THE GRAVEL: NEAR 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 Red 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. z 
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 fill 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 
of 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 Ridge, 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 
connection 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 five per cent.” The loss of gold is thought to be as much 
as 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 
been taken out since the first working of the Coyote Diggings. It was here that the first discovery 
of the old channels was made. The Coyoters continued their burrowing under the hill, following 
the bed-rock, — and intending to do so as long as gold enough was found to pay, — until they 
