MINING. 269 
the exhaustion of most of the river-diggings in the state, have 
almost put an end to river-mining in California. In a few 
cases, extensive fluming enterprises have proved profitable; 
but, as a general rule, river-mining in this state has cost more 
than it has produced. A river is seldom flumed for less than 
three hundred yards, and sometimes for a mile; and the lum- 
ber and labor required to make so long a flume, and one large 
enough to hold all the water of a river, are very expensive. 
The dam will always leak, and water will run into the bed 
froin the adjacent hills and mountains, and this water must be 
lifted out by pumps driven by wheels placed in the flume. 
The river-beds are full of large rocks, weighing from one to 
ten tons, and these must be moved by machinery, to allow the 
dirt to be taken out. 
River-mining is now never undertaken by an individual, but 
always by large associations, generally called “fluming com- 
panies,” sometimes composed of miners exclusively, sometimes 
of miners and all the principal business-men living near the 
place where the work is to be done. The lawyers, doctors, 
and office-holders, pay their assessments in cash; the mer- 
chants furnish provisions, the lumbermen supply lumber, and 
the miners make the dam, and help the carpenters build the 
flume. : 
§ 200. Beach-Mining.— Beach-mining is the business of 
washing the sands of the ocean-beach. Between Point Men- 
docino, in California, and the mouth of the Umpqua River, in 
Oregon, the beach-sand contains gold, and in some places it is 
very rich. The beach is narrow, and lies at the foot of a bluff 
bank of auriferous sand. In times of storm, the waves wash 
against this bank, undermine it, sweep away the pieces which 
tumble down, leaving the gold on the beach. The gold is in 
very fine particles, and it moves with the heavier sand, which 
alters its position frequently under the influence of the waves 
and surf. One day, the beach will have six feet depth of sand; 
the next, there will be nothing save bare rocks. The sand 
differs greatly in richness at various times: one day, it will be 
