THE GRAVEL: NEAE NEVADA CITY. 



189 



gradual, excepting where the Plymouth Rock cut has been excavated. This empties directly into 

 Deer Creek without having any connection with the other banks on American Hill. A little 

 north of the house Mr. Rogers has a well sunk to the depth of ninety-three feet. At the bottom 

 bed-rock was struck, rising rapidly towards the south. The gravel on Eed Hill I did not visit ; 

 there was only a small bank opened on one side of the hill, and it was of no great importance 

 either theoretically or economically. 



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The following items of interest concerning the Manzanita Diggings were kindly communicated 

 by Messrs. Maltman and Marcelus, and are given pretty nearly in their own words. The water 

 for washing these banks is obtained partly from the South Yuba Canal Company and partly from 

 sources controlled by the owners of the diggings. The Canal Company charge ten cents per inch 

 for furnishing water ten or eleven hours a day, but if taken for the whole twenty-four hours the 

 charge is seventeen cents per inch. Messrs. Maltman and Marcelus have a reservoir into which 

 the water is allowed to run. During the day the supply will be nearly exhausted, but in the 

 night the reservoir will fdl again. In this way, by buying 300 inches for $51 they, have dur- 

 ing the working hours the equivalent of nearly 700 inches, which without the reservoir would cost 

 \ 70. At the bank where they are now working they have an average head of 125 feet. The 

 sluices from these diggings are nearly a mile long, discharging into Deer Creek near the Union 

 Hotel. The sluices are from forty-four to forty-eight inches wide, and have the unusually low 

 grade of only four inches to the box. This grade would not be sufficient, if the gravel were not 

 easy to work and the supply of water good. If the grade were increased, too, in this case, they 

 would have to shorten their sluices materially and discharge into the creek at a higher point. At 

 the lower end of the sluices they have also an undercurrent with a grade of only one inch to the 

 box. This is, of course, only for the very finest stuff. The sluice bottom is made entirely of blocks 

 of wood instead of stone. The men at Smartsville prefer rock sluices because their gravel is more 

 tightly cemented together and would wear out a wooden sluice bottom too rapidly. For a 48-inch 

 sluice, the blocks are made eleven inches square and set so as to leave a space for the accumulation 

 °f gold and amalgam all around each block. Messrs. Maltman and Marcelus have been driving a 

 bed-rock tunnel through which to sluice away the remainder of their claim, — the claim extending 

 back to the summit of the Washington Eidge, above Hitchcock's. If their present sluices were 

 continued up to that point, they would be considerably above bed-rock. This tunnel is to be 

 2 >400 feet long, four feet three inches wide, and six feet three inches high in the clear inside the 

 timbering, and have a grade of four inches to twelve feet. The cost of the first half of the work 

 has been a little under % 10,000. It is expected that this tunnel will be completed in 1871, at a 



total cost of about $ 20,000. Possibly the death of Mr. Maltman may have changed all these 

 plans. 



The length of a run at the Manzanita Diggings varies. The upper part of the sluice is cleaned 

 Up as often as once in twenty or thirty days, while the main clean-up of the whole length occurs 

 only once in a season. The old custom was to use two or more small nozzles ; now a single six- 

 inch nozzle is found to be the most economical and effective. Some Chinamen are employed in 

 c,, nnection with the white laborers. The latter receive three or three and a half dollars per day, 

 while the former are obtained for % 1.75, which Mr. Marcelus said was "too much." The loss of 

 mercury is estimated as " small, perhaps live per cent." The loss of gold is thought to be as much 

 ^ twenty per cent, and very likely more. The most of the gold would be classed as "fine," 

 though some of it is tolerably coarse. 



In regard to the annual or total production of these gravel deposits I never could get any very 

 trustworthy statements. Mr. Maltman, the last time I saw him, said he would run over the old 

 books and give me a detailed statement of production for a number of years back, but I think he 

 never did it. The common idea was that from a million to a million and a half of dollars had 



e ©n taken out since the first working of the Coyote Diggings. It was here that the first discovery 

 °t the old channels was made, The Coyoters continued their burrowing under the hill, following 



ie bed-rock, — and intending to do so as long as gold enough was found to pay, — until they 



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