GEAVEL: NEAK GOLD EUN. 



149 



From this total I make a deduction of ton per cent to allow for the numerous blocks of gravel left 

 standing within the limits comprised. This will leave 580,317,210 cubic feet, or approximately 

 21,500,000 cubic yards, just half the amount for the district south of the railroad. In regard to 

 the amount left still to be washed I feel unable to make any estimate, on account of the uncer- 

 tainty attending the position of the bed-rock. 



The gravel is not uniform in character throughout the whole distance from Indiana Hill north- 

 ward. JNear the Cement Mill the lower stratum of the gravel is a compactly cemented mass about 

 sixty feet thick, of which the lowest eighteen feet was so hard as to require drifting and blasting. 



The method of excavation was to run a number of drifts and loosen, by blasting, a large quantity 

 at a time. Some of it could then be treated by the hydraulic process, but the largest part had to 

 bo run under the stamps. This lower cement contains (as has been said before) a great quantity of 

 large boulders. At Iowa Hill there is said to be the same kind of cement as at Indiana Hill, but 

 I had no opportunity to visit the place. Going northward from the Cement Mill we soon lose 

 sight of the cement, because none of the excavations are deep enough to have reached it yet, even 

 if we are willing to admit that it really continues for a long distance. The great mass of the 

 gravel, as far as Squire's Canon at any rate, is fine and easy to wash, by no means firmly cemented 

 together, and also without any noticeable amount of clay or sand. 



At the Cedar No. 2 Claim, where the highest bank is to be seen, the top, to the depth of (say) 

 115 or 120 feet, is a red gravel. JNText follows about the same depth of a blue gravel, though not 

 cemented together. What there is below the blue remains to be seen at some future day, probably 

 a hard cement. The -line of demarcation between the red and blue was not very distinct at the 

 time I was there, because the bank had been exposed to the air for some months and was very 

 dusty. But the difference of color seems to point to some radical difference in the gravel itself, 

 its origin or time of deposition. Mr. Brogan told me, for instance, that all the petrified wood seen 

 in the claim came from the red gravel, while all the wood in the blue gravel is thoroughly charred, 

 there being no charred wood in the red gravel at all. The gold, too, in the red gravel at this 

 claim has a fineness of yoo',>> while the gold of the blue gravel has a fineness of only ^0% and is 

 also a little coarser than the gold found above. The difference, however, is not great ; the whole 

 being classed with fine, or flour-gold. In the cement near the mill the gold is coarse, rounded 

 and smoothed by washing. Some pieces, I was told, have been found worth as much as ten or 

 fifteen dollars. 



In the claim next southwest from Cedar No. 2, — the Brink Claim, — the gravel has been 

 washed away to the bed rock, which here pitches rapidly to the east. There was also a much 

 larger quantity of clay met with in and upon the gravel than elsewhere in this neighborhood. It 

 would appear that when the channel had been filled up to that depth the quantity of water dimin- 

 ished or was spread out over a so much wider bed that, particularly on the banks, there was a good 

 opportunity for finer sediment to lodge. 



To the north of Cedar JNo. 2 the distinction between red and blue gravel is not so marked J or 

 it may be that the upper claims have not yet exhausted the upper stratum of red gravel, and 

 that blue gravel will soon be struck, when work is recommenced. Concerning the gravel sunk 

 through at the '49 shaft in Potato Eavinc (previously referred to) I have no information excepting 

 that given in Mr. Browne's Second Ecport, viz. : " Pay gravel was found all the way down, and 

 it was soft until within six or eight feet of the bottom." What the last few feet of gravel was 

 like is not mentioned, though probably a cement similar to that near the mill was struck. 



The general character of the gravel remains, then, essentially unchanged as far as Squire's 

 Canon. In the Jehoshaphat Claim, however, between Squire's Canon and Dutch Flat Canon, 

 there are a few peculiar features to which my particular attention was called by Mr. Xelsey, and 

 which may or may not be thought to have any great significance. Starting from the outlet of the 

 mine, in Dutch Flat Canon, there is a distinct line of demarcation, between red gravel above 

 and blue gravel beneath, which rises in a southeasterly direction for a distance of about 175 feet 

 at such a rate that it follows the line of the sluice (of which the grade is 10 inches in 12 feet). 



