Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1907-08-09

with the work Of the dry washer. The
work of the white man is easily distin-
guishable from that Of the chula-
In places the bedrock has been ex-
posed for hundreds Of feet along the
bottom of the shallow gl'lch, the ce-
ment strata swept clean with a whist
broom. since pay dirt Is found mostly
at the bottom. This is the work of the
American. The Mexican seldom lays
bare more than a square yard and
from that, so the envious Gringo as
serts, he gets what he /, afttr
A still more simple and primitive
method of dry washing is indicated by
lirnumerable basin-like depressions
along the sides Of these gulches. From
each has been taken about bucketful
Of sand which is placed. a handful at
time, in an ordinary gold pan, rus
sia iron basin a little larger than the
ordinary tin wash basin.
This by a dexterous turn Of the
wrist, the Mexican throws into the air,
az the same time blowing through it.
AS it fails he tits the pan, allowing 1t
to run in a thin stream over the edge.
His bead-like eye is caught and sent
back to the foxtail Of black sand and
concentrates on the opposite edge of
the pan. In half an hour he Is solvent,
and the placer ground will know him
no more until a run of hard luck at
1, n ha or
to the bank nature has provided for
him.
1t is confidently asserted throughout
the southwest that the Mexican pos
sesses a sixth sense which enables
him to locate infallibly the pockets
which white men either miss altogeth-
er or only stumble upon by accident.
Men have carefully studied the nat
ural features of these spots, but are
unable to discover the indications
which point them out to the native. 1t
Is maddening to work ten days under
a blazing sun for a few dollars worth
of dust and nuggets, and then to see
a lazy Mexican walk directly to a spot
a few rods away. pan a bucketful of
dirt and slouch off after half an hours
work with $50 worth of the yellow
metal knotted up in his gaudy hand
kerchief.
But If the Mexican possesses this
sense, he Is careful not to abuse 1t.
He takes only enough for his immedi-
ate necessities, and has a lofty con-
tempt for the Americans ambition to
acquire riches. Nor will he locate
quartz vein II he happens to uncover
one.
BY an unwritten law these dry
placers above Yuma are free to all. No
one stakes a claim other than those To-
Gated by dredging companies, who af-
ter years Of disaster have not yet CIV
en- over the attempt to eat away the
banks Of the Colorado until they have
opened a passage in to the desert
Many rich discoveries of quartz lodes
have been made by dry washers and
some have been worked by the same
primitive method.
Now and then a rich stringer, vein
an inch or two wide, is found, which Is
not Of sufficient volume to pay for the
erection Of an arrastra, which is
crude quartz crusher operated by mule
power, or even by hand. The arrastra,
by the way, is precisely the sort OF
mill to which the Philistines harnessed
Samson, according to the familiar pic
ture by Dore. The discoverer then rigs
a spring pestle with which he pulver-
ICES the rotten quartZ-running the
powder through the dry washer.
Early in the 90's two young fellows
found such a stringer near the desert
ed camp of Ehrenburg. With pestle
and dry washer they managed to get
out several thousand dollars worth OF
dust but a good deal Of the rock was
too refractory to be worked in that
way, and this was sacked in the form
of specimens and concentrates. the
whole amounting to over $4,000.
They came down the river in a boat,
which was tipped over in three feet Of
water within q few miles Of Yuma by
big dog that accompanied the party,
and tried to climb aboard after being
pitched out for a swim. Not a cents
worth of the cargo was saved. The
bottom of the Colorado is a vast de-
posit of silt and quicksand. Dredgers
have sunk seventy feet in it above La
guna without touching bedrock.
The placer miners say the gold Of
the desert which the dry washer re-
covers in such minute quantities was
deposited by the river, the bed Of
which is liable to change materially in
few weeks. In the mile deep canyon
that is one Of the worlds wonders, a
ditch from five to fifteen miles wide
and hundreds of miles long, cut
through a highly mineralized region,
there must have been many rich lodes,
richer perhaps than any Of which the
world holds record. These, the action
of the water through countless ages,
has disintegrated and carried far down
toward the delta Of the great river in
| the form of dust and nuggets.
The Colorado is a natural flume. It's
bottom, deep under the silt where riffs
and ridges Of bedrock form milewide
rifles, is a treasure house whose riches
no man may estimate. But even the
opaque water is said to carry an aver
age of twenty-five cents worth Of gold
to the ton, held in solution or floating
On the surface.
Every miner knows that gold will
float, the flour gold whose particles
are so minute that only the avid grip
OF quicksilver may clutch and hold it.
Perhaps some day some Jernigan will
\ make good and wrest it from the broad
and shallow Colorado a treasure that
will complicate anew the relation of
the precious metals.
Meanwhile the chief source of pro-
duction, so far as these placer depos-
its are concerned. will continue to be
that legacy of the AZtecs, the dry
washer.