base ; that of Spanish Peak, also 

 capped with gravel and lava, nearly 3,800 feet above American Valley. An 

 excellent idea of the topography of the hydraulic mining region is got by 

 the traveller passing over the line of the Central Pacific railroad, in descend- 

 ing the slope of the Sierra. After passing Blue Canon, the slates begin to 

 be met with, and all along below this, especially in the neighborhood of 

 Dutch Flat, and beyond that for several miles, the road passes through a 

 region of hydraulic mines, keeping on what seems to be a broad plateau, 

 which has an elevation of a little over 3,000 feet above the sea-level. Sud- 

 denly, just before reaching Colfax, a sharp bend in the line, at a place called 

 Cape Horn, brings the road bed just on to the edge of the canon of the North 

 Fork of the American, down into and along which there is an unobstructed 

 view for eight or ten miles, the bottom of the canon being about 1,G00 feet 

 below the level of the road. The effect of the scene presented to the eye 

 from this point is extremely striking, because the spectator has not been pre- 

 pared, by anything which he has previously seen, to expect to find the Hanks 

 of the Sierra so deeply cut into by the streams, which seem of insignificant 

 size as compared with the immense troughs at the bottoms of which they 

 run. 



In view of what has been stated in reference to the great elevation of the 

 divides between the streams in the mining region of the Sierra, it will be 

 easily understood how the miners, beginning their operations in the lower 

 portion of the range, at first almost exclusively limited themselves to the 

 river beds and their immediate vicinity. Gradually, however, they extended 

 the range of their " prospecting " on to the areas between the rivers, and 

 followed them up until they found themselves at a much higher elevation, 

 and working under very different conditions from those who kept to the 



a 



river diggings." With the gravels found in these higher localities the miners 



iD 



