MINING. 273 
his game, and while skinning the animal, discovered that the 
point of rock was auriferous quartz. In Mariposa county in 
1855, a robber attacked a miner, and the latter saw the rock 
behind his assailant sparkle in the sunlight, at a sput where a 
buliet struck a wall of rock. He killed the robber, and found 
that the rock was gold-bearing quartz. In Nevada county 
several years ago, a couple of unfortunate miners who had 
prepared to leave California, and were out on a drunken frolic, 
started a large boulder down a steep bill. On its way down, 
it struck a brown rock and broke a portion of it off—exposing 
a vein of white quartz which proved to be auriferous, induced 
the disappointed miners to remain some months longer in the 
state, and paid them well for remaining. Science and experi- 
ence do not appear to give much assistance in prospecting for 
quartz lodes. Chemists, geologists, mineralogists, and old 
miners, have not done better than ignorant men and new- 
comers. Most of the best veins have been discovered by poor 
andignorant men. Not one has been found by a man of high 
education as a miner, or geologist. No doubt geological 
knowledge is valuable to a miner, and it should assist him in 
prospecting ; but it has never yet enabled any body to find a 
valuable claim. 
§ 204. Distribution of Gold in Quartz—The rich quartz- 
veins of California extend from Kern River to the Siskiyou, 
are found on hills, in cafions and in vales. They are at least 
two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and not more 
than ten thousand feet above it. Their course is generally 
from north-northwest to south-southeast, and they dip steeply 
to the eastward, sometimes being nearly perpendicular. They 
differ in thickness from a line to sixty feet. Quartz veins are 
very numerous in most of the mining districts, so the task is 
not to find the veins, but rather to find those which are gold- 
bearing. It is supposed that nearly all large veins come to 
the surface of the bed-rock or “country ;” but many of them 
are covered with soil and thus are hidden. Hidden veins are 
called “ blin:! ;” those plainly visible on the surface are called 
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