The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1897-09-01


formation of the rock is limestone, slate
and granite.
THE PAY STREAK.
Miners Must Build Fires to Thaw the
Frozen Ea-.n.
The first indication of the existence
Of gold is to be found in the bed Of the
streams. The way they go at it? A man
who has claim there digs hole where
he thinks it Will pay to locate it. He
sinks shaft, as they do inside line
and apex mines in the western country.
He sinks this shaft to bedrock, which
varies from 5 to II or 90 feet below the
surface Of the ground.
The ground is frozen to bedrock in
the winter and in the summer also. 1t
never thaws out. If he does not strike
pay dirt in that hole, be goes in a
straight Line across his claim and sinks
another hole 80 feet or 80 from the first
until he reaches bedrock. He does this
until be locates the pay streak Then
he starts in and drifts.
Drifting is, after yon get to your bed
rock and get your pay streak located,
building a frs along this pay streak
and thawing it ont, then hosting the
dirt cut with windlass and bucket.
The space is small that you have to
start on, but after you work around
awhile you make larger circle, 80 or
40 feet across, which you work around.
You fire it every night and then hoist
the dirt out. The wood is split up
very fine spruce woodland is laid
around Close up to the gravel along the
pay streak. Then it is fred in three or
four different places. Gravel heats
through very quickly. With one fire you
can loosen up and hoist as high as 125
buckets Of earth, about 1875 pounds to
the bucket.
Six Pans In . Bucket.
A bucket usually holds six pans Of
dirt, 30 pounds to the pan. This is
hoisted ont with the windlasa It is
piled up around the shaft ON the dump.
A man has to keep raising his shaft.
He WILL build his shaft first about four
feet above the surface and raise the dirt
until it is level with that.
Then be will add more to his curbing,
and 50 on until the shaft is sometimes
80 or 40 feet in depth. The stuff that is
dumped is left until spring opens and
there is running water in the creek.
Then he sets up his boxes and sluices
to wash out the gold. The operation Of
sluicing out ton Of this takes about 20
minutes, just as rapidly as four or five
men can shovel it in, all in a clatter.
That is washed through the sluices.
The boxes have ripples made out Of Q by
8 inch slabs laid about half an inch
apart, leaving crack between for the
gold to settle into. The rock, gravel and
other waste wash away.
The refuse goes down the creek and
is left to take care of itself. Gold and
the black sand remain. Black sand is
usually rich in gold, rusty gold. We
usually strike the pay streak near the
bedrock, and it varies in thickness, be-
ing sometimes 6 or feet wide.
There is no gold in the beds Of muck
and vegetation on top. You strike the
pay streak when you strike the gravel,
and the gravel is the last-one to eight
feet above ths bedrock. The gravel runs
down in the crevices Of the bedrock
sometimes.
This gold sinks down to bedrock level
from disintegrated quartz veins, string
ers, deposits, Iodes, veins, etc, all To-
cal, and is found in nuggets varying
from cent up to $3.50. They call mug
gets dust.
Gold In All the Streams.
All Of these tributary streams of tie
Yukon and Klondike contain gold, al
though not in paying quantities in some.
Have there been any conspicuous fail
ures to find gold in these streams? Yes.
There are whole lot. Ten Mile creek,
a tributary Of Sixty Mile creek, is a
failure, although practically the same
kind Of stream as the others. That is
40 miles from Dawson. You don't nat
urally hear 50 much Of the failures as
you do of the successes.
Boulder creek. tributary Of Sixty
Mile, was also a failure; Little Gold
creek, another tributary of Sixty Mile,
and several others; Indian creek, trib-
utary Of the Yukon, and Quartz creek,
a tributary Of Indian creek.
Dominion creek, tributary Of Indian
river, is the latest rich discovery, ac-
cording to reports see no reason why