GOLD —OLD PLACER—NEW PLACER. 
93 
with the washing of this metal out of the mountain streams. At present the old and the new 
placer, near Santa Fe, have attracted most attention ; and not only gold-washes, hut some 
gold mines, too, are worked there. They are, so far as my knowledge extends, the only gold 
mines worked now in New Mexico.” 1 
I do not find any other estimate of the extent of this auriferous region. The estimate given, 
it will he perceived, is not very definite, and the average breadth of the placers is not given. 
It appears that the gold is found here, not only in drift of gravel and sand, hut occurs also 
in quartz veins which traverse the underlying rocks. At the time of the visit of Dr. Wislizenus, 
and subsequently, Avhen Lieutenant Abert passed over that region, both of these sources of gold 
were worked. From the descriptions given, it seems that the placer-gold occurs there very 
much as in California. It is found not only along the streams, but above them, as in the “ dry- 
diggings,” resting on a bed-rock of granite, and covered by thick deposites of earth, stones, 
&c., as in California. On Lieutenant Abort’s arrival at the village of Old Placer he gives the 
following description: “All along in the bottom of the stream, and in the heart of the town, 
you see holes scooped out by the gold diggers.” Again, at another point, he saw holes 
dug in the sides of a hill of sand by the miners, and says that these mountains of sand were 
based on masses of granite. 2 One quarter of a mile beyond this place, and up the ravine, there 
was another little town, and the road on both sides was “full of holes, and sometimes deep 
wells that had been sunk in search of the precious metal.” At a little mining town near 
Tuerto the houses were found among “ huge mounds of earth thrown out from the wells, so 
that the village looked like a village of gigantic prairie dogs.” “ Nearly all the people there 
were at their wells, and were drawing up loose bags of sand by means of windlasses. Around 
little pools men, women, and children were grouped, intently poring over these bags of loose 
sand, washing the earth in wooden platters or great horns.” 3 
Dr. Wislizenus gives a similar description of a town in the new placer, which, I presume, is 
the same which has just been referred to. The Doctor states: “The gold in New Placer is, 
also, got in two ways, by washing and mining. The principal place for gold washing is about 
one mile northwest from the town, at the foot of a naked granitic mountain, the so-called 
‘ Bonanza.’ 4 The whole place is excavated with pits, from whose depths they dig the same yellow 
auriferous ground as in Old Placer, and they wash it also in the same way.” The method of 
obtaining the gold at the old placer, at the time of the visit of Dr. Wislizenus, was by washing in 
the old-fashioned batea . 5 “The poorer class of Mexicans are generally occupied with those 
gold washers in the creek ; and they divide, for that purpose, the creek with the water among 
themselves in lots, which often call forth as many claims and contests as the finest building-lots 
in our cities.” “ As the gold is apparently carried here by the waters of the creek from higher 
auriferous regions, the gain from these washes is different according to the season. The most 
gold is found in and after the rainy season, and it diminishes with the falling of the water. 
Occasionally they discover a larger piece of gold in the sand ; but generally the gold is so 
divided that a whole day’s work will amount, on an average, to not more than a quarter or half 
a dollar. Every evening they sell their small gains to the shopkeepers and take provisions or 
goods in exchange, or receive cash for it at the rate of sixteen dollars per ounce.” “ This is the 
most common, but the least profitable way of gold-washing. It may be practised on all the water¬ 
courses in those mountains, provided that there is sufficient water to wash with.” * * “ The 
second place where I saw the process of gold washing was on a high piece of ground not far 
from a creek. They had opened here a great many pits to the depth of from fifty to sixty 
1 Memoir of a Tour to Northern New Mexico : Washington, 1848 ; p. 24. 
2 J. W. Abert's Report of an Examination of New Mexico, p. 449. 
3 J. W. Abert. Examination of New Mexico, p. 451. 
4 Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, p. 31. 
6 Batea: a wide and shallow wooden bowl, into which the aurifereous earth is placed, with water, and shaken until the 
coarse gravel and earth are removed, leaving the gold in the centre mixed with the heavy sand. 
