THE GRAVEL: NEAR QUAKER HILL. 179 
In my description I will begin at the northeasterly end of the main series of mines, near Osborn 
Ravine. I have already mentioned meeting with slate rock on the road at the point where the 
curve is made to pass around the head of this ravine. The spur between the ravine and the next 
one east, or the North Fork of Greenhorn, has a course of S. 7° W. (magnetic), and is composed 
of slate, which —in the prolongation of the line of the gravel mines —is fully 300 or 400 feet 
higher than the bed-rock in the first mine to the west. And it is by no means clear on which 
side of that spur the original stream flowed. It may have made a sharp bend around the southerl y 
end of that spur, or there may prove still to be a low channel to the north now covered with lava. 
My information is too limited to hazard an opinion on this point. Both upon the high spur of slate 
rock, and high up in the head branches of Osborn Ravine, I found a little quartz gravel, which 
may have come down from under the lava. And as far as this goes, it is an indication that that 
particular flow of lava followed an old creek channel or ravine. But if so, it would seem as if it 
must have been anterior to the wearing away of the channel in which the present gravel has been 
deposited. The question is still involved in considerable doubt. 
The “ Dutch Diggings ” lie between Osborn and Sapsucker ravines, and extend over an area of 
ten or twelve acres. In no place did there appear to be more than fifty feet in depth of gravel. 
There was an extensive amount of bed-rock uncovered, and a decided rim to the channel, both on 
the north and south. In the mines lower down the northern rim has nowhere been uncovered, I 
believe. 
Around the head of Sapsucker Ravine is a small claim, which has been worked mostly by drift- 
ing. Between the Sapsucker and Knickerbocker ravines is an open gravel mine, comprising eight 
or ten acres, known as the Hazelgreen Mine. The Knickerbocker Ravine heads high up in the 
east gap of Quaker Hill. 
Still farther to the southwest, which is the general course of the mines from the Dutch Diggings 
to the Railroad Mine on Prior Ravine, comes a large opening which includes the Knickerbocker, 
Aurora, and Newton claims. At the northern end of this opening there are large masses of clay, 
which have stood in the way of any search for the upper rim. On the southeastern side, in the 
outlets of the mine down the steep ravines into Greenhorn, there is a plenty of slate rock to be 
seen. And, indeed, slate rock is visible on the southern and southeastern sides of all the claims 
as far down as Prior and Green Mountain ravines. Next westerly from this large opening is the 
smaller Chollar (or Aurora) Claim, beyond which comes the main and largest claim of all, which 
lies just to the south of the town of Quaker Hill, and is owned by Messrs. Jacobs and Sargent. 
Including the Railroad Mine on the opposite side of Prior Ravine there must be as much as forty 
acres of gravel which have been worked over. And it is just at this point that the main interest 
of the problem centres. The grade, the succession of gravel almost unbroken from Osborn to 
Prior Ravine, the rim rock on the southern side, and all the conditions unite to establish the fact 
that there was once a channel following essentially the same course as the present Greenhorn for 
certainly more than a mile and a half. One evening, indeed, when the moon was shining brightly, 
the occasional glimpses which I got (from a high point of the road) of the brilliant white gravel 
contrasted with the deep green or black of the trees and bushes, seemed like the flashes of reflected 
light from the living waters of a winding stream. The deception was complete in all its details, — 
excepting a certain ghastliness and pallor which showed me at once that it was, as it were, the 
ghost of a stream long since departed. 
But besides this stream from the northeast, there is also supposed to be a part of the famous 
“blue lead” making its way under the lava of the West Gap of Quaker Hill and connected 
directly with the gravel at Moore’s Flat, on the Deer Creek side of the ridge. Whether this is so 
or not I am not fully prepared to say, not having had the time to pay any attention to the north- 
ern side of the ridge, though my present opinion is adverse to any such connection. 
In the Quaker Hill mines proper (those directly south of the town and including the Railroad 
Claim) there has been hardly any deep bed-rock ever struck. Toward the western end of the main 
mine east of Prior Ravine I was shown the spot where a shaft had been sunk seventy-one feet to 
