The bed rock was nearly level and as the land
had a gradual rise, the banks kept getting higher and higher as they dug
farther in. Now it was really good ground only down close to the bed
rock, but all the dirt had some gold in it, and if a way could be
invented to work it fast enough, such ground would pay. So the plan of
hydraulic mining was experimented upon.
The water was brought in a ditch or flume to the top of a high bank, and
then terminated in a tight box. To this box was attached a large hose
made by hand out of canvas, and a pipe and nozzle attached to the lower
end of the hose. Now as the bank was often 100 feet or more high the
water at this head, when directed through the nozzle against the bank,
fairly melted it away into liquid mud. Imagine us located a mile above
the river on the side of a mountain. We dug at first sluices in the rock
to carry off the mud and water, and after it had flowed in these a
little way a sluice box was put in to pass it through. These were made
on a slope of one in twelve, and the bottom paved with blocks, 3 inches
thick, so laid as to make a cavity or pocket at the corner of the
blocks. After passing the first sluice box the water and gravel would be
run in a bed rock sluice again, and then into another sluice box and so
on for a mile, passing through several sluice boxes on the way.
Quicksilver was placed in the upper sluice boxes, and when the particles
of gold were polished up by tumbling about in the gravel, they combined
with the quicksilver making an amalgam.
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