BETWEEN INDIANA HILL AND QUAKER HILL. 423 
present. The bed-rock is nearly level, but rises gradually towards the northeast. There is, how- 
ever, a central depression, amounting to perhaps thirty feet, which may be looked upon as the 
representative of the old high channel. It is a little curious that there should be found on the 
western rim of this depression peculiar blue quartz boulders, like those on the supposed western 
tim at Chicken Point, which are not seen in the centre of the depression or on its eastern rim. 
The Buckeye Hill gravel appears to have been a rolled, white, opaque quartz, like that at Chicken 
Point, or the top gravel at Dutch Flat. There are also some sand streaks visible in the blocks 
of gravel left standing. At the upper end of the hill, under the bluff, there is a bank of about 
sixty feet in height, but the gravel has thinned out, and the pipe-clay has come in above. There 
are also layers of vegetable matter and many signs of former shifting currents in the arrangement 
of the layers and streaks of clay, sand, and gravel, —such as might be expected along the margin 
of an extensive lake. 
Between the high gravel of Buckeye Hill and Greenhorn Creek there is nothing but a bed-rock 
slope, but on the opposite side of Greenhorn the low gravel of Hunt’s Hill and Quaker Hill ap- 
proaches very nearly to the present bank of the creek. ~Before the accumulations of tailings in the 
creek, there was a more marked eastern rim to the Hunt’s Hill gravel and a steep slope down to 
the creek’s bed. On the west, the bed-rock rises very rapidly, and forms an unmistakable rim to 
act as a barrier for the gravel in that direction. The Camden claim was the only one I visited at 
Hunt’s Hill, where I had the advantage of the company of Mr. W. H. Wiseman, one of the owners 
of the claims. I have already referred (page 417) to the peculiarities of the bed-rock at this mine. 
A peculiar feature of the gravel here is, that it is cemented on the hard bed-rock, but not on the 
soft. On the western side of the claim, between two spurs of bed-rock, there is also a large body 
of pipe-clay, which reaches nearly or quite down to the soft bed-rock. A few large quartz boulders 
are seen in the gravel at this claim. On the Greenhorn side of the gravel there is one anomalous 
but interesting feature, which I will briefly describe. Lying near, but not on the bed-rock, there 
is a peculiar stratum about twelve feet in thickness, seventy-five feet in width (as has been proved 
by eutting across it), and over one hundred feet in length; one end is exposed to view, but the 
other is hidden under the gravel bank. The material of this stratum is broken and angular bed- 
rock, — * float bed-rock ” as it is called, — similar to the ordinary cleavable slate of the country, 
with the cleavage planes arranged in no definite order in the different pieces, mixed with well- 
washed gravel. Above and apparently coterminous with this strange nest of material there comes 
a layer of fine sand from four to six feet thick. No ready explanation for the occurrence presented 
itself. 
The gravel at Hunt’s Hill used to be worked as drift diggings, and, according to Mr. Wiseman’s 
statement, the deep gravel was extraordinarily rich, in places yielding as much as ten dollars for 
each square yard of bed-rock uncovered. The water for the hydraulic mining is brought from the 
Yuba River. 
The extensive gravel mines at Quaker Hill are still owned, as they have been for many years, 
by Messrs. Jacobs and Sargent. The property extends from Hunt’s Hill on the south to Scott’s 
Flat on the north. The principal working place at the present time is near the head of Green 
Mountain Cajion. The caiions and ravines through which the Quaker Hill mines should find their 
natural outlet are now filled to a great depth with tailings. In some places, as, for example, near 
the old Empire Mill, on Gas Cain, the tailings reach nearly to the top of the old hydraulic banks, 
where mining has been given up for several years. This filling of the cafions practically puts an 
end to hydraulic operations, excepting for the top gravel, of which, however, there is still a very 
large body left, if, as has been supposed, the deposit is continuous underneath the lava to Scott's 
Flat. The lower gravel will have to be worked by drifts, and extensive preparations have already 
been made with this end in view. 
The top gravel at Quaker Hill appeared to me, at first sight, to be composed exclusively of very 
fine quartz, white or bluish in color, but a closer inspection showed the presence of a very large 
amount of slate or other metamorphic rock in small fragments, which, being easily decomposed, 
