The record-union., 1893-04-28


even an experiment in this direction,
and the journals retained by the Anti
Debris Association were harmlessly
declamatory in their denunciation of that
attempt.
But 10! all these things have changed.
A lion and lamb convention was held, in
which delegates from the mining and ag-
ricultural districts affected by the con-
troversy laid down together in peace be-
fore the proposition of attempting to re-
strain the detritus in the channels of the
streams before the debouchement into
the valley that hydraulic mining might
be resumed. This second experimental
undertaking has the additional value of
an assurance that the Government of the
United States will actually treat the chan
Congress containing some features look
ing to this very laudable undertaking
encourages the hope that this will be so.
We unhesitatingly joined in this con-
certed song of peace and good will. fully
believing that the very first experiments
will resolve all doubt of their practical
bility, and if failure attends them the
original status of the situation will be re-
stored.
But popular judgment, as already stated
in the beginning of this article, has
manifested the same phenomena wit
messed on other occasions. 1t is an old
aphorism that when wind blows in one
direction it all blows in that way, or ap-
pears to; and so when mining was the
paramount industry of the State all pub
lie sentiment seemed to drift in unison
with its interests, and later when by
draulic mining became an obvious nuis-
ance, inflicting greater injury than bene-
fit, popular opinion veered round, and
the wind of public thought blew from the
exactly opposite quarter; and then when
an experiment which would preserve the
valley and preserve the industry of hy-
draulic mining was undertaken, another
change was witnessed, and Legislature
was found willing to appropriate $250,000
from the State Treasury for that purpose.
So now a fourth era has dawned upon
US, and we are about to enter upon an
experiment which, when resolved into
its simplest terms, means that hydraulic
mining ic RI ha rasupnad. tGot tha ,ro1d
and earth are to be separated, and that
the earth in solution is to be started down
the valleys, and our reliance that it will
not bury the cities and valleys below is
that it will be retained by restraining
works in the foothills, or so mucn of it as
shall escape into the streams below shall
be carried on into the harbor of San
Francisco. When examined in this cool
and dispassionate way, when these prop
ositions are divested of their misleading
catch-words, there is no new light and no
new wisdom in this fourth era; it is SIM
ply an old proposition in new form.
The Caminetti bill provides that by
draulic mining shall be resumed if it can
be done without injury to anybody, and
to make this ''if'' good it provides that
the Government and the State shall build
restraining works to retain the detritus
in the mountains, and that if there is an
overflow of this detritus, or breakage of
dams which shall permit it to flow into
the channels of the rivers below, the
Government and the State will so treat
those channels that the detritus will be
forced to tide water at San Francisco.
The legislation has been accomplished,
and we shall cheerfully promote it's ex-
pertinent, because we are unwilling that
SO great an industry as hydraulic mining
shall be arrested without exhausting
every means known to science to make
its prosecution without injury to the val
ley practicable.
But when all that has been said and
done concerning this matter passes under
unprejudiced and unbiased review, we
are thrown back to the naked elemental
truth that if the detritus is sent down to
the rivers, it must either be passed into
San Francisco Bay or retained in their
channels; that if the vast quantities of de-
tritus in solution are placed in the streams
of the mountains, they will inflict injury
unless they are retained in the mount
aims by works, and the old question in its
old form with all its old directness of an
tagonism will be revived.
During the time when the controversy
between the mountain and the valleys
was burning issue and the blood was
hot, the late Emperor Norton l., EN-
peror of America and Mexico, who
reigned by virtue of cerebral impairment,
issued an imperial edict which read:
''The valleys shall be protected from
mining detritus but shall not prohibit
hydraulic mining. Hydraulic mining
shall be continued, but shall not infiict
injury upon the valleys" 1t is pathetic
reflection that the lunatic sovereign did
not live to see his imperial edict enacted
into law by the Congress of the United
States.
UNIVERSAL RELIGION.
There is to be held in Chicago, during
the Columbian Exhibition, religious