144 THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 
of Elmore Hill are about on a level with the Liberty Hill bed-rock. This 
gives a good and sufficient grade, with no intervening obstacles. Since the 
time when the river flowed from Liberty to Elmore Hill, the present channel 
of Bear River has been cut several hundred feet deeper, although not in a 
materially different direction, the angle between the old and the new chan- 
nels not exceeding ten or twelve degrees. Elmore Hill is on the right, and 
Liberty Hill on the left bank of a stream whose general course is nearly 
straight. If any additional evidence were needed, to show that there was 
once a connection between these two points, it is found in a deposit of 
gravel on one of the projecting spurs just below Liberty Hill, nearly on a 
line between the points in question, and at the proper altitude. From the 
other end of this gravel deposit, that is from Indiana Hill, the Iowa Hill 
gravel is plainly in sight, and with such a position and relative elevation 
that there is no difficulty in imagining that there was formerly a connection 
in this direction, as will be noticed farther on. 
The presence of gravel in a continuous mass between Elmore and Indiana 
Hills seems sufficient proof of the existence of a continuous channel between 
those two points. But-to actually trace this channel through the various 
workings along its line, so as not only to prove its existence but to recog- 
nize its exact position and grade from point to point, is by no means an 
easy matter. Among the miners in this channel there were, in 1870, and 
probably still are, various conflicting views as to the direction of the current, 
and these will be alluded to and discussed in a future chapter. After a long 
series of patiently-conducted observations for level on the bed-rock, at all 
points where this was visible, under the gravel, or where gravel had pre- 
viously existed, Professor Pettee came to the conclusion that the evidence, 
although contradictory in some points, was, on the whole, in favor of the 
theory that the channel from Liberty and Elmore hills at one time found an 
outlet by way of Indiana Hill. 
Taking that portion of the gravel range between the line of the railroad 
and the Cement Mill, near Indiana Hill, the eastern and western rim of the 
channel is pretty well defined, although it is not always easy to tell exactly 
where the line between the slate and the gravel shall be drawn. On the 
west is Cold Spring Mountain, near Gold Run Station, 3,679 feet above the 
sea-level. The main body of this elevation is slate, capped by a broad, flat, 
volcanic table, covering an area of as much as a hundred acres and about 200 
feet in thickness. The height of the bed-rock is such here that there is no 
