388 THE PLA CERES WASHING DIGGING THE MINES. 



cropped out on the surface of the hills, mountains or gorges, and 

 been worn and smoothed by the action of water. In these posi- 

 tions the gold still remains entire in pieces of all shapes and sizes, 

 from a single grain to lumps weighing several pounds. Placeres, or 

 gold locations of this latter character, are styled " the dry dig- 

 gings," in contradistinction to the "washings " of the streams, and 

 are spread over large valleys which appear to have been subjected 

 to the violent action of water. In the dry diggings the operation 

 of extracting metal is performed by the hand alone or with a pick- 

 axe, hammer and knife ; but the fine dust or scale-gold of the river 

 bottoms is rescued from the earth by washing the whole mass in 

 common tin pans, or vessels of every kind that can be substituted. 

 The gyratory motion given to these primitive implements, removes 

 the finest portions of soil ; gravel is taken out by the hand, and the 

 gold is left in the vessel united with a black ferruginous sand not un- 

 like that used at the writing desk. This residuum is left on a board 

 or cloth to dry, when the sand is blown off either by the mouth or 

 a common bellows, leaving the gold whose gravity retains it on 

 the board. Much of the very finest gold is, however, lost with the 

 sand in this rude process. Vast numbers of rough machines re- 

 sembling cradles, are also used in the business. The rocking of 

 the cradle answers to the gyration of the pan, and as the mud, wa- 

 ter and sand escape from one end of the machine through a series 

 of small cross-bars, the coarser particles of gold are retained in the 

 instrument. On the head of the cradle is a common sieve, upon 

 which the auriferous earth is placed ; water is then poured on it, 

 and as soon as the machine is set in motion, the gold, sand and dust 

 are carried into the body of the cradle, while the gravel is rejected. 



But many experienced Californians do not look to the placeres or 

 common gold diggings and washings for the continuation of that 

 prosperity to which they gave birth. For its permanence they rely 

 on the mines, whose development has but just commenced. This 

 species of mineral riches lies in that region where the auriferous 

 quartz has been discovered of nearly uniform richness, from the 

 40th to the 35th degree of latitude, upon the waters of the Feather 

 river, and on the American, the Mokelumne, the Mariposa, and 

 the desert upon the south-eastern borders of California, east of the 

 Sierra Nevada. In all these localities, within a range of three hun- 

 dred and fifty miles, it is already known to exist, and the strongest 

 analogy would carry it. through the remaining distance. An assay 

 of the ore of the Mariposa mines, now worked with a Chilian mill, 

 afforded an average yield from washing, of forty cents per pound 



