ENCOUBAGING EESULTS. 253 



Owing to the numbers of small springs in the flats, it is doubtful if 

 they will be worked until covered bed-rock drains can be constructed to 

 remove the surplus water and admit of dry working. The more elevated 

 and easily worked bars will first be attacked and made to give up the gold 

 which they contain. Near the point of original discovery the soldiers 

 found opposite their camp on the hill-side a small deposit of gravel, 2 to 

 3 feet deep, which proved to be quite rich, yielding from 12 to 19 cents to 

 the pan by actual weight. 



Just above where the Mammoth ledge outcropped on the south side of 

 the valley was a hill of cement-gravel which gave colors on rim-rock, and 

 on sinking a shaft in the center of the hill we passed through a hard cement 

 of quartz pebbles, gravel, and bowlders, but after a week's work failed to 

 get bed-rock at a depth of 22 feet owing to the extreme hardness of the 

 conglomerate, which was cemented by oxide of iron, probably deposited by 

 ferruginous springs, the iron of which was derived from the decomposition 

 of pyrites in the ledge. The gravel from this shaft failed to show gold on 

 panning, perhaps owing to the particles of gold being inclosed in the hard 

 lumps of the cement. It promised to be a good deposit to hydraulic, as 

 that process would break up the cement and set the gold free. Two or 

 three miles below this point there were some quite extensive gravel deposits, 

 where a small branch entered the creek from the north, that were reported 

 to prospect well by the miners who located claims on these bars. But 

 lower down the stream flowed through a deep rocky gorge cut in the 

 slates, with gravel deposits at intervals along its course wherever the gorge 

 was not contracted into a narrow canon. This portion of the stream, ex- 

 tending from the original discovery to the point where the creek sinks in 

 an impassable canon in the limestone near the foothills, a distance of ten 

 or twelve miles, can scarcely be said to have been prospected at all the past 

 summer. In places the water flowed over the bare slates, and there are no 

 gravel deposits ; but at the bends and forks of the stream bars of consider- 

 able size were seen. 



Below, where the creek sinks in its bed, are bars composed of quartz 

 and slate gravel intermixed with a large proportion of limestone and sand T 

 stone bowlders. These deposits undoubtedly contain gold, but I was una- 



