112 THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 
statements of Mr. Carpenter, that the so-called “benches” of this “deep channel” are sometimes 
separate channels in the bed-rock, with their rims well defined on both sides, and running nearly 
parallel with the deep channel, only at a higher level. 
It is thought by those acquainted with the region, that there are, in the hill south of Big 
Caiion, northeast of Placerville, several parallel channels, with ridges of bed-rock, from twenty-five 
to forty feet high, between them, running in a southwesterly direction through the hill. The bed- 
rock which shows near the crest of the ridge, immediately northwest of the Rocky Mountain Claim, 
is said to be an isolated point, the gravel being deep all around it, 
§ 12. The Gold ; its Distribution in the Gravel, and Position with Reference to the Channel 
and Rim-Rock. 
In Wiessler’s Claim, at Iowa Hill, where there are two basin-like depressions in the bed-rock, 
surrounded by rims, the richest spots are said to have been invariably not in the central parts of 
their bottoms, but on the sloping sides of the bed-rock which surrounds them. The sides of the 
ridge which separates the two basins are said to have been extremely rich; but there did not 
appear to be any connection between the direction of the slopes and the amount of gold deposited 
on them. Both sides of the dividing ridge were rich. 
At Independence Hill and elsewhere, on the ridge above Iowa Hill, as a general rule, the richest 
spots and coarsest gold are found immediately on the slopes of the rim-rock, and on the ridges in 
the interior of the hill, which sometimes rise as high or even higher than the rim. Streaks of 
coarse gold are occasionally found high up in the gravel above the bed-rock. 
At Wisconsin Hill the rim-rock is said to have been rich in places, and to have yielded some 
pretty coarse gold; but generally the surface of the bed-rock here is not supposed to be rich. 
At King’s Hill the eastern rim-rock is said to have paid very richly, while the ground farther 
back in the hill did not pay expenses. 
At the Morning Star Claim, at Startown, the bed-rock is very rough, and the richest spots are 
found in the depressions of its surface. 
Many of the claims immediately about Deadwood are said to have been extremely rich at the 
outer edge, but poor farther back in the hill. 
At Weske’s Claim, near Michigan Bluff, the rim-rocks are not very well defined, but the high 
rock has generally paid the best; although the distribution of the gold is very irregular, or 
* spotted,” as the miners say. 
The richest portion of the pay-streak in the Paragon Mine, at Bath, was a strip from 200 to 250 
feet wide, immediately northeast of the main tunnel. 
In the Rough Gold Mine, southwest of the Paragon Mine, the pay-streak — which is the same 
stratum as that at the Paragon Mine — has, at one point between it and the bed-rock, as much as 
140 or 145 feet of gravel. 
At the Dam Claim, in the west branch of El Dorado Cafion, there is a great curve in the 
channel, which makes within 300 feet a bend from N. 25° W. to S. 75° W. (magnetic), and im- 
mediately below this bend, and on the right bank of the channel, an extensive bar was found, 
which, as is stated, would have paid, if worked by itself, from $15 to $20 a day per man em- 
ployed. This bar was between 300 and 400 feet long, and from sixty to eighty feet wide, and it 
was separated from the main channel, on the east, by a narrow ridge of high rock, along which 
there was a large quartz vein, from five to eight feet in width. All along the straight portion of 
the tunnel, or for a distance of about a thousand feet, the surface of the bed-rock is pitching to 
the east, and there is a distance of some 1,300 feet or more in which they have never driven east 
across the channel, or seen anything of the east rim-rock. In the vicinity of the main or party 
tunnel, which forms the dividing line between the Dam and El Dorado claims, and runs for 250 
feet in a direction N. 56° E. (magnetic), the channel, going down stream, seems to make a pretty 
sharp bend to the east, and a considerable area of ground has been worked out by the El Dorado 
