BETWEEN INDIANA HILL AND QUAKER HILL. 



423 







present. The bed-rock is nearly level, but rises gradually towards the northeast. There is, how- 

 ever, a central depression, amounting to perhaps thirty feet, which may be looked upon as the 

 representative of the old high channel. It is a little curious that there should be found on tin 

 western rim of tins depression peculiar blue quartz boulders, like those on the supposed western 

 rim at Chicken Point, which are not seen in the centre of the depression or on its eastern rim. 

 The Buckeye Hill gravel appears to have been a rolled, white, opaque quartz, like that at Chicken 

 Point, or the top gravel at Dutch Flat. There are also some sand streaks visible in the blocks 

 of gravel left standing. At the upper end of the hill, under the bluff, there is a bank of about 

 sixty feet in height, but the gravel has thinned, out, and the pipe-clay has come in above. There 

 are also layers of vegetable matter and many signs of former shifting currents in the arrangement 



such as might be expected along the margin 



of the layers and streaks of clay, sand, and gravel,— 

 of an extensive lake. 



Between the high gravel of Buckeye Hill and Greenhorn Creek there is nothing but a bed-rock 

 slope, but on the opposite side of Greenhorn the low gravel of Hunt's Hill and Quaker Hill ap- 

 proaches very nearly to the present bank of the creek. Before the accumulations of tailings in the 

 creek, there was a more marked eastern rim to the Hunt's Hill gravel and a steep slope down to 

 the creek's bed. On the west, the bed-rock rises very rapidly, and forms an unmistakable rim to 

 act as a barrier for the gravel in that direction. The Camden claim was the only one I visited at 

 Hunt's Hill, where I had the advantage of the company of Mr. W. H. Wiseman, one of the owners 

 of the claims. I have already referred (page 417) to the peculiarities of the bed-rock at this mine, 

 A peculiar feature of the gravel here is, that it is cemented on the hard bed-rock, but not on the 

 soft. On the western side of the claim, between two spurs of bed-rock, there is also a large body 

 of pipe-clay, which reaches nearly or quite down to the soft bed-rock. A few large quartz boulders 

 are seen in the gravel at this claim. On the Greenhorn side of the gravel there is one anomalous 

 but interesting feature, which I will brielly describe. Lying near, but not on the bed-rock, there 

 is a peculiar stratum about twelve feet in thickness, seventy-live feet in width (as has been proved 

 by cutting across it), and over one hundred feet in length; one end is exposed to view, but the 

 other is hidden under the gravel bank. The material of this stratum is broken and angular bed- 

 rock, — " float bed-rock" as it is called, — similar to the ordinary cleavable sl.-ile of the country, 

 with the cleavage planes arranged in no definite order in the different pieces, mixed with well- 

 washed gravel. Above and apparently coterminous with this strange nest of material there comes 

 a layer of fine sand from four to six feet thick. No ready explanation for the occurrence presented 



:t » 



The gravel at Hunt's Hill used to be worked as drift diggings, and, according to Mr. Wiseman's 

 statement, the deep gravel was extraordinarily rich, in places yielding as much as ten dollars for 

 each square yard of bed-rock uncovered. The water for the hydraulic mining is brought from the 

 Yuba River. 



The extensive gravel mines at Quaker Hill are still owned, as they have been for many years, 

 by Messrs. Jacobs and Sargent. The property extends from Hunt's Hill on the south to Scott's 

 Flat on the north. The principal working place at the present time is near the head of Green 

 Mountain Canon. The canons and ravines through which the Quaker Hill mines should find their 

 natural outlet are now filled to a great depth with tailings. In some places, as, for example, near 

 the old Empire Mill, on Gas Canon, the tailings reach nearly to the top of the old hydraulic banks, 

 where mining lias been given up for several years. This filling of the canons practically puts an 

 end to hydraulic operations, excepting for the top gravel, of which, however, there is still a very 

 large body left, if, as lias been supposed, the deposit is continuous underneath the lava to Scott's 

 Flat. The lower gravel will have to be worked by drifts, and extensive preparations have already 

 been made with this end in view. 



The top gravel at Quaker Hill appeared to me, at first sight, to be composed exclusively of very 

 fine quartz, white or bluish in color, but a closer inspection showed the presence of a very large 

 amount of slate or other metamorphic rock in small fragments, which, being easily decomposed, 









