Clarksville evening chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn) 1886-1890, 1888-10-08
CALIFORNIA; GOLD.
HOW THE MINERS swEAreD AND
DIED FOR IT 10000.

sands Who Len the States Fun Of Elk
pectancy-Pienty Of Gold Len-Indi-
cations fmy or q
Taken from 1850 10 1850 che great majority
OF diggers did not, in my belief, average 81
per day for their work and time. There
was often so much time used up before the
actual gold bearing earth could be worked
or washed Men worked one, two, and some
times three years in digging bitches to get
water on their claima Water is almost as
necessary for gold workings as Is air for
human breathing. bitches had 70 be dug
Canals would be the more appropriate namel
over 100 miles in length to tap the snow fed
streams N the highest Sierras Digging up
there in places was Of no avail There was
little to dig in, and the water was In places
brought IN immense fumes, bolted 10 the
sides Of precipices 200-feet from the valley
below. In river mining years were some
times spent in blasting races througha quar-
ter OF q mile Of finty rock, and then, when
the river bed was finally laid bare, little gold
was found. In river mining certainly one
claim out Of three proved total failure. On
dry, upland surface diggings men spent
years waiting for WATER" that Is, waiting
either for the promised ditch to be com
pleted, or waiting fos the winter rains. How
did they liyel Perhaps by packing buckets
OF dirt half q mile to the nearest creek or
river and there washing it. Or by ''rocking
OUT dollar or two a day from the oft
turned over gravel on some rivers banks.
And miserable, squalid life it was for thou
sands who had ocsne out from the states full
Of the expectancy ~ returning home In five
years at least with "pile,n and marry the
girl left behind.
a But they stayed ten and fifteen and twenty
years in cabins which here would not be
deemed fit for stables, cooking for them
selves, washing for themselves, forgetting
what it was to sleep in clean sheets or any
other kind; living on tough beef, beans and
bacon, working like packhorses summer and
winter; getting yearly moro gray and
grizzled and angular; looking year after
year on the sams gloomy, sterile, chaparral
covered hillside, their only recreation the
Sunday trip to the nearest store or camp for
their provisions, where they might or might
not, but generally did, wind up with more
or less Of drunk aad then for two, three
or five miles over hill and down gulch
trudge home again. Little wonder they got
drunk 1t was the only method Of getting
temporary relief from a lifetime of blasted
hopes-the only salve to apply to the old
longing for their eastern homes. These were
the men whose eastern relatives sometimes
Wrought strangely Of because they did not
make or send home money. Most Of them
now are buried and enriching the soil they
dug in. Many Of them are in nameless and
unknown rraves. Many went insane. Some
times orc was left, the only resident ION the
Bar" Then it would be reported that Smith
was acting queerly, and Smiths next transi-
tion would BIO to the county hospital and
from thence to one OF CALIFORNIA; two insane
asylums.
Is there much gold yet in California;
Lots of it, Lots of it, though, where you
must PIT dollar and half in to get one
dollar out. Lots of it in places where, after
you dig n certain depth, you meet too much
rock to blast and hoist out and water to
pump out Like Springfield Flat in
Tuo1u'nne county-a geological curiosity
plain mile square, out Of which all the
red pay dirt has in former years been taken
to depth Of ten or twelve feet, leaving ex-
posed great knobs md ridges Of reddish rock,
Awashed and worn by some great water power
Entold ages ago i0to fantastic shapes These
arc all really loose powders from the size OF
a small church down. They are of marble
Break OFF piece and the fracture under the
yellowish rcd of the outsideis as white us loaf
sugar. Rich gold, and plenty of it, has been
taken from Springfield Flat. 1t wns worth
nearly SO per ounce. when Tuolumne River
gold brought but ST. But Springfield Flat
could never be bottomed on account of the
enormous powders so strangely piled in
there and the water beside, though the mug
gets grew bigger as they worked down into
the crevicos 1t is on the 'bowlder range"
This Is o remarkable underground geological
freak, running many miles in southern Cali
fornia, of great powders similarly piled on
each other, and in places, as at Vallecto,
where shafts woro sunk in it, the bottoms
have tumbled out and revealed subterranean
streams running underneath
There arc ranges of low hills bordering the
San Joaquin valley in MERGED, Stanislaus
Wand adjoining counties where small "pros-
pectsn of gold may he obtained There are
miles of these "washod gravel" mounds. But
save In rainy weather, when the water comes
right down on tho spot where you want to
use it, there is little working these placers to
any profit. What with digging and carting
the dirt half milo or more to the river and
there washing it, and possibly being under
the necessity of pudding" it before you can
wash it, there is moro than dollar spent in
getting dollar out Yet gold lies in those
bills--lots of it, could you get it out in a
lump. And there is many another deposit
locked up in CALIFORNIA; hills and mountains
which time may reveal, but to look for it
now is to look for the needle in an acre of
haystacks.
This sido OF tho "Rockies" has never been
'iprospcct6d" for gold so thoroughly as the
other. There nine-tenths of the first settlers
have been miners more or less Whatever
their occupation, they have kept an eye open
f.sr "surface indications" and pick and pan
Mahdy<to test gravel for gold whenever they
had leisure and water to wash it. AS q re-
suit, from Cariboo to Mexico scarce a Culch
exists that white man has visited but that
has felt the good seeking miners pick. On
this side, and especially at the extreme east,
an idea prevails that because it is an older
settled country it can have no unknown min
eral deposits. Few people here know how to
prospect or wash pan Of dirt Gold dust
may be in your door yard for ages and give
no sign of its presence, and many people
wouldn't know what it was il it did.-Pren-
tirn Milford In New York Star