Page 747 - calmining1890

TRINITY COUNTY. 695

TRINITY COUNTY.

By Wm. P. Miller, Assistant in the Field.

Trinity County in its mineral wealth was first discovered by Major
Redding, who visited the section for purposes of hunting and trapping
early as 1845. Trinity River was so named by him at that early date
m his opinion that it emptied into Trinidad Bay, as marked on old
anish maps.
Marshall, having discovered gold in the millrace at Coloma in January,
x848, again started Major Redding into the northwest. Crossing the
mountains at the head of Cottonwood Creek, he came upon the Trinity
River at a point where the creek now named Redding's empties into the
Trinity (T. 32 N., R. 10 W.). Quoting from the Major:

I prospected for two days and found the bars rich in gold ; returned to my home on
Cottonwood, and in ten days fitted out an expedition for mining purposes; crossed the
mountain where the travel passed two years since from Shasta to Weaver. My party
consisted of three white men, one Delaware, one Walla Walla, one Chinook, and about
sixty Indians from the Sacramento Valley. With this force I worked the bar bearing
my name. I had with me one hundred and twenty head of cattle, with an abundant
supply of other provisions. After six weeks' work parties came in from Oregon, who at
once protested against my Indian labor. 1 then left the stream and returned to my home,
where 1 have since remained in the enjoyment of the tranquil life of a farmer.

Following the discovery of Major Redding, came the prospectors from
all sections for gold, working the river bars, the ravines, and gulches,
extracting the gold from the gravel and sands by the rocker, torn, and
sluice. The evidence of these early workings can be seen along the course
of almost every streamlet, creek, gulch, and ravine tributary to the
Trinity.
The geological structure of Trinity County is peculiar and interesting.
The mountain ranges of Scott and Salmon on the north form the boundary
between it nnd Siskiyou. The Trinity Range on the east divides it from
Shasta. In the southern portion the South Fork Range, from Humboldt
County on the west, trending southeasterly through the county, presents
a summit so gentle in its swells as to form a natural highway for miles
through the southern portion of the county. Between these mountain
ranges and the mountains of Humboldt on the west, the whole county
is intersected by innumerable mountain ranges and abrupt sierras.
Through these the waters of Trinity wind their way.
Scott Mountain, formed of igneous, volcanic rocks, with its showing
of basalts, trachyte, and obsidian, overlaps the granite, as shown in the
Salmon Range to the west, its gray peaks towering above the timber
line into the region of perpetual snow. On the east is the Trinity Range
of granitic rocks, filled with granite, syenites, greenstone (diabase), and
porphyries. Farther south on the range are metamorphic gneiss, horn-
blende, and mica slates, followed by the great belt of serpentine crossing
in T. 38 N., R. 5 W.
The wealth of Trinity County is in its gravels, the ancient channel
and the high benches of present waterways. Quartz veins, carrying