. Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean . ar beds of variable thickness. Inclined or diagonal stratification is very distinct innearly all of the cuttings, and shows the action of varying currents at the time of the deposi-tion of the beds. It is probable, from the indications, that these currents were from the northand east. They must have been very strong and violent to transport such great boulders ofquartz. The gold is coarse, and appears to be distributed throughout the mas
. Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean . ar beds of variable thickness. Inclined or diagonal stratification is very distinct innearly all of the cuttings, and shows the action of varying currents at the time of the deposi-tion of the beds. It is probable, from the indications, that these currents were from the northand east. They must have been very strong and violent to transport such great boulders ofquartz. The gold is coarse, and appears to be distributed throughout the mass of the drift from thesurface to the bed-rock ; it is most abundant at the bottom, but the drift pays gold is not uniformly distributed, but the amount in the different claims is unequal. Oneof the claims yielded $48,000 in five months. This was worked by nine men night and day,at an expense of $13,000, leaving a clear profit of $35,000. The usual yield is from six toeight dollars a day (ten hours) to each man, but some claims pay from twenty to thirty. Theheaviest lump of gold which has been taken out at the Bluffs weighed four PLACER MINING BY THE HYDRAULIC METHOD, MICHIGAN CITY. All this drift is washed by what is called the hydraulic method, an improvement in theart of placer mining and washing which originated among the miners of California, and »vhichenables them to mine and wash nearly ten tons of earth where, under the old methods, theycould scarcely wash one. 34 f 266 GEOLOGY. This process, so new to all but Californians, is well exhibited at Michigan City, and will bebriefly described. The annexed engraving is from a daguerreotype of one of the claims, and shows their generalappearance. On one side we see the bank, or bluff, formed by the drift, which has not beendisturbed. The top of this bank is the general level of the surface, and was once covered bypine trees, as shown by the stumps and the trees in the distance. The frame, or staging, e
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