294 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
§ 221. Yubaand Buite.—W est of Sierra county, and drained 
by the same streams, is Yuba, which reaches to the Sacramento 
River, lying half in the mountains and half in the plain, the 
mining district being in the former half. The principal min- 
ing towns are Camptonville, Timbuctoo, Foster’s Bar, Texas 
Bar, and Long’s Bar. In 1859 there were nine quartz-mills in 
the county, three at Brown’s valley, and one each at Camp- 
tonville, Dobbin’s Ranch, Dry Creek, Honcut, Indiana Creek, 
and Robbin’s Creek. The assessor in 1860 reported only two 
quartz-mills in the county. There are twenty-two ditches 
in the county, with an aggregate length of nine hundred and 
fifty-two miles, an average of forty-three miles each. The most 
important ditch, called ‘“ Bovyer’s,” supplies Timbuctoo with 
five thousand inches of water in the winter, less in the summer. 
The diggings at Timbuctoo are in a deep hill, which is washed 
away by the hydraulic process. 
West of Yuba and Plumas counties lies Butte, which is 
drained by the Feather River. The principal mining towns 
are Oroville, Bidwell’s Bar, Forbestown, Natchez, and White- 
rock. In 1859 there were seventeen quartz-mills in the county, 
of which four were at Oregon Gulch, at Columbiaville and 
Hansonville three each, two at Yankee Hill, and at Evansville, 
Gold Run, Long Bar, Nesbitt’s Flat, and Spring valley, one 
each. The assessor reports for 1860, twenty-nine quartz- 
mills, worth fifty thousand dollars, and crushing in the aggre- 
gate one hundred and sixty-two and a half tons per day. 
There are sixty-four mining-ditches, with an aggregate length 
of five hundred and eighty-three miles. The bars and beds of 
Feather River were once very rich, and some of the most ex- 
tensive enterprises of river mining in the state have been 
undertaken within the limits of Butte county. The greatest 
flume ever built in California was that of the Cape Claim 
Company, near Oroville, in 1857. It was three-quarters of a 
mile long and twenty feet wide, and furnished employment for 
two hundred and fifty men from May till November. The 
expenditures during that period were $176,985, and the re- 
