DETTVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 



101 



for a storage reservoir and have built a dam across the lower end 

 of the valley and thus connected the two parts of the moraine, so 

 that the swampy area has become a reservoir for the storage of water 

 until it is needed in the valley far to the east for the irrigation of 

 crops. 



Just above the mouth of Clear Creek the Colorado Midland Rail- 

 way formerly crossed the Denver & Rio Grande line by an over- 

 head bridge, and a short distance farther on it crossed the river and 

 continued on the west side of the stream nearly to Malta. Just above 

 the crossing the river and railroads enter a granite canyon, which is 

 very narrow but of slight depth, and continue in the canyon to and 

 beyond the village of Granite. (See sheet 4, p. 134.) 

 This village has been the center of large gold- 

 dredging operations,''^ but this industry is now a 

 thing of the past, and the village is known prin- 

 cipally as the stopping point for those who wish 

 to visit Twin Lakes, a noted local resort, reached by stage from this 

 station. Lakes are not numerous in the mountains of Colorado, so 

 that even small ones such as Twin Lakes are highly prized. 



Above Granite the railroad continues in the canyon, but the walls 

 are low and at man^'^ places the traveler may catch glimpses of the 

 surrounding country. About 2 miles from Granite he may see on the 

 west (left) and ahead the ridge of gravel which bounded the glacier 

 that once occupied the valley of Lake Creek and which now sur- 



Granite. 



Elevation 8,943 feet. 

 Population 79. 

 Denver 257 miles. 



" In the days of '49 gold was ob- 

 tained from gravel mainly by the la- 

 borious method of panning, or by the 

 use of the cradle, both slow and crude 

 methods that do not appeal to the gold 

 hunter of the present day. The cradle 

 and the pan gave way to hydraulic 

 mining, which was a great improve- 

 ment on those early methods, as it en- 

 abled the operator to handle an enor- 

 mous quantity of gravel at slight ex- 

 pense, but the waste sand and gravel 

 produced by the process so choked the 

 streams below the operations and so 

 greatly interfered with the growing 

 of crops that laws were passed prohib- 

 iting its use. 



Now dredging has replaced all other 

 methods of handling placer deposits, 

 for it is the most efficient method yet 

 devised, one that can show a profit 

 even where the gold recovered amounts 

 to only a few cents to the ton of ma- 

 terial handled. 



80697°— 22 $ 



Dredging is practicable wherever the 

 placer lies in the bottom of a valley or 

 on a fairly level surface where water 

 is available and where the placer is 

 extensive enough to provide for several 

 years' operations. A large excavation 

 is made in the gravel, and in it a 

 dredge is built very much like the great 

 dredges used in digging the Panama 

 Canal. The excavation is filled with 

 water and the dredge scoops up the 

 gravel Vvith its steel buckets down to 

 bedrock ; the gravel, after it is hauled 

 aboard the dredge, is washed for the 

 gold, and then the refuse is dumped 

 back into tlie hole from which it was 

 taken. This method of handling phicer 

 gravel requires considerable capital, 

 but on account of the vast quantity of 

 material handled the returns are fre- 

 quently large and the operation is 

 very profitable. A view of one of the 

 dredges used in the Rocky Mountains 

 is shown in Plate XLI, A (p. 81). 



