Weington.] HYDRAULIC MINING. 121 
ditch will deposit sediment over the sod and level it up, and that after a little while 
it will become tight. Puddling, of course, will help any ditch here or elsewhere. 
Those two conditions are the only serious ones to be contended with in ditching 
ground. 
A strong plow drawn by 2-horse team is the first implement used. (See PI. XIX, 
B, p. 120.) 
All being ready, the driver is instructed to plow a single furrow, following as 
closely as possible from one survey peg to the next, following the natural contour of 
the country. This he does for say a distance of one-half mile, thus establishing the 
ditch line. The plowing is continued to a width sufficient so that, allowing plenty 
of slope for the inner bank, the required depth of ditch may be obtained. The 
grader is next used for the purpose of removing what has been plowed to the outer 
bank of the ditch. This being done the ditch w T ill look much like a wagon road. 
Then the plow is used again, plowing as before a single furrow, following as nearly 
as possible the first furrow plowed, which is plainly visible. This second plowing 
being done, the scraper is resorted to, and the loose plowed material is scraped from 
the ditch to the outer bank, building it up. This work is repeated until the ditch is 
almost completed. All that remains to make an excellent ditch is to level up the 
bottom and to slope the ditch to required dimensions. This work is done by hand 
with pick and shovel. The plow and scraper should do almost all the work, how- 
ever, so that as little as possible remains to be done by hand. After completion of 
the ditch only a small head of water should be allowed to flow through it for a few 
days, until it has become well soaked; then the head may be gradually increased a 
ittle daily until the full capacity is reached. 
All water should be turned out of the ditch before the freeze-up in the fall, and 
he ditch made as dry as possible by the opening of all waste gates, of which there 
hould be one at least every one-third of a mile. These waste gates should be left 
pen, to enable the water during the spring thaw to run out of them instead of fili- 
ng the ditch with water and overflowing its banks. These waste gates should be 
leared of all snow and ice at the first approach of a thaw in the spring, in order 
that the water may have a free outlet. This is very important. In the spring no 
water should be allowed to run through the ditch until at least 2 to 3 inches in depth 
pf the ditch has thawed, and then only a small head to start with, as frozen ground 
3iits very rapidly. If this work is carefully done I have no doubt that the ditch will 
be ready for work by the time it becomes possible to mine. 
) Considering the remoteness of the country and its high latitude, ditch building 
?an be done at a cost surprisingly low. The entire absence of timber, small amount 
pf rock work, generally good soil, and gentle slopes of the hillsides are conditions 
vhich make ditch building very feasible in the auriferous portions of Seward 
Peninsula. 
; Fluming should not be employed unless absolutely unavoidable, as frost and snow- 
in winter play havoc with flumes, and the swelling and contracting of the ground, 
lue to alternate freezing and thawing, continually keep the flume off grade. There 
ire few instances where it is necessary to use a flume. 
Much of the ditch construction at Nome is now done by contract. 
The following information was supplied for this report by one of the 
litch contractors at Nome: 
In the construction of ditches on Seward Peninsula the following 
hree types of machines are used, all being drawn by horses: The 
>rdinary road grader, the horse scrapers, which are so extensively 
ised in California, and an ordinary breaking plow. 
