Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-03-04
tAdyertisemezt.I
THE DEBRIS QUESTION.


!
ions in resources of this state and those of the gold
mines of the same, in connection with considera-
ton of the Sacramento valley floods, levees, climate,
and various other subjects, in the following lecture
if am permitted to have sufficient strength given
NE to write enough to make lecture out Of;
which, counting on al natures resources now
known Tor relief, have at my advanced age but the
slightest hope for.
have been on the decline for about two years.
and have been reduced from les pounds to perfect
skeleton Of about 100 pounds and as helpless as
infant ever since the fore par! OF last October with
the exception OF the use OF my hands and arms and
a toierably clear brain. There is no part Of my
body at all pavalyzed, though my muscles liga
meuts and tendons have not strength enough for me
to turn myself without help and every one who
sees me considers me at the point OF DEATH with
! possible chance for recovery.
! My oaly possible way for writing is to fasten
my paper in bill holder and resting the
/ holder on my breast with my elbows the
| bed, with hands and pencil pointed up in the
air which IS very tiresome in my feeble and almost
dying state But l am willing to undergo almost
any torture to spread my IDEAS some OF which con-
! slider very important, before the world and espec
ally eur own State and nation, before l die.
Captain El5s principle OF securing out the
| beds of the rivers down TO where they were
IN 1Si9 and 1880 is correct ; but his idea
of furnishing clear water in sufficient guam
titles to produce that effect by building brush and
stone dams, the latter to burst and swamp the val
ley fifty or hundred years hence is incorrect 1t
isverJ true that clear water viii receive and carry
off double the quantity OF debris that roy water al
| ready half filled with debris receive and carry
off But We must not depend upon such small
potato means to accomplish such gigantic results.
| There is a principle existing in water that science
and experience have apparently never made plain
to man until now entirely within our CONTROL which,
with proper expense, management and care, can be
made out sill rivers the desired depth
in sir byra l.
| stop TO now. That expense, management and care,
is the constructing and keeping in lepafr leyees
with wide spread wings at proper grade where the
headwGter CLUTCHES or rills join the mountains, and
proceed with uniform incline on the Sacramento
and all tributaries until it strikes the point OF
twenty-f -four feet above our present lowwater mark
for city and valley, aud follow the level of the
uniform grade Of the valley to Steamboat slough,
which viii soon be secured out again, with sufficient
width and strength at top and base for the purpose
intended. This may appear at first to be an
pen-e impossible to be borne; but wait and hear
| me through, and perhaps mpossbilites will vanish
The main principe is simply the eompressiblity
| of water and the incompressiDility OF debris A
gallon of surface water is supp sed to weigh about
| y pounds But under i pressure of tweuty-four
feet where nearly three gallons compressed into
one, it may be supposed to weigh near % pounds.
and debris from the finest silt (sckens) to sand,
gravel, cohbles and of the lighter stones, even to
the size of q mans head, which would sink in
face water, will pop up Ike corks and float from
six to ten feet high under that depth of pressure
!
! from the mountains to the sea. And when the
rivers once thus secured out deep, clear water,
from the springs and SHOWS of the mountain regions
| except in some OF our heaviest rainy Seasons will
| forever be the result.
And who IS to build these levees, and repair the
damages to the farming and fruit interests, the
navigation Of the rivers, the arrest 10 its incpency
of the filing up and certain destruction OF our great
commercial harbOr, and restore the happy homes, az
they generally were, with few exceptions from 1850
to about two or three years after the close OF
the rebellion There few, such rs Mr..
Briggs and others about Marysville and some
! locations, that were heavily damaged before
that time, but nothing in comparison
with the scores and scores, in valley ard cities OF
formerly rich men, counting their wealth by tens to
| hundreds OF thousands who now the rack
suffering financial ruin, with hope for selves or
families before them but with the certainty of being
reduced to the mos. helpless poverty. From the
| time hydraulic mining was commenced or was used
in more than very few localities, say about 5S or
SO, to about the close Of the rebellion the hoows,
sinks, swamps, hedges, bitches, deep guehes,
ravine5 and canyons kept the debris back 80 that
| there was but little damage except in a few in
stances, as before related, until about that time
| But then as these natural dumping, grounds which
everyone as individual miners or companies were
permitted to use, became filed the cruel destruct.
! i've and criminal trespass upon the farmers fruit
growers, rivers, towns AID cities, commenced And
now to say that, because the helpless sufferers have
I been com eed TO permit them to continue their
criminal debris trespass many long years until
the trespassers have become rich and have expended
hundreds Of thousands upon their imaginary buried
millions, which seven-eights OF them have no more
than sIuatterTgbt to- gives them possess owner
ship and right to continue their criminal trespass
| forever, trampling under foot State and National
titles and ownerships by which every species Of prop
erty In tIe valley they are irespassiDg upon is gov
erned by, has more sense in 1t than to say that In
dian agents have possessory title to continue robbing
the Indians because they always have robbed them
I Aud also is going back TO the principle that
| Might makes right" and that nothi u but physical
| strength settle the controversy. And to argue
that hydraulic mining ought to be permitted to con-
| tnue, because it would throw so many debris tres
| passers out OF employment, may well be used by
the thousands Of stage robbers and train wreckers
for they are all trespasserS upon the world Tor
money, regardless OF consequences; and the debris
trespasser is sometimes the most heartess criminal.
He walks streets, tram9s up and down cur
leyees or takes trip in the seven bynine steamers
we are reduced to- and sails up and down the
rivers, and cannot help counting BY thousands the
unhappy victims that his debris system of trespass
ing is sending to discouraged poverty "a liberal pro-
portion TO the insane asylum and others to heart
broken suicide. But the stlge robber or train
Wreclng trespasser may not know but that his vic
tim may be millionaire, whose finances are not Sc.
riously affected by the trespass; while the debris
trespasser knows his victim, before said to pos.
tive certainty know that in law these tresplsses
kave different names, but in morality they are all
alike if they all alike result in poverty and misery
and all alike in criminaty upon any plane OF rea-
souing, ii they are all alike recklessy committed
without regard TO conseq 1ences.
To argue that the debris trespasser ought to be
permitted 70 continue his destructive process be.
cause he has expended money in buildings, engines
reservoirs and bitches, would be about like
arguing that the counterfeiter ought to be
permitted to continue his trespass because
he has expended money ia buildings, in under
ground rooms connected by secret dark passages
and private lodges, in dies and costly plates and
other necessary expenses for continuance. And to
claim that because few thousand dollars worth OF
land has been reclaimed by debris, notwithstanding
that tens o; millions worth Of other lands have been
MT hy ia suf IN
permit these trespassers to continue their reckless
and Grimm Al process, would be about sensible
to continue fifty thousand dollar defautiu2 clerk
In bank because he had been known to spend
few hundred dollars towards decorating caureh |
towards furnishing provisions for orphan asy-
lum or some other trifllng though genuine demon.
straton towards benevolent liberality. The plea
that the debris trespassers will lose largely ii they
are compelled to stop hydraulic mining now, in the
decay OF their works and fixtures, constructed for
continuance, cuts no figure in the at all. They
planted their batteries Tor trespass, and no amount
OF the most earnest peldings Of the suffering vic
tins could effect any change They now dis
MANTLE or let their batteries rot down they are
80 as seeneth to them good"
When the gold discovery in California was made
known in the United States, emigration commenced |
every one knows, with rush from ever State
and Territory to dig the gold, with the universal
intention of getting rich BIZ storm and all those who
never had but one idea stick the minirg idea
yet and Joined bV others that are blinded to equity
and every principle of equal rights, by interest in
INNING StgckS, calm lnat they came To Ullne Tor
gold in mining State, and that they will continue
il as their interests dictate though they destroy |
every other interest and the State itself. But 9TH
ers with more ideas than one. the me ritori
Gus features of agriculture and other interests in
their true light a few came from foreign Govern |
ments and carried their gold to their foreign homes
and it sometimes seemed that fully one-hah were |
foreigners but it a mistake. And the mistake |
arose from the fact that many thousands with for
eign brogues and idioms at first classed as Gill
zens of foreign nations; but when came to find |
where they emigrated from found that nearly all !
had been citizens OF the United States for years he
fore gold was discovered, and many had been our |
near neighbers there. As before said, emigration
commenced with rush from every State and Terri !
tory, and they all bravely toed through sickness
and every species Of privaton that the most vision
airy can imagine, until they had sent and carried |
home gold enough to quell the rebellion and reyou-
tionZe the entire commerce Of the world neither Of
which could ever have been accomplished without
the aid of California gold and American citizen min
(not foreigners who lugged theirs all home) TO
dig it, And il may be we'll right here to remember
that this gold all mined by citizens OF the sister
States before the farmers made scarcely any serious
complaints OF damage by hydraulic mining OF before
the reckless debris trespass had commenced. But
since about that time drift and other modes OF min
ing have been changed by the hundreds to the hV-
draulic process, foreigners have engaged
In mining here than formerly, and more foreign
captal has heen invested ard the reck1eaz dehris