268 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
§ 199. River-Mining.—River-mining is mining for gold in 
the beds of rivers, below low-water mark. The only practi- 
cable method of doing this is by damming the stream, and 
taking the water out of its bed ina ditch or flume. It has 
been proposed by persons who never saw the mines, to get the 
gold by dredging, or with a diving-bell; but such schemes are 
absurd in the eyes of miners. The rivers in which the gold is 
found: are mountain-torrents, in which a canoe can scarcely 
float in summer, much less a dredging-machine; and any large 
scoop working under water would miss the crevices and cor- 
ners in the rocks, where most of the gold is found. As the 
water is very seldom more than a couple of feet deep, a diving- 
bell would be of little service. The flume, the ditch, and the 
wing-dam, are the chief tasks of the river-miner. The ditch is 
rarely used, because the banks of the mining-streams are usu- 
ally so steep, high, rocky, and crooked, that a flume is cheaper. 
The wing-dam is not often used, because the river-beds are in 
most places too narrow. The flume is almost universally em- 
ployed. 
The work of river-mining can be done only during the sum- 
mer and fall, while the water is low, and while the miner can 
have confidence that it will not rise. It may be as low in Jan- 
uary as in August, but the winter is the season of rains; and 
when the flood comes, it sweeps dams, flumes, and every thing 
before it. If the dam and flume be commenced too early in 
the season, they may be carried off before they are finished; 
aud it frequently happens that they are destroyed in the fall 
just when the miners are commencing to reap the reward of 
their sammer’s labor. 
River-mining has many disadvantages, as compared with 
other branches of mining. The miner cannot work at it more 
than half the year; he cannot prospect the dirt which is hid- 
den under water; he must erect expensive dams and flumes, 
which can be used for only a few months; and then he is ex- 
posed to floods which may come and destroy all his work 
before he has commenced to wash. These disadvantages, and 
