THE CHANNELS: THEIR GRADE AND DIRECTION. 



109 



\ 







8. The Channels ; their Grade. 



At the Mountain Gate Tunnel, near Damascus, the channel has a grade of about two feet to the 

 mile, for the first thousand feet beyond where the tunnel strikes the gravel, 2,600 feet from its 

 mouth ; after that it is somewhat heavier. The channel descends towards the southeast. 



At Canada Hill the channel has a grade of about live feet in a hundred, descending towards the 

 east. 



At the Reed Claim, near Deadwood, there is a descent in the channel of about two and a half 

 feet in the hundred towards the southwest. 



In the Basin Channel, at the Devil's Basin, above Deadwood, the average grade of the channel 

 is just about two and a half feet in a hundred, and the descent towards the west. 



At Castle Hill, above Georgetown, the channel has a Ml of about thirty feet in going 1,200 feet 

 northwesterly from White & Co.'s Tunnel. 



9. The Channels ; their Varying Character. 



The Dick and Arkansas Claims are on the eastern branch of the West Fork of El Dorado Canon ; 

 the former is on the right bank, the latter on the left bank of the canon. In each of these claims 

 tunnels have been run for some 2,000 feet. In the Arkansas Tunnel a well-defined narrow chan- 

 nel with a high r^m on both sides was followed ; in the Dick, no rim-rock was found, the channel 

 having a basin-like character. In both these claims the gravel and cement are perfectly similar to 

 those in the Dam Claim, and the gold found in them was of exactly the same character also, so 

 that there would appear to be little doubt that all three were in the same channel, which must 

 however in that case have been extremely crooked and varying in character. 



On the west side of the ridge fronting El Dorado Canon for one and a half or two miles above 

 Deadwood there has been considerable hydraulicking on the spurs, besides the tunnelling in the 

 hills. It is thought that there are three channels here ; one, called the "' red channel," occupying 

 the outermost spurs, and is seventy or eighty feet lower than the next higher one, which lies a 

 little farther back in the ridge, and is known as the "quartz channel." In tins latter the boulders 

 are nearly all white quartz, pretty well worn, and much resembling those in the Mountain Gate 

 Channel, at Damascus. Still farther to the east, and still higher than the others, lies what is 

 called the " cement channel. " 



10. The Channels ; Occurrence of Basin-like Depressions in them. 



In the ground worked by Mr. Wiessler at Iowa Hill, there arc two so-called channels, running 

 in the direction of the strike of the rocks (N. 25° — 30° W.) and separated by a ridge of soft, 

 light-yellowish shaly bed-rock, while their own beds are hard and dark-colored slates. One of 

 these channels is broad, and the other narrow and deeper. Both appear to be simple basins, which 

 are elongated in the strike of the bed-rock, and which are entirely surrounded by rims, higher 

 than their central portions. These basins were very rich in gold. 



Mameluke Hill, near Georgetown, is said to cover a basin in the bed-rock, the rim on all sides 

 being higher than the central portion. All over the basin the gravel was very thin, ranging from 

 only a few inches to five or six feet ; and this was capped with volcanic cement, which, though 

 very soft around the edges and on the top, was pretty hard in the interior of the hill. The gold 

 is said to have been smoothly washed, coarse and heavy ; and some largo nuggets are reported as 

 having been found here. 



§ 11. The Channels ; their Direction. 



At Iowa Hill, in Wiessler's Claim, the surface of the bed-rock, where hard, is water-worn in 

 such a way as seems to indicate that the old stream flowed here approximately in the direction of 







