the South and Middle Yuba, California. 3 
where the gold, chiefly washed out of the older placers, was 
found distributed, within reach of the miners who had only a 
pick and shovel or pan. Here the first fruits of labor were 
sometimes very ample, and the capital and skill employed quite 
small. Gradually, as the gold thus superficially distributed be- 
came partly exhausted, streams of water and various contriv- 
ances for ‘sluicing’ were introduced, involving more skill and 
the union of labor with capital. 
It was pretty early discovered that very extensive and valu- 
able deposits of auriferous gravel lay at levels far above the 
present course of the streams, and that to wash these deposits 
required the adoption of new methods adapted to meet the case. 
Hence came the so-called Hydraulic process, which, although in 
use now for more than ten years, has yet made barely more 
than a commencement upon the great mass of deep lying 
auriferous shingle which remains to be treated by this metho 
of gold washing. 
Finally comes the era of quartz mining in depth, the success- 
ful prosecution of which demanded more skill and capital, as 
well as cheaper labor and better machinery than the early days 
of California furnished. In this man undertakes to do for him- 
self, by the use of his own skill, what in an earlier age nature 
had done for him on a grand scale in breaking up the matrix 
of the precious metal, commencing at the fountain head of the 
stream of gol 
whole of this ground being controlled by the waters of the 
Middle Yuba Canal Company, and of the Eureka Lake Water 
Company. 
The Deep Placers of the Yuba.—The Yuba is an affluent of the 
Feather river, which it joins at Marysville on its way to its june- 
tion with the Sacramento. The South and Middle forks of the 
Yuba river unite with the North Yuba, the course of which is 
nearly at right angles to these two branches, whose mean course 
is west about 18° south (magnetic), the Feather river running 
about north and south. 
The ridge of land embraced between the South and Middle 
forks of the Yuba is from six to eight miles in width, and to the 
limits of the auriferous gravel, as thus far explored, about 30 
miles, forming an area of about 200 square miles. The elevation 
of this ridge above the sea is, at its western extremity near French 
