Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1861-02-15
Hydraulic Mining in California.

From California letter in the Boston Tran
script, written by Rev. Starr King, we extract
the following curious description Of the singu-
lar application of water power as practiced in
the mining regions!
Our talk Of gold seeking would not be COM
plete, of course, if we did not allude to by.
draulic mining The inventor of this process
Is Mr.. Edward Matteson, of Sterling, Conn,
and he first applied it in Nevads. in 1852 As
trOnOmers tell US that there are pits in the
moon seventeen thousand feet deep; they say,
also, that any object on the moon two hundred
and fifty feet high, may be detected by the
most powerful glasses now in use. If there are
astronomers on the moon with equally potent
instruments, they will soon be able to detect
changes in the surface of California through
the agency of hydraulic mining. All other
methods of dealing with the soil for gold are
'one horse concerns compared with the hy-
draulic process. 1t is fast changing mountains
On the face of the State into pits 1t is, too, an
invention which, TO the end Of timey will defy
all competition for tearing all beauty out of
landscape, and setting up the 'abomination of
desOlatiOn' in its place.
Most of your readers know how the tre-
mendOus hydraulic power is gained and ap-
pied; 1t is simply playing water through
pipe ike hre engine upon the side of hill,
which contains gold in its soil, and is to be
washed out through sluices. But the water is
brought frem such hight, and with such
'head,' that stones foot in diameter when
struck with it, are thrown up ten feet and
man, if fairly hit by it, might as we'll have
been visited by six-pounder in full force.
Such stream, three inches in dismeter, tears
into hill as though it were a light heap of
powder, and often, to hasten matters, the hose
man directs Its wrath al the base of a wall of
earth, eats it out quickly, and sees the whole
upper work tumble in with a frightful
erssh-PerhaPs paying the penalty Of his
boldnesS with his life. The rivers are al
yeady perceptibly affected, not only in color
but in sediment, by the wide range which
this leveling of hills and choking of the
smaller streams in the upper country is pro-
ducing- By and by the Sacramento NAV not
he nayigsble, owing to the rapid emigration of
the interior bills to settle along its bed But
so long as the process pays, the navigation
interest may plead and warn in vain II is
said that earth which yields only a cents
worth OF gold to the pan, returns good profits
TO the hydraulic companies, and that some
times 81 GOO are obtained out of the mud that
runs along single sluice. And-horrors -
there are hundred million acres, from ten to
two hundred feet deep, that may be proftsbly
torn out and turn up by these water batteries
Il say, horrors . after seeing in Nevada a
specimen of what hydraulic mining does to the
landscapes 1t was a dozen acres that had
been washed over, and had produced nearly
S5OO,OOO, leaving the land useless for any other
purpose, and a plague spot to the eye.
dozen acres of good California land. thoroughly
titled by scientific skill, 1 think it probable
would produce more than the interest on the
amount which had been extracted by method
that leaves the district a ruin forever IL So
do not believe that the Creator intends such
ravage at the price of gold, Let the quartz be
tunneled and pounded al H6itHDi let enter
prise turn the mountain streams from their
beds for time so that the boulders can be
overturned, beneath and around which the
precious fakes have been settling for ages let
the wTetched-looking and barren hills be
washed level with the plains, if they have gold
to pay for the water and toll that slaughters
them; but If the hydraulic method is to be in
definitely used, without restraint, upon all the
SUFFICE that will yield good return, the Cali
fOrnia Of the future will be waste, as though
demons had inverted the Creators intention
IN it-a waste more repulsiye than any de-
nOunced in prophecy as the doom upon a
guilty race.
lone curiosity saw amid the destruction
which this hydraulic force had left in Nevada
that was very interesting. 1t was an uncoy-
cred ledge OF granite into which workmen were
driving piles as easily as into dock mud At a
little distance one cannot trust bis senses in
seeing this, But it was true The granite
was as soft as putty. Ii seemed to the eye as
compact as any ledge in Quincy, but il took
the impress of cur feet easily, and could be
hacked, Jr spaded out like dough. 1t is to be
hoped that the whole State does not lie on such
basis. If so, there is danger of slump of the
gold region, some day, on very large scale"