GOLD MINING. 195 
ally, that is, to wash out the metal from the sand at the 
bottom. 
By the end of the year 1852 the surface placers were 
nearly exhausted, good sluice claims were at a high premium, 
and there was not work enough for one-third of the miners. 
Large amounts of capital were required for the ditch com- 
panies, and almost as much for the sluices. 
In this predicament, the attention of the American miners 
was suddenly directed to quartz mining. The Mexicans had 
worked quartz veins for a long time by pounding the ore in 
mortars, or grinding it in their rude arrastras, and extracting 
the fine gold-dust by means of quicksilver. The Americans 
immediately introduced stamp mills, and their ideas were so 
large that the most bulky and elaborate machinery was soon 
in operation; companies with large capital were rapidly 
formed ; many hands were employed; quartz was crushed in 
enormous quantities in a great number of places, whether it 
was rich or poor, and complete failure was consequently the 
result in the great majority of cases. A stamp mill has 
already been explained and figured in chap. xii., vol. i. 
The first attempt at quartz mining having proved unsuccess- 
ful, the miners tried to invent a process by which the gold 
could be cheaply extracted from large quantities of land 
which contained only a small percentage. This led to the 
hydraulic process. With “poor dirt” to work up, the 
shovel did not furnish earth enough for the sluice, and the 
wages of twelve out of twenty men must, if possible, be 
saved. As early as 1852, a man named Mattison, of Con- 
necticut, invented an hydraulic machine, by means of which 
a stream of water could be directed, under heavy pressure, 
against a bank or hill-side, containing placer gold, and the 
earth torn down by the action of the jet of water and carried 
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