The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1855-12-25
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
From the Western Eagle.
GOLD MINING.
u stream.


from the Western Eagle
GOLD MINING
We call the attention of the public to the
communication of Mr.. Willis, found below,
giving statement of some facts III regard
to the new process of working alluvial mines
or depOsites, lately introduced into this
section of country by DR.. Van Dyke. We
have already published several articles des-
criptive of the modus operandi of working
mines by the Hydraulic process, and show
ing the immense superiority of this process
over any other used among US. From the
communication Il will be seen that it is no
experiment but an actual matter fact
and one, too, that cannot fail to attract the
| attention of practical men interested i'll the
business of mining.
MCDOWELL COUNTY, N. c.,
Nov. 81, 1855.
| 1t must be conceded that the most useful
and important improvements and discove-
ries which ameliorate the condition of man,
or multiply his comforts and blessi Igs, are
| achieved by the comet-ike efforts of genius
to the great surprise and chagrin of the
most learned and philosophic minds of every
! age.
| In q previous letter | made the attempt
to give the public sketch Of the principle
or ''mOdus oparandi' of the extraordinary
Improvement for washing surface gold mines,
called the "Hydraulic Hose Power" now
in operation at Jamestown, or Mincrsville
and for fear it might be thought that 1 drew
too heavily upon my imagination, hearing
of the amount of gold making, I determined
to visit the place and obtain data to give
| other actual results from the operation.
lst. A bank, the hardest of clay forma-
tons, sixty-four feet long, twenty-five feet
wide, and twenty-seven feet deep, washed,
removed, and the gold collected, using three
pipes with the labor of three men and one
boy, making the total quantity of each re-
moved thirty-eight thousand and sixteen
solid feet, collecting one hundred and fifty
dollars III gold at an expense, for labor, of
thirteen dollars and seventy five cents
Here is a nett profit of over four dollars per
day on the price of labor, and all this re-
sulting from a worthless and abandoned
mine.
To those who may be rather hard of be-
lief, | say visit the locality, see, calculate,
and they will be convinced of the truth of
all I have stated, and they will likewise see
the mode by which gold will be extracted
from its ancient bed, now hidden and use
less in the surface of the hills and the bot
toms of the streams in the counties of Polk,
Rutherford Mcdowell, Burke and Caldwell.
To collect the gold from such a great ex-
tent of surface and such a vast golden
treasure will give a high degree of prosper
ity to the inhabitants of those counties, and
if wisely managed, many blessings to their
future generations.
DIR. Van Dyke will soon prepare for work
ing twenty hose pipes in the bottom of the
river below his present operation, where the
sandy alluvial surface will melt away be-
fore his pipes like snow before the summer
sun, and from the quantity of gold known
by the best of miners to be left in the mine
his calculation is to make easily five dollars
nett to the pipe, or hand, daily, making, in
the aggregate, one hundred dollars daily,
or, for the year of three hundred working
days, thirty thousand dollars at the nominal
expense of three thousand dollars--nett
profit, twenty-scven thousand.
Such results must attract the notice of
men of enterprise and capital to this kind
of mining, as the history of gold mining, the
world over, heretofore, has been looked up
on a business Of chance, or a mere lotte-
ry, but here, now, it is all gain and no loss,
because water power performs the work of
a multitude of laborers. Such an astonish-
ing feature in the affairs of mankind at this
stage of the go-ahead age that we live in,
will inspire the belief that this is provi-
dental arrangement, to make the gold now
lying useless upon the surface of the globe,
ultimately fill the chasm created by the en-
ormous expenditures in the present Euro
pean war, which, from the gig; ntic proper
lions it assumes in its infancy, must, if it
continues many years. vortex-ike engulph
all the precious metal now used in the COM
mercial transactions of the whole world.
X. p. WILLIS.
= The manufacturers who groan now
under the high wool duty, which, in fact
prohibits the manufacture of wooden cloth