Page 6 - hssc1906jenkins

74 PIONEERS OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Sluicing: The deep deposits of auriferous gravel were relatively
poorer than the shallow placers, and open cuts, preparatory to sluic-
ing, these were requisite; a large supply of water ditches became a
necessity, labor was in demand, but without capital nothing could be
accomplished. The sluice revolutionized gold-washing. With the
exhaustion of the surface diggings the river towns fell into decay,
and those mountain districts where the deep auriferous beds were
found soon became the prosperous counties of the State.
First Use of the Hydra.ulic Method: It was evident that the
sluices ran dirt faster than the shovellers could supply it, labor was
expensive, men receiving from $6 to $8 per diem, and the claims
were poor compared with the washings of 1849-50. In 1852, Ed-
ward E. Mattison of Connecticut, with a view to economizing in
labor, used a stream of water under pressure. For this purpose
water was conveyed to the claim in rawhide hose and discharged
through a wooden nozzle against a bank. Torn loose by water, the
earth was carried into sluices, and shoveling was thus a voided.
A large saving in the cost of. mining was effected, a greater amount
of material being washed in a shorter time. This was the first step
in hydraulic mining.
Canvas Hose: Mattison's experiments were immediately appre-
ciated and his methods adopted. Hose made of canvas was widelv
used, the canvas being strengthened by netting and bound with rope.
Iron Pipe: Towards the end of 1853, pipes made of light sheet-
iron were introduced as a substitute for canvas hose. The first iron
pipe was used by R. R. Craig on American Hill, Nevada County.
It consisted of about one hundred feet of stove pipe. In 1858 a
firm in San Francisco commenced the manufacture of wrought iron
pipes for hydraulic mining and during the years 1856-57 a large
sheet-iron pipe forty inches in diameter was laid for a water conduit
across a depression at Timbuctoo, in Yuba County.
Inverted Siphons: In 1869 a wire suspension bridge across the
Trinity River, near McGillivray's, was constructed by Joseph Mc-
Gillvray. This bridge supported a fifteen-inch wrought iron pipe
which conducted water from a ditch situated at an elevation of about
two hundred and forty feet above the bridge. The length of the
pipe was nineteen hundred· and ,eight feet, and the outlet was one
hundred and thirty-three feet below the level of the inlet. In the
fall of 1870 the Spring Valley Company of Cherokee, Butte County,
laid the first large "inverted siphon" in the mining regions. The
siphon was made of wrought iron, riveted. It was thirty inches in
diameter and fourteen thousand feet long, crossing a depression of
nearly one thousand feet.
Improved Nozzles: With the substitution of sheet iron pipe for
canvas, it was necessary to retain a short piece of canvas hose in order
to obtain a flexible discharging piece. This was inconvenient and
troublesome. The ingenuity of the miners was aroused, and the