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502 



THE VICINITY OF PLACERVILLE. 

























though there seems also to "be one or more layers of gravel at about this height or above it, ex- 

 tending into the hill eastward from Smith's Flat. The streaks of metamorphic gravel running 

 through the white lava high above the bed-rock at Prospect Flat are worthy of notice as bearing 

 upon a general point of which I shall speak again hereafter. It may be noted, too, that most of 

 the diamonds that have been found in the vicinity of Placerville have come from the gravel of this 

 blue lead channel, — those at Webber Hill being the only exceptions that I learned of, — while, 

 indeed, it is not impossible that the continuation of this same channel may once have flowed over 

 the bed-rock along the southeastern foot of Webber Hill itself. 



In turning from this blue lead channel, the attempt to trace through the intricate structural 

 mazes of the gravel and volcanic hills of Placerville any other definite channels becomes far more 

 difficult, and full of uncertainty. 



I think the probability very strong, however, that for a long time during the gravel period a 

 stream of considerable magnitude followed a nearly true west course, not far from the line of the 

 present Webber Creek, for seven or eight miles at least, from the vicinity of Newtown to a point as 

 low down as Placerville. The lay of the bed-rock in Hangtown Hill and Coon Hill, sloping southerly 

 from the northern edge of Hangtown Hill to Coon Hollow, and seeming to form here, for nearly 

 half a mile in width, but a portion of a very broad channel, the southern half of which has been 

 carried away by the excavation of Webber Creek, the lowness of the bed-rock in Webber Hill, 

 and the quantity and depth of the auriferous gravel scattered along the hills on the southern side 

 of Webber Creek from the vicinity of Fort Jim to Newtown and above, all speak strongly in 

 favor of this idea. Moreover, the occurrence of such heavy masses of " mountain gravel " (that is, 

 smoothly rounded, volcanic gravel) in Hangtown Hill and Coon Hill, and around the head of 

 Chili Ravine and in Webber Hill, and scattered in smaller patches along the southern edge of the 

 ridge for at least a mile farther east, when taken in connection with the comparative rarity — in 

 fact, almost the absence — of this material in the hills farther north between here and Hangtown 

 Creek, and to the east of Oregon Point, seems to point in the same direction. The origin and course 

 of the stream, or streams, which formed the isolated deposit of the Diamond Springs Sugar Loaf, 

 and the adjacent one of Bean Hill, at a much lower level than the former, are very problematical. 

 It is possible that this Webber Creek stream may once have curved far enough southerly here to 

 do it, and then bent northwesterly again. The bed-rock in the Sugar Loaf itself is low enough to 

 have permitted this stream to come there, even after leaving Coon Hill. I do not think it likely, 

 however, that this stream ever crossed the present divide in this vicinity between Webber Creek 

 and the Cosumnes River to discharge itself in the latter direction towards the valley, though 

 this, too, may be among the possibilities. It is certain that the deposits of Bean Hill and of the 

 Diamond Springs Sugar Loaf, though so close together yet having so great a difference of level 

 between them, could not have been accumulated simultaneously. Yet which is the older of the 

 two I do not know. There is no difficulty in seeing how either one may have been the first 

 deposited. 



If we grant that during a portion of the gravel period a large stream flowed westerly, as above 

 supposed, near the line of the present Webber Creek, the question then at once suggests itself 

 whether, at that time, this was the main stream, draining all the adjacent region as well as the 

 country far above in the mountains, and thus corresponding to the present South Fork of the 

 American, or whether it was only a branch of the larger stream, and thus corresponded almost 

 exactly with Webber Creek. But I know of no definite means of answering this question. The 

 tops of the present canons are so broad, the portions of the ancient channels still left in the hills 

 are relatively so very small, the structure of the banks that are left is so very complex, and the 

 possibilities as to what may once have existed over the areas now occupied by the canons, etc., 

 are so varied and so great, that any opinion now on such a point could be no better than an idle 



guess. 



In an article published in the Placerville Mountain Democrat, I expressed a leaning to the 



opinion that Big Spanish Hill, the eastern portion of Little Spanish Hill, and Coon Hill were all 









