The record-union., 1896-03-07
THE RIVERS AND THE MINERS.

Repeated attempts have been made
to harmonize the differences between
the hydraulic miners and the owners of
lands to be injured by the precipitation
of hydraulic mining debris in the val
leys. Every such attempt is based on
the platitudinous and silly statement
that the parties making it are ''in favor
of hydraulic mining, if that industry
can be prosecuted without injury to the
Valleys When man says this he IS
simply giving utterance to foolishness.
It is about the equivalent of saying that
a man is in favor of betting if both
parties to the wager can win. When
Mr.. Estee was a candidate for Governor
he made use of this very meaningless
expression in his speech at Nevada
City. and when he had completed his
saying he had used breath to no pur-
pose whatever. We have no patience
with the jibbering magpie who says
that he is in favor of hydraulic mining
"if it can be prosecuted without sending
Ta1lln2S QOWn Tie SllCdiA4S'
There are considerations which rise
above all personality. They lay hold
of the most sacred rights of men, and
this mining question is one of them.
If we are not misinformed, the most
recent attempt to have everybody join
enthusiastically in the passage of GER
tain measures demanded by the miners
and consented to by the farmers has
failed. We are now informed by what
we must accept as a perfectly reliable
source that the miners have not Kept
faith: that they have not assisted in
the passage of a bill appropriating
money for the improvement of the riV-
ers.
The San Francisco Chronicle, in
dispatch from washington recently,
stated that the bill for the classified
ton of mineral lands had passed the
House of Representatives, and that
now the representatives of the state
Miners Association in Washington pro-
posed at once to move upon the works
of Congress and secure an appropria-
tion of S1,O50,000 for the construction
of stone dams in the mountain streams,
$50 that hydraulic mining could be pro-
ceeded with without interruption. In
this latter phrase we quote verbatim
the dispatch. When the measure was
proposed it came in the guise OF a Dill
to restrain the tailings already in the
streams. We have not the least par
ticle of faith that the tailings already
in the streams can be restrained by an
expenditure of S5,000,000, nor $1,000
600. There is a vast amount of horse
play in this matter with which we are
thoroughly sick and tired. The great
dam constructed in the American River
at Folsom is built UP ninety feet from
bed rock and it filed up to level with
the top in six months.
The Parks dams constructed in the
Yuba. River were obstructions thrown
across the river at a place creating an
impounding dam mile and a half in
width and some two or three miles up
the stream. 1t filed up in one freshet.
When it broke. as it did at intervals,
it left the intervening works still stand
ing with piles of debris behind them as
high as the brush dams.
There appears to be a check to the
whole proceeding. The appropriation
Of million and fifty thousand for re-
straining dams does not appear to be
forthcoming, and dissensions appear to
be creeping into the councils of all the
parties. We are disposed to regard this
attended every attempt on the part of
the miners and the farmers to reconcile
this irrepressible conflict. And we have
about reached the conclusion that there
is no compromise ground. If there is
e compromise ground we call upon those
who are able to set it forth with clear
ness to do so and at once.
We have not opposed the appropria-
ton of s., ,050,000 for the construction
of dams TO hold back the debris now in
the rivers put there by hydraulic min
ing, but when we are informed that the
object of their construction is to have
hydraulic mining proceed without in
terruption, it is disclosed at once that
the miners themselves are either self
deceived or are being deceived by mis-
leading promises. If hydraulic mining
is to be proceeded with then the neces-
sity for continued appropriation of
money for the construction of dams
must keep pace with it It is simply
boyish folly to talk about constructing
works now with capacity equal to the
annual fow Of hydraulic mining debris