304 



Adventures in Scenery 



dissolved out, a space between walls of rock occupied by min- 

 eral matter that has been carried from below in solution, and 

 deposited in the space between the walls. 



Mother Lode Not a Single Vein 



The Mother Lode is not a single vein but a remarkable linear 

 system of interrupted and overlapping veins. The far-famed 

 Mother Lode of California is embraced in a belt of ancient 

 sedimentary rocks that form the foot hills of the lower western 



FIG. 86. Sketch map of the Mother Lode region, in Calaveras, Tuolumne, 

 and Mariposa counties. The first gold-quartz vein found in place in Cali- 

 fornia was discovered at Mariposa in 1849 (A. Knopf). The Mother Lode 

 belt is for the most part a hilly country. The topography is rolling except 

 where the belt is crossed by the larger streams, viz., South Fork American 

 River, Mokelumne, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced. 



