Hittell's hand-book of Pacific Coast travel . f the level of the sea, generally designated as the FootHills, abounds with beautiful places, well adapted to orchards andvineyards, of which great numbers are found there. This regioncontained the richest of the shallow placers, which still produceseveral millions of gold annually. There are few places where thetravelers can ascend the western slope of the Sierra, between theTuolumne and Feather Rivers, without observing the miners, whitemen or Chinese, at work. Their ditches, flumes, sluices, pipes,wheels, derricks, and dumps, and the bare spots
Hittell's hand-book of Pacific Coast travel . f the level of the sea, generally designated as the FootHills, abounds with beautiful places, well adapted to orchards andvineyards, of which great numbers are found there. This regioncontained the richest of the shallow placers, which still produceseveral millions of gold annually. There are few places where thetravelers can ascend the western slope of the Sierra, between theTuolumne and Feather Rivers, without observing the miners, whitemen or Chinese, at work. Their ditches, flumes, sluices, pipes,wheels, derricks, and dumps, and the bare spots which they haveleft on the hill , and the piles of cobble stones along the streams,after washing away the lighter material, are prominent features inthe landscape of the foot hills. Shallow placer mines usually reachthe summit of their productiveness, within five years after theirdiscovery, and then decline rapidly, so that within a generation,they are reduced to comparative insignificance. Labor in them gen- CENTRAL CALIFORNIA. 133 ~M. STTTTEUS 8AW-MTLT,, 134 CENTRAL CALIFORNIA. erally receives very poor compensation, but there are chances of richstrikes, and the mode of life is independent, so that they continueto occupy the energies of thousands of white men as well as of China-men. The valuable hydraulic mines, generally, are from 2,000 to5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of the rich auriferousquartz mines are in the foot hills, and there are places within 1,000feet of the sea level, where the racket of the stamps can be heard bythe traveler. Most of the mining towns present a very dilapidatedappearance. Fireproof brick buildings are deserted, cabins are inruins, orchards and vineyards are filled with weeds, and the streetshave been washed away for the sake of the gold. One of the plea-santest of the mining towns is Coloma, where gold was discoveredby James W. Marshall, January 19th, 1848, in the race of SuttersMill. An engraving of the building, as
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Keywords: ., bookauthorhittellj, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookyear1885
