The Weekly Arizonian., 1870-03-05
Mark Twain on Minig.
From the Bu ifalo Express.

In one little corner of California is found 2 species of mining which is seldom or never mentioned in print It is called "pccket min inE," and am not aware that any of it Is done outside of that little corner. The gold is not evenly distributed through the surface dirt. as in ordinary placer mines, but is collected in i;tle spots, and they are very far apart and exceedingly hard to find, but when you do fnd ono you reap rich and sudden harvest There are now more than twenty pocket miners in that little region. l think know every oneof them personally. Ihsye known one cf them 10 hunt atisnjly a5out ;he hiii sides every day for eight months without finding gold enough to make snuff box-his grocery bill running np rslentessy al the tins-and then l have seen him find pocket and take out of it :. thousand dollars in two dips of his shovel. | have ssen him take out 8 000 in two hours, and go anc pay up every cent cc his ind abte edness, then enter on a dazzling spree that finished the last ot his treasure before the night WAS goue. And the next day he bought his groceries oa credit as usual, and shoudered his pan and shovel and went of to the hills hunting sockets az ain, happy and content This is the most fascinating of all the different kinds oi mining, and furnishes handsome percentage of vic sms to the lunatic asylum. Honest toll and moderate gains in shops and on farms have their virtues and their advantages. When a man consenta 10 seek for sudden riches he dses t Ut his peril. (No charge)
 Pocket hunting is aa ingenious process You take spadefui of earl D from the hillside and put it n large pan, dissolve and wash is gradually away until nothing is left but tea spoonful of fine 30 lm3nt Wnatsger gold was in the earth has ;smSibed, because, being the heaviest, 1t has sought tue bottom. Among ths sediment you will find half dozen shining par- ticles no larger than pin heads. You are de- ishted. Ton move od to one side and wash another pan. If you ind gold again, you move to one side further, ana wash third pau Ii you find DO gold this time you are delighted again, because you know you are on the right scent. You lay an imaginary par, shaped ike a fan, with it's handle uy tne hiii-for just where the end of the handle is, you argue that the rich deposit lies hidden whose vagrant graius of gold have escaped aud washed down tne hil spreading farther and farther apart as they wandered.
 And 50 you proceed up The hill, washing the earth and narrowing your lines every time the absence of gold in the pan shows tAat you are outside the presd of the fan; and at last, twenty yards up the hill your lines have con- verged to point-a single foot from the point you caunot find any gold, Your breath comes short and quick You are feverish with ex- citement the dinner bell may ring it's clapper of, you pay no attention friends may die, we Id ngs transpire, houses bura down, they are nothing to you; you sweat and dig and delve with frantic interest and all at once you strike it up comes a spadetull of earth and quartz that is all lovely with solid Jumps, and leaves and sprays of gold. Sometimes that one spadefu is all-s5OO Sometimes the nest contains Sl0,00O, and it takes you three CT four days to get t all out. The pocket mir. CTS tell of one nest that yielded $o0, 900, and two men exhausted il in two weeks. and then sold the ground for ten thousand dollars to party who never got $805 out of it sfterward.
 The hogs are good pocket hunters. All the summer they root around bushes aud turn up 8 thousand little piles of dirt, and then the
 mine,s long for rain, For the rains heat upon
 thsse little piles and wash them down, and ex-
 pose the gold probably right over g pocket.
 Tro pockets were found in this way by the same
 man in one day. One had 5,0eO in it, and the
 othc' S8 900. That man could app eciate 1t
 for he hadn't had cent for year.