Daily national Democrat., 1858-11-10
Gold Bluff Quartz,

On Monday we paid a visit to the Gold
Bluff quartz mill, and, ciceroned by Messrs.
Forman, Cattermole and Flet cher, in their
respective departments, gratiied our curios
ity with a look through the mill, over the
grounds, and into the several tunnels and
branches from which the quartz is quarried
The mill is driven by water carried to the
over shot wheel in a fume. Has eight
stamps, which crush, on an average, nearly
a ton of quartz to the hour, while working.
Everything about the establishment looked
neat and strong, all the machinery worked
roundly and noiselessly, not a sound to be
heard from it but the ceaseless thump, thump.
of the broad-shod stamps coming down on
the broken rock. Unskilled as we are in ma
chinery lore, everything went so smoothly
that We We're not at all surprised on being
informed that this mill is not surpassed, for
efficiency, by any in the State.
After thorough examination of arrange
ments about the mill, Cattermole footed his
horn for a car, and when it was loaded our
party mounted the empty one at the mill,
and, piloted by Forman, had little the
steepest ride up that We ever enjoyed. The
double track lay up the hill on an incline of
about thirty degrees, a distance of thirteen
hundred and fifty feet, to the depot, where
the cars are loaded at the mouth of the tun-
mel. Here Capt. Fletcher took command of
the company, and, each equipped with a
lighted candle the squad of six started for
an exploration of the tunnel. This tunnel,
the one from which the company is now tax
ing rock, runs into the hill distance of be-
tween six aud seven hundred feet, and at the
inner extremity is one hundred and five feet
below the surface. The workmen are divi-
ded into some five parties, working by one
and twos, running under each other as they
get towards the inner end of the tunnel
Some four hundred feet in, we find a jump
ingof place, and, dropping into the little
snaft, there are two men, with candles stuck
against the wall, drilling for blast-work-
ing towards the face of the hill, whence we
came G DING thirty or forty feet further in
the main tunnel, on this new level, We come
to another dropping place, and at the bottom
find man with pick and shovel, working in
the same direction and under the men who
were drilling Another advance, another
Drop and men are running under this one
and so we find about five parties, undermin-
ing each other and taking out rich quartz
rock for the mill From the last of these
drifts, Mr. Fletcher took about pound OF
rock, which on being crushed prospected
about bit. The lead Of this company va
ries in width from FIVE to twenty feet; length
not known, and no bottom found. Twenty
eight men at work. A new tunnel is goin 9
on in another side of the hill, to tap the lead
still lower than the inner extremity of the
tunnel now worked Then the rock can be
taken out much more rapidly, and the mill
will probably be enlarged.
1t would be impossible to enumerate, in a
newspaper article, all or half of the interest
| ing features of this visit The mill is turn
ing out good pay; the lower and the further
the drifters get, the richer is the rock. The
company will clean up to day, and next week
we will give the figures of their last twenty
five days work.-Sierra Democrat, Sat.