MINING. : 467 
may have three relays, each to work eight hours in the twenty- 
four. 
It is not uncommon for two companies, owning adjacert 
claims in a hill, to unite and cut a tunnel on joint account alons 
the dividing line. They go in until they reach the pay-dirt, 
and then a surveyor is employed to run the line between their 
claims, and the tunnel is continued through the pay-dirt. The 
dirt from the tunnel is washed for the joint account of the two 
companies. After the dividing line has been established, each 
company keeps on its own side, and each has its time to use 
the tram-way. They may also have a joint-stock sluice at the 
mouth of the tunnel—one company having the privilege of 
using the sluice one week, and the other the next. All tho 
dirt brought out in a week can readily be washed in a day. 
The work of taking out the pay-dirt after the main tunnel has 
been cut, is called “drifting ;” and the holes made by the men 
engaged in it are termed “drifts.” The drifts are usually not 
so high as the tunnels. The large stones and barren dirt ob- 
tained in the drifts are piled up here and there to sustain the 
earth overhead. Sometimes wooden posts are likewise neces- 
sary. 
$198. Shafts—Shafts are used in prospecting, and also in 
mining, where the claims are deep and cannot be reached by 
either the hydraulic process or the tunnel. The prospecting 
shaft is sometimes sunk into hills supposed to be auriferous, 
where the shaft is far less expensive than the tunnel. After 
the shaft demonstrates that the dirt is rich, and precisely the 
altitude at which it lies, a tunnel is cut to strike it. The shaft 
may be the cheaper for prospecting, but the tunnel is usually 
the cheaper if any large amount of dirt is to be taken out. 
The shaft is dug by one man in the hole, and one or two are 
employed at a windlass in hauling up the dirt. Mining-shafts 
in placer diggings are rarely over one hundred feet deep; but 
one was dug in Trinity county to the depth of six hundred feet, 
for the purpose of prospecting, but it found neither pay-dirt 
nor the bed-rock. 
