LVI.

GOLD MINING.

VARIOUS WAYS OF MINING GOLD.—SLUICING AND HYDRAULIC MINING.—ACCIDENT TO A MINER.—A NARROW ESCAPE.—POWER OF WATER IN HYDRAULIC MINING.—EFFECT ON RIVERS AND BAYS.—A SCENE OF DESOLATION.—QUARTZ MINING.—QUICKSILVER AND ITS AMALGAM.—STOCK OPERATIONS.—THE MARIPOSA MINES.—THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.—HAYWARD’S MINE.—MANIPULATION OF MARIPOSA.—FUNNY STORY OF A SEA CAPTAIN.—HOW HE SUPERINTENDED A MINE.—HIS MANAGEMENT OF A MILL.—ACCIDENTS ON PURPOSE, AND HASTY FLIGHT.

Underground work in gold mining does not properly begin with the surface washings. It is true the earth is torn out, and large excavations are made; but they are all done by the light of day, and where the open air circulates through them. As heretofore stated, the primitive form of gold-digging is with the pan and the rocker. After the rocker, there are several forms of sluicing, or washing away of the earth. The ordinary construction of a sluice is a long box, with a current of water running through it. The earth is thrown into the sluice, washed towards its lower end, and carried away by the water. The stones, of various sizes, are thrown out with a shovel or fork; the gold and black sand fall by their weight, and are caught in the riffles, or cleats, nailed across the bottom of the sluice. Earth which will not pay for working with the pan or rocker can be made profitable in this mode of operation, for the reason that one man or two men can wash with the sluice many times the quantity of earth that they could work with the primitive process.

Another form of sluice, known as “Long Tom,” is generally elevated upon posts, a foot or two above the ground. At its upper end there is a covering of sheet iron, very much like that which covers the rocker. Another system of surfacemining is that which is known as hydraulic mining, and by means of it, earth that will not pay for washing in any other way can be worked to advantage. By this process the miners will tear down large banks and hills, and wash them entirely away. The process was invented in 1852, by Edward Mattison, a native of Connecticut, and introduced by him to great advantage. The water is conducted through iron tubes, terminating in a flexible hose with a nozzle like that of a fire engine. The “head” of the water must be many feet higher than the place where it emerges from the hose, so as to give an enormous pressure.

Equipped in this way the miner washes away the base of the bank. In a little while the upper part falls, and as the gravelly ground is composed of pebbles, and is naturally rather loosely consolidated, large masses of the hill come down with a violent crash. The greatest danger to life in this kind of mining is in the falls of the earth.

INVENTION OF HYDRAULIC MINING.

I was once at a place near Grass Valley, California, where they were at work by means of hydraulic mining. A large cavity had been cut away under the base of the hill with the streams of water. Every moment the hill was expected to fall, but somehow it seemed to retain its position. One of the men incautiously ventured near it, and just as he had done so, the earth fell, and the man was partially buried beneath it. He screamed loudly with pain. His companions rushed forward to relieve him, when another mass of earth fell, partially burying two of those who had come to his rescue. Other men went to their assistance, and in a little while the three were extricated.

The first man had his leg broken, and one foot badly crushed. The other two were severely bruised, and the foot of one of them was permanently injured. It frequently happens that in this way men are killed or injured partially through want of caution, and partially owing to the dangers inseparably connected with hydraulic mining.

The force of water thrown in this way, with an enormous pressure, is almost wonderful. The solid earth is cut and tornaway, and sometimes stones weighing several pounds are tossed into the air. The particles of earth fly in all directions. The water rebounds sometimes, and in a little while the men who manage the hose are thoroughly drenched. On a level surface a stream of water directed upon the solid earth at an angle of twelve or thirteen degrees, will cut a trench or furrow with the rapidity of a plough. When the earth falls, the largest blocks are broken up with the pick or with the streams of water, and thedébrisis thrown into a large channel, or flume, at the basis of the hill where the work is going on. The flume has riffles at its bottom, and many turnings, so that the gold may be saved. The stream of water carries away the earth, and leaves the gold behind.

DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM.

There is no system of mining more destructive than this. Hills are cut away, and sometimes, for many acres, the rock is laid bare. The whole scene is one of desolation. The earth that is washed down fills the channels of rivers, and is sometimes carried a long distance. Before California was opened for gold mining, the water of her streams was perfectly clear; but since the beginning of mining the streams have lost their pellucid character, and the discolored water extends to the Bay of San Francisco, and sometimes out to sea. The lower part of the Sacramento River has been partially filled up, and there are parts of the great bay which are now much shallower than of old.

As the surface diggings of California showed signs of exhaustion, attention was given to mining in quartz rock. In the ledges of the mountain-sides veins were discovered rich in gold, and pieces of the rock taken from these veins gave promise of profitable working.

MINERS PROSPECTING.

The man with pick, and pan, and rocker required but little capital for the prosecution of his enterprise; but mining in the quartz rock requires money to conduct it. Shafts must be sunk, and levels must be driven; the ore must be raised to the surface, the rock must be pulverized, and the gold extracted; and the machinery to accomplish this is more or less elaborate, and always costly. The mines are worked in thesame way as other underground mines. The shafts, the levels, the tunnels, are the same; but after the ore is raised, there is a great expense attending its reduction. The rock must be broken, and placed in pulverizing machines, and after it is crushed, whether by rollers or stamps, the gold must be separated.

CATCHING GOLD WITH QUICKSILVER.

The water which carries away the gold is made to flow where it comes in contact with quicksilver placed along a series of riffles. In many instances blankets are spread, over which the water flows; and as the gold comes in contact with the rough surface of these blankets, it is caught and held.

Some of the gold miners in California invented a table of amalgamated copper, on which quicksilver was spread, and the ore coming in contact with it was stopped.

There are other inventions for the same purpose. In one the pulverized ore is agitated in a bath of quicksilver, and in another an inclined trough is divided into compartments filled with quicksilver, in which a series of forks have an oscillating movement, to bring the sands in contact with the fluid metal as they flow through the troughs. Sometimes sheep-skins are used inside of blankets, so that the golden fleece can be considered an affair of modern times, as well as of the earliest days of ship-building.

In working the placer mines by the hydraulic process, the miner can manage with profit the dirt which contains only a millionth part of gold.

In the quartz mining, the proportion of gold ought naturally to be greater, since it is necessary to execute all the work, which is partly done at the placers by nature; that is, to dig, transport, pulverize, enrich the ore, and finally amalgamate it.

In California the quartz ores of least hardness cannot be worked profitably when they yield less than five dollars’ worth of gold to the ton, or about one hundred thousandth proportion. Quicksilver is mainly employed in the auriferous quartz ores. When the gold of the placer is very fine, and invisible to the eye, or the work is done by means of long channels, riffles filled with quicksilver are placed in the bed of the stream,which detain all the gold in its passage, no matter how small the particles. The scales of gold which come in contact with this fluid are instantly caught up, and no process has yet been invented which can supersede that of quicksilver.

SUGAR CANDY OF A GOLD MINE.

The amalgam obtained in this way is generally liquid, but it is allowed to take up sufficient gold to give it the consistency of paste. It is passed through a chamois-skin folded into a bag, and twisted like a piece of wet linen. The quicksilver, being separated from the gold, passes through the pores of the skin in the form of silver drops, and is caught in a basin beneath. The gold must now be separated from the paste, and the amalgam left behind resembles a ball of tin. Quicksilver dissolves gold just as water dissolves sugar, but the quicksilver can be driven away in vapor, and the gold will remain. The amalgam can be made to give up its gold in the same way that a solution of sugar and water can be made to yield sugar candy. In this way gold may be considered the sugar candy of the miner.

The balls of amalgam are placed in an iron retort, which is heated in a furnace. At a high temperature the quicksilver boils, and ascends in the form of vapor towards the neck of the apparatus. The neck of the retort opens into a tub of water, which condenses the vaporized quicksilver, and causes it to fall to the bottom.

When the operation is concluded, the quicksilver is at the bottom of the tub, and the ball of gold is in the retort. With the quicksilver driven out, the gold has a porous and spongy appearance. It is remelted in crucibles, and then cast into bars. If the operation is properly conducted, hardly any of the quicksilver will be lost. I have known instances where miners have used a quantity of quicksilver twenty or thirty times over, with hardly any appreciable diminution of its weight.

A great many quartz mines have been opened in California, Colorado, and other portions of America. Some of them have returned much less money to their stockholders than to the men who organized the companies. During the height of themining fever, it was comparatively easy to organize a company, where a man had any reasonable supposition that a mine existed. All through California quartz mines were opened, but those which have paid a profit to the operators could almost be counted on the fingers’ ends. The most profitable centre of quartz mining is in the vicinity of Grass Valley, a short distance from the line of the Central Pacific Railway. Most of the mines opened there have been profitable, though there are some which never made any money.

The richest and most famous of the Californian quartz mines is the one known as Hayward’s. Its early history was one of disaster, but for several years it has been paying a steady and handsome profit to its owner. I remember, on my arrival in San Francisco, a resident of that city told me of Hayward’s case.

“Hayward,” said he, “used to have a hard time of it, but now he takes things easy. He spends most of his time in San Francisco, and once in every fortnight he goes up to the mill, and orders them to ‘clean up.’ They clean up; the gold is retorted, and he brings it down here. He has a clear income of ten or twelve thousand dollars a week from the mine, and appears to enjoy himself.”

STORY OF MARIPOSA.

Probably the most famous mines of California, and those which have swallowed up the most money, are the Mariposa. Mariposa is a Spanish word, meaning “butterfly;” and there never was a more gaudy butterfly, to catch the eye of a speculating public, than the Mariposa of California. General Fremont obtained a grant of land on which the mines are located, and he organized a stock company, which was expected to return an enormous revenue; somehow the golden promise did not turn out brilliantly, and those who invested became heavy losers.

Mariposa went down, and carried with it a great many confiding men. By and by it came up again, and a new speculation was started. More money was invested, with pretty nearly the same result as before; and so it has gone on up to the present time; and once in a while there is a speculationin Mariposa. Somebody wins a great deal of money, and somebody loses a great deal.

VISITING THE MARIPOSA MINE.

My only visit to the Mariposa mines convinced me that they are good things to make money out of, provided they could be operated to a great profit. There were five large mines on the Mariposa grant. Only one of them was at work, and at this one the superintendent politely refused to allow us an opportunity for inspection. He said they were taking out a fair amount of gold, but he thought their amalgamating process was not perfect; and consequently the shareholders could not expect a large dividend. It is possible he would have granted us permission to descend into the mine; but as two men had been killed recently in one of the tunnels, and a man, not long before, had fallen down the shaft, we concluded it was altogether too good a place for accidents, and one that we did not care to inspect.

A SEA CAPTAIN AS A MINER.

The ways of the quartz miners—that is to say, of the owners of the mines—are something wonderful. Thousands of mines have been managed by men no more competent to superintend mining than to construct a new solar system. Some years ago I made the acquaintance of a sea captain who had retired from the service, and concluded to go into business. He had begun life as a cabin boy, having run away to sea. He next sailed before the mast, and had gone through all the grades, until he was qualified to be master of a ship. He had a brother-in-law who was a director in a mining company, and the directors, in their infinite wisdom, concluded that this retired sea captain, whose sands of life had not altogether run out, would make an excellent mining superintendent, as he was good for nothing else.

MINERS AROUND THEIR CAMP-FIRE.

On what reasoning they based their determination I do not know. He had never seen a mine in all his life, and could not tell the difference between a piece of granite and a fragment of gold-bearing quartz. I met him one day, and he told me he was to start on the following morning for the scene of operations, where he would take charge of a mine. I lost sight of him for several months, but one day met him onBroadway, looking as if he had just been sentenced to the penitentiary. I asked how his mining speculation was getting along, and he begged me not to talk about it.

“I told them,” said he, “that I did not know anything about mining; but they shipped me out there, and told me to manage the craft the best way I could, and they knew I would get along all right. When I got there, a shaft had been made twenty or thirty feet down, and the mill was nearly completed. I was determined not to let on to the men there that I did not know all about the business, and when the man in charge of the works came to me, I told him to go ahead,—that he was doing everything all right. I hurried the mill up, and, as it was approaching completion, I went to the mouth of the shaft, looked at several heaps of rocks, pointed out one, and told them to crush that first. I saw the fellows sticking their quids in their larboard jaws, and supposed that it indicated that I knew what I was about.

“We went to work, and run the mill for a week, and the foreman asked me if he had not better clean up. I told him I did not think the mill looked very dirty, and guessed I would not clean up for a while. Fact is, I did not know what cleaning up meant. I visited a neighboring mine, got acquainted with the superintendent, who knew just about as much of the business as I did, and precious little more; but from him I found out what it was to ‘clean up.’

“I thought I would let the mill run another week, and so I did. Then we cleaned up, and there was not a particle of gold to be found. I told the foreman he had not arranged things properly; that the quicksilver ought to be on the other side of the riffle, so as to catch the gold when it fell over. I bought blankets, and sheep-skins, and everything else, but could not accomplish anything.

“I used to go down in the mine occasionally, and somehow, every time I went there, there was always an accident—not a serious one, to be sure; but they would dump me out of the bucket, or run against me, or turn a hose on me by accident, or do something. I was getting into trouble every day, butit never happened in such a way that I could accuse anybody. The country was not fit for a dog to live in, and I soon got tired of it.

“The company got tired of it too, and I kept writing such discouraging letters, and, besides, the sheriff came on me, and seized everything; so that they finally told me to come home. I left the place suddenly, took the stage coach, and started east.

“I had a back seat in the coach, and right in front of me were two men who were talking about the mines. They spoke of various things that did not interest me much, but finally one of them referred to the Ready Return Mine, which was the one I had been running.

TRICKS ON A GREENHORN.

“One of these fellows laughed, and said, ‘I wish we had gone to see the Ready Return Mine. Jim Jackson says it is the funniest thing alive. There is a sailor there, superintendent of the mine, who does not know any more about mining than you do about the Ten Commandments. He came out there, pretended to be very wise, and set the boys to crushing wall rock—nothing but the meanest wall rock—with not an ounce of gold in a thousand tons of it. Well, they let him keep on, as there was not any gold there any way; and I reckon he has about spent all the company’s money, and will have to bust pretty soon. They have a good deal of fun with him, and play all sorts of tricks on him. I wish we had gone there, and seen the fellow. When the mine busts completely, they are going to lower him down the shaft, under some pretext, then haul up the bucket, and let him stay a day or two, to teach him something about mining.’

“When I heard this,” said my aquatic friend, “I made up my mind that I had had enough of that business; and then I knew how those fellows had been gagging me. You won’t catch me at a gold mine again.”

GROUND SLUICING.

HYDRAULIC MINING.

Back to Index Next