MINING. 297 
hundred and fifty miles in aggregate length, the average 
length being twenty-four miles. 
“Indian Diggings,” says Mr. Capp, “is a mining village 
twenty-five miles southeastward from Placerville, on the bank 
of Indian Creek. In this district, a belt of limestone, or blue 
and white marble, rises in ridges through the slate bed-rock, 
and is in places cut by the water into long and deep channels, 
some of which serve as natural tail-races for the miners, but it 
oftener renders large amounts of blasting necessary. The 
claims in the bed of the creek formerly paid well, as the tail- 
ings washed down trom the hydraulic claims above continually 
enriched them. In some of the creek claims, in the middle of 
the channel, deep holes were found, filled with a kind of dirt 
different from that above it. This was sometimes extremely 
rich, and in one claim a single panful paid three dollars. An- 
other singular feature connected with these deep places, is that 
they seem to have subterranean outlets, for in one instance a 
hundred inches of water poured in for three days, with all the 
dirt it washed down, failed to have any perceptible effect in 
filling it up. It was finally stopped with bushes and gravel, 
and the water turned off. A mile or more above this, in an- 
other claim, a similar hole was discovered, and forty inches of 
water poured in for several hours produced no visible progress 
toward filling it. Here the miner was in doubt whether there 
was a rich deposit of gold awaiting him down there, or whether 
the bottom of his claim had fallen out altogether.” 
Amador county adjoins El Dorado, with the Cosumnes for- 
its northern boundary and the Mokelumne for the southern. 
The principal mining towns are Jackson, Volcano, Butte City, 
Dryton, Fiddletown, Sutter Creek, and Lancha Plana. Much 
of the bed-rock is marble. The county is rich in auriferous 
quartz, and has thirty-two mills, of which six are at Sutter 
Creek, five at Amador City, four at Dry Creek, at Volcano, 
Clinton, Contreras, and North Fork of the Mokelumne, two 
each, and at Big Bar Bridge, Butte City, Drytown, Grass 
Valley, Gales’ Ranch, Herbertsville, Oneida, and Rancheria 
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