SLUICES—AQUEDUCTS-SERPENTINE. 
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board-sluice is generally twelve or fifteen inches in width, and from eight to ten inches deep, 
and is made in convenient lengths, so that one can he added to another until a length of two or 
three hundred feet or more is obtained. False bottoms of boards pierced with holes, or a series 
of raised cleats, are placed in the bottom of the sluice, and are intended to receive and retain the 
gold, while the stones and gravel are washed away. Long bars, or a grating with the spaces 
parallel with the sluice, are, however, generally preferred to the cross cleats or holes. The fall 
or rate of descent of the sluice is varied according to circumstances, being arranged to suit the 
size of the gold and the nature of the drift. One or two feet in a rod is a common inclination, 
and with a good supply of water is sufficient to cause stones two or three inches in diameter to 
roll from one end of the sluice to the other. 
The earth, stones, and gold, as they enter these sluices with the water, are all mingled 
together, but the current soon effects a separation; the lighter portions are swept on in advance 
and the gold remains behind and moves slowly forward until it drops down between the cleats 
or bars. The larger stones and coarse gravel are swept on by the current, and after traversing 
the whole length of the sluice are thrown out at the lower end. The operation, as in the case 
of washing down the bank, is a continuous one, and requires little labor or attention, except to 
keep the sluice from clogging. This is done by one or two men, who walk up and down and 
throw out the large stones with forks. 
The water for these operations at such a height above the river, and for the elevated placers 
or “ dry diggings” generally, is brought in aqueducts from the sources of the streams many 
miles distant in the mountains. The water at Michigan City is supplied by the El Dorado 
Company’s aqueduct, at this time over ten miles in length, but soon to be extended so as to 
reach other sources of water. After traversing the aqueduct, the water is received into a 
reservoir above the level of the claims, and from thence distributed to the consumers. It is sold 
by the inch, being delivered from a horizontal aperture one inch high and twenty-four inches 
long. This opening is at the side of a box twenty-four inches square and six inches deep, and is 
opened or shut by a slide. This box is kept full of water by making a slight dam on the sides 
of the ditch coming from the reservoir, and the stream is thus delivered under a constant 
pressure of six inches. The opening is graduated to half inches, and for each inch of water 
the miner pays fifty cents for each day of ten hours ; but in the summer, or dry season, it is worth 
seventy-five cents. 
MICHIGAN CITY TO NEVADA AND GRASS VALLEY. 
August 15 .—Michigan City to Iowa Hill .—On leaving Michigan City we rode back for several 
miles over the road by which we came, and then turned off to cross over the divide to the valley 
of the North Fork. Several miles from the river, serpentine was observed outcropping in slaty 
masses along the trail. The surface was also strewn with great numbers of spherical or globular 
masses, which had been liberated by the weathering of the rock. In this respect, and in its 
lithological characters, the rock greatly resembles the serpentine of Fort Point, at the Golden 
Gate. The rock at this place attains a great development, and forms a series of knob-like hills 
that are bare and barren, and look like the Bare Hills near Baltimore, Maryland. These bare 
tracts in the midst of a wooded region are familiarly known as Brimstone Plains. 
We at length reached the margin of the divide above the North Fork, and looked off into the 
chasm of the river. The rapid, but to us silent, current was winding about, over 2,000 feet 
