The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1859-11-03
NO.4l

IAN Oh tue IIRnI sPOt, OF (OetteT SUN pro-
jected through hose and pipe With the
force generated by heavy fall. The
former Of these methods is exhibited in
perfection at Nevada, the latter at North
San Juan, near the middle fork of tho
Yuba, streams at least three inches in d.
aueter, and probably containing twenty
measured inches Of water are directed "a
gainst the remaining half Of high hill,
which they strike with such force that
boulders of the size of canon balls are
started from their beds and hurled FIVE to
ten feet into the air. By this process.
one man will wash away bauk of earth
like a haystack sooner than bundred
men could do it By old fashioned sluicing
| believe earth yielding a bare cents
worth of gold to the pan may be pro6ta-
bly, washed BY this process, paying a rea.
sonable price for the water. As much
as Sl0O per day is pro6tably paid for the
water thrown through one pipe. The
stream thus thrown will knock a man as
lfeless as though it were a grspe-sbot--
As the bank, over a hundred feet high,
is undermining By the battery, it frequent
ly caves from the top downward. reaehing
aud burying the careless operator Three
men have thus been killed at San Juan
within the last mouth, until at length
greater caution is exercised, and the ope-
rator stands twice as far away as be for
merly did. Very long sluices-as long
as may be-conduct the discharged wa
ter away; and | am told that it is no mat
ter how thick with earth the water may
run, provided the sluce be long enough.
1t is of course so arranged as to present
rifles, creyices, &c, to arrest the gold at
first borne along by the turbid food [
believe there are companies operating by
this method whose gross receipts from a
single sluice have resched thausaud
dollars per day.
One Of the novelties Ito me) of this
region is the presence of soft granite
putty granite, if | may coin name for it.
Unlike most soft rocks, this seems not to
harden by exposure to the atnosphere.--
1t is found at various depths, and | know
10 way of accounting for it. 1t seems to
me that onefourth of the granite | saw
at the base of recent excavations appear
ed soft as cheese. Is not this peculiar to
California.
Mining is a necessary art, but it does
not tend to besutify the face of Nature.
On the contrary earth distorted into all
manner of ungainly heaps and ridges,
bills half torn or washed away, and the
residue left in as repulsive shape as can
we'll be conceived, roads intersected and
often turned to mire by ditches, water
courses torn up and gouged out, and riv-
ers, once pure as crystal, DOW dense and
opaque with pulverized rock-such is the
spectacle presented throughout the Mi
ming region. Not stream of any size is
allowed to escape the pollution even the
bountiful and naturally pure Sacramento
is yellow with it, and flows turbid and
uDinvitiDg to the Pacific The people of
this City have to drink it, nevertheless
Despite theintense heat and drouth always
prevalent at this season, the country is
full of springs, which are bright aDd clear
as need be; but wherever three or four of
these have joined to form little rilI, some
gold seeker is sharp oD their track, con-
verting them into liquid mud Californi-
8, In giving up her boarded wealth, sur
renders much OF ber beauty also.
Worse still is the general devastation
of Timber. The whole Mining region
appears to have been excellently timber
ed-so Duch of it as have traversed was
emineDtly so. Yellow, Pitch, and Sugar
(Wbite) Pine (and what is here called
Pitch Pine is large tall and graceful
tree), White, Black, and Live Oak, with
stately Cedars, once oversy read the whole
country, not densely as iD Eastern forests,
but With reasonable spaces between the
noble truuks-the Oaks often presenting
the general appearance of thrifty APP
pie Orchard, undergrown with grass aud
bushes. But timber is wanted for fumes,
for drifts or tunnels, for dwellings, for
running steam engines, and. as the land
has no ewner, verybody cuts and slash
es as if be cared for nobody but himself,
and no tiEe but to-day. Patriarehal
Oaks are cut down merely to convert
their limbs into fuel, leaving the trunks
" uOtAO iuSS dIc lDtS way
and that, merely to take log or two
from the butt for saving or splitting, lea
wing the residue cum berer of the ground;
trees fit for the Hoblest uses are q ade to
subserve the paltriest, merely because
they are handy, and it is nobody's busi-
ness to preserve them There was tim-
ber enough here ten years ago to satisfy
every legitimate need for century; yet
ten years more viii! not elapse before the
miners will be sending far up iuto the
mountains at heavy cost for logs that
might still have been abundant at their
doors had the timber of this region been
husbaDded as it ought Remou trance
were idle, but | must be permitted to de.
plore.
i devote the coming week to visit
to Col. Fremont snd lis works in Bear
' alley; and 10 trip to the famous cascade
10 the Yosemite Valley, with look at
the Big Trees of Mariposa (uot the big
gesst of all, are ID Calaveras) b. the way,