RECENT OPERATIONS AT AND NEAR DUTCH FLAT. 161 
year 1874.* At the time of Mr. Skidmore’s examination, the “Indiana Hill 
Blue Gravel Mining Company” was running a tunnel, in the channel itself, 
from the extreme southerly end of their claim, on the caiion of the North 
Fork of the American River. No rim-rock tunnel being necessary, the 
channel was followed northerly on the bed-rock by means of a main tunnel, 
1,600 feet in length, with side-drifts toward the west, where the richest ground 
was discovered. A width of about 110 feet was carried forward in this way, 
and a thickness of six or seven feet of gravel excavated. The material taken 
out is “cement,” and has to be stamped in a mill run by water-power. In 
spite of this, the material appears to be so rich as to have paid handsomely, 
the company having made a profit, from the time of their incorporation (April, 
1872) up to the close of the season of 1874, of $ 34,853.47 on a total yield 
of $75,422.47, the cost of mining and milling having been $ 40,569. Ac- 
cording to this official statement, the average yield of gravel was §¢ 5.29, 
the expense $ 2.90, and the profit $2.39, per cubic yard. It is said that, in 
one instance, $1,000 worth of gold was obtained from two car-loads (or 
thirty-nine cubic feet) of dirt. Mr. Skidmore adds: “The Indiana Hill is 
the only notable successful enterprise in operation in California of mining 
gravel by the crushing or mill process.” 
From the above-cited authority we also learn that an extensive consolida- 
tion had taken place, immediately after Professor Pettee’s examination, in 
the region about Gold Run, where the “Gold Run Ditch and Mining Com- 
pany” had acquired an area of 328 acres, together with an extensive system 
of ditches.t To reach the deep gravel in this consolidated claim, the posi- 
tion of which will be understood from the description given in the preced- 
ing pages, the new company was engaged, in 1874, in running a bed-rock 
tunnel from Caiion Creek towards the “’49-Shaft,” in the supposed centre of 
the channel in the deep gravel. This tunnel was intended to be 2,200 feet 
long, and twelve feet wide and nine high, and it was begun in July, 1873. The 
total cost was estimated at $125,000; and it was expected to be completed 
in about two years. The Cedar and Sherman claims, near Gold Run, were 
also sold to an English company, and preparations were making, in 1874,f 
* Seventh Report of the Commissioner of Mining Statistics, pp. 99-102. 
+ See the large map, appended to this volume, on which it appears that a patent had been issued under 
the name of “ Church and Golden Gate,” for an extensive gravel claim near Gold Run. 
t The most astonishing stories of the richness of the surface of the bed-rock struck in a prospecting 
shaft sunk by this company, were reported by the Superintendent. The shaft is said to have reached the 
bed-rock at the depth of 181 feet, and the dirt at the bottom to have “ prospected” at the rate of $2 per 
pan, or $232 per cubic yard. 
