Year: 1861




Our talk Of gold seeking would not be complete, Of
course, if we did not allude to hydraulic mining y
The inventor of this process is Mr. Edward Matteson
of Sterling Conn, and he first applied it in Nevada
in 1882 Astronomers tell us that there pits in
the moon, seventeen thousand feet deep; they say
Also that any object on the moon, two hundred and
Gfty feet high, may be detected by the most power.
full glasses now in II there are astronomers on
the moon with equally potent instruments, they will
be able to detect changes in the surface OF al
iiornia through the agency of ydraulc mining All
other methods Of dealing with the soil for gold are
zone horse concerns" compared with the hydraulic
process 1t is fast changing mountains on the face
Of the State into pits. Ii is, too an invention
which, to the end OF time, will defy all compettion
for tearing all beauty out of landscape and setting
up the determination of desolation" in its place
Connecticut Yankees have been supposed to possess
so little sentiment, taste for beauty that tbev
would not hesitate for profit "to whitte the cednrs
of Lebanon into clothes pns;n and perhaps IL is in
accordance with The eternal fitness of things that
process like hydraulic mining, which so thoroughly
blasts the beauty OF state and SO LARGELY anriches
its treasury, should issue from a Connecticut brsin
ct ought 10 be said in justice, here however that
Connecticut has more beautiful villages and tovns
and displays more taste in them, than anv State in
New England.)


Most of your readers know, undoubte1ly bov tha
tremendous hydraulic power is gained and applied
II is simply playing water through a pipe like fro
engine, upon the side OF hill, which contains gold
in its soil, and Is to be washed out through slnces
"a n
with such head" that stones a foot in diometer
when struck with it, are thrown up ten feet and
man. if fairly hit by it, might as well have haan
visited by six FOUNDER in full force such stream
three inches i'll diameter tears INTO a hill a. tboub
it a light heap OF powder; and often TO hasten
matters, the hos man directs its wrath at the base
Of wall Of earth, eats it out quickly and eees tho
whole upper works tumble in with a frightful crash
perhaps paying the penalty Of his bodness with
his life. The rivers are already percentibly affected
not only in color but in sediment by the wide m voge
which this leveling of the hills and choking of the
smaller streams in the upper country is producing
By and by the Sacramento may not be navigable
owing 10 the rapid emigration Of the interior hills IN
settle along its bed But long AS the process nays
the navigation interest may plead and warn in vain
1t is said that earth which yields only cents worth
OF gold to the pan, returns good profit TO the NV
draulic comp panies and that sometimes n thonsand
dollars day Is obtained out Of the mud tina. rushes
along single sluce. And-horrors there are
hundred millions of acres, from ten 10 two hundred
feet deep, that may be proftably torn up by these
water batteries.


men of what hydraulic mining docs 10 the landseape
II was a dozen that had been washed over and
had produced nearly five hundred thousand dollars
leaving the land useless for any other purpose and
plague spot to the eye. dozen acres of good
California land, thoroughly titled bv scientific ski
think it probable would produce more than the
interest ON the amount which hai been extracted bv
method that leaves the district a ruin forever If





as the price of gold. Let the quartz be tunneed and
pounded al ltbttum; let enterprise turn the noun
tain streams from their beds for time NO that the
bouders can be overturned, beneath and around
which the precious fakes have been settling for
ages; let the wretched looking and barren hills be
washed level with the plains, if they have gold TO
pay for the water and toll that slnughers them: but
If the hydraulic method is to be indefinitely used
whou restraint upon all the surface that win yield
good return. the California Of the future will be
waste, though demons had inverted the Creator
intention in i,a waste more repulsye than any de-
nounccu in prophecy az the doom upon a guilty
race.


One curiosity saw amid the destruction which
this hydraulic force had left in Nevada that WAS
very interesting II uncovered ledge Of gran
ite into which wOrkmen were driving piles as easily
as into dock mud At a little distance one cannot
trust his senses in seeing this But it was true The
granite soft as putty. IT seemed TO the eye
compact as any ledge in Quincy, but IL took the
impress of our feet easily, and could be hacked or
spaded out like dough. II is TO be hoped that the
whole State does not lie such basis. If So there
is danger Of a slump Of the gold region some day.
very large scale. The gentleman who il now con
Quoting the hydraulic business am speaking Of In
Nevada, soon recognized me old acquaintance.
He was BOstonian. lie did not seem TO think worse
Of me because my cellar had often been supplied
with coal from his wharf; aud did not think any
the Of him on learning that he had frequently
been Sunday visitor in church which hope
stands in Hollis street.


Another Of the pleasures with which my Nevada
visit crowded drive upon higher land
nine or ten miles away, to some Of the great
peaks Of the Sierra Nevada range The gentleman
who was kind enough to take me in his carriage was
the first inhabitant Of the village July l849, and
built the first ditch which offered its service TO the
miners. He had experienced all the hardShips and
changes Of fortune Of the mining life and does not
am glad to know ike many Of the noble pioneers
stand to-day in the shadow Of fortune A more ia.
structive and charming cOmpaniOnship for drive
IN that region would have been impossible Every
creek, and canon, and ''diyide, " he knew and had
his mining legend to tell in connection with it, Ey
cry peak, and ridge aud spur OF the mountains in
the landscape he could "lOcate, " and almost always
had some remniscense Of exploration TO detail


After we had assembled about thousand feet above
the town and thirtyhye hundred over the sea riding
in a buggy, with spirited horses, through forest
ennObled with pines, four and FIVE feet in diameter
aud two hundred feet high, We had views which re-
member clearly of Table Mountain, Sierra CO., fifty
miles from where we stood, which seemed through
that clear air not dozen miles away. Pilot Knob
too over Onion Valley rose, striped lawlessly with
glistenng white three thousand feet above US, and
seemingly near though quite distant. And grander
than these, the DOwnieVie Buttes, which seemed 20
heave precptous walls Of purple rock three thousand
feet from the plain, which was hacked into the most
energetic and barren jaggedness on the summit, and
packed in all the cFeyices with snow.


II was amusing enough TO hear tho names Of the
settlements my friend ratified them off In follow
ing with his eye and finger the OF the stream
"Alpha and Omega, blue Tent" Gopher Hill, +"
dutch Flat, "Issd Dog" As, to which We may