boutweli,.] ORE DEPOSITS OF BINGHAM, UTAH. 110 
PLACER DEPOSITS. 
History of placer raining. — Bingham Canyon stands alone among 
the numerous successful mining districts of Utah as the only locality 
in the State where placer mining has been successfully prosecuted. 
Free gold was first discovered in Bingham in 1864 by a party of veteran Cali- 
fornia miners who, returning from Montana to pass the winter in Salt Lake, pros- 
pected the canyon in the early part of that year. It was not, however, before 
the spring of 1805 that much work was done in prospecting for that metal/' 
It is also stated 6 that gold in the gravels was first discovered in the 
fall of 1860 and was mined then by Peter Clays and G. W. Crowley. 
The chief period of placer mining in Bingham extended from the 
date of discovery to 1871. Since then there has been a steady decline 
in the output of placer gold, except during the year 1881, until the 
present day. As late as 1898, however, the Arganaut was hydrau- 
licked at the mouth of Carr Fork, and at present desultory work is 
conducted by the veteran gravel miner Bartholomew Gardella upon 
gravels on the continuation of this channel known as Dixon Bar and 
at the head of Bear Gulch. Late in the nineties the West Mountain 
Placer Company conducted extensive explorations in the gravels 
at the bottom of main Bingham Canyon, immediately below Dry 
Fork, and reported that gold occurred there in pay quantities, but 
that they were unable to handle the water. Since then (his property 
has remained idle. 
Occurrence. — Detrital gold has been found at several points in 
Bingham in gravels of different ages. These lie at various elevations 
in the canyon, and range from the rock bottom of the present canyon 
up to points on its side slopes several hundred feet above. They indi- 
cate former positions of the canyon bed, and the pay inclosed by the 
gravels then deposited shows that the streams were then transporting 
gold shed into them from their inclosing walls, and depositing it with 
their other burdens. The deepening and widening of the canyon 
through the same agencies which are to-day continuing that work 
resulted in cutting down through and removing the gravels from the 
early stream beds. So the high gravels or bars seem to be remnants 
of stream gravels deposited during the earlier stages of canyon 
cutting, and, occurring at different levels, they mark successive 
stages in the work of cutting down to the present level. 
The bars consist of isolated deposits of waterworn gravel tying 
upon waterworn bed rock at the noses of spurs and at such points as 
have escaped removal by development of the present topography. In 
some cases these are patches on the sides of the canyon — in one 
instance there is a complete section of an earlier channel showing 
both walls, which are truncated upstream and downstream by later 
transverse valleys; and in another, extensive buried stretches of an 
"Murray, J. R., Mineral Resources, Territory of Utah, 1872, i>. 
''Personal communication, 1900, from Daniel Clays. 
