Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-02-25
Interchtfng Account Of Hydraulic DIinins
d In Cnlifornfa .-.r.. ia

u .f.-...5 -t In California. fa -'ar p"
From a California letter in the Boston
Transcript, written by Rev. Thomas Starr
King, we extract the following curious de.
scription of the singular 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 "hy-
draulic miningP The inventor of this pro,
cess is Mr. Edward Matteson, of Sterling,
Conn, and he first applied it in Nevada, in
1852 Astronomers tell us that there are
pits in the moon 1900 feet deep they say,
also, that any object on the moon $50 feet
high, may be detected by the most powerful
glasses now in use. i.
If there are astronomers on the moon with
equally potent instruments, they will soon
be able to detect changes iu 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 hydraulic process. 1t is
fast changing mountains on the face of the
State into pits. 1t is, too, an invention
which, TO the end of time, will defy all com-
petition for tearing all beauty out of land
scape, and setting up the 'iabomination of
desolation" in its place. ...-..l.-
Most OF your readers know how the tre-
mendous hydraulic power is gained and ap-
Piled. 1t is simply playing water through
pipe like fire engine upOn the side of a
bill, which contains gold in its soil, aud is to
be washed out through sluices. But the
water is brought from such hight, and
with such "head, that stones a foot in
diameter, when struck with it, are thrown
up ten feet and Nan, if fairly hit by it,
might as well have been visited by six
FOUNDER in force .- .-.- .
Such a stream, three inches in diameter,
tears into hill as though it were a light
heap of powder, and often, to hasten matters,
the hoseman directs its wrath at the base of
a wall OF earth, eats it out quickly, and sees
the whole upper work tumble in with a
frightful crash-perhaps paying the penalty
of his boldness with his life The rivers are
already pereeptibly 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
producing. -...
BY and by the Sacramento may not be
navigable, owing to the rapid emigration of
the interior hills to settle along its bed. But
so long as the process pays, the navigation
interest may plead and warn in vain. 1t is
said that earth which yields only cents
worth of god TO the pan, returns good
profits to the hydraulic companies, aud that
sometimes 81, 900 are obtained out of the mud
that runs along siugle sluice And--bor-7
rors There are 100, 100000 acres, from ten
HECuaOlY
torn out and torn up by these water batter
les.
| gay, "horrors p after seeing in Nevada
specimen of what hydraulic mining does to
the landscapes. 1t was a d. zen acres that
had been washed over, and had produced
nearly $500, 900, leaving the Iaud useless for
any other purpose, and plague spot TO the
eye. A dozen acres of good California land,
thoroughly titled by scientific skill think Ii
N Tndn fhaa No -
terest on the amount which had been ex-
tracted by method that leaves the district
a ruin forever. II so, | do not believe that
the Creator intends such ravage at the price
of pold. Let the quartz be tunneed and
pounded Gd Abitttm let enterprise turn the
H.IDopn ain streams fIom their beds TOR a time,
30 that the bow ders can be overt1saed, be-
meath and around which the precious h4kes
have been settling for ages let the wretched-
loak ing and barr en- hills be washed level with
plains, if they have gold TO pay for the water
and toll that saugbters them but if the hy.
draulic n ethod is to be indefin tely used,
without estraint, upon all the surface that
will yield a good return, the California of
the future will be waste, as though demons
had inverted the Creators inteutiou in it.
waste moIe repulsive than any denounced
in prophesy as the doom upou guilty race.
One curiosity | saw amid the destruction
which this by draulic force had eft in Nevada
that w5s very interesting. 1t was an uncoy-
cred ledge of granite into which workmen
were driving ii es as easily as dock mud. AT
little distance one can not trust his senses
. in seeing this. But it was true. The gran
lite YVES as soft as putty. It seemed to the
eye as compact as any ledge in Quincy, but
it took the impress Of our feet easily, and
could be$hacked, or 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.