CHAPTER XXVII.
THE NEW DIGGINGS.
Meanwhile Tom and his party, pursuing their journey by easy stages, forthey sensibly determined not to overtask their strength, reached at lastthe spot of which Russell had spoken. Ferguson and Tom soon found thathe had not exaggerated. The new diggings were certainly far richer thanthose at River Bend. It was, in fact, the bed of a dead river upon whichRussell had stumbled without knowing it. My readers are probably awarethat in the beds of rivers or creeks the early miners found their firstharvest of gold, and, that, where practicable, these were mined byturning the stream in the dry season, when the water was low. As it maynot be so well understood what is meant by a dead river, I quote apassage from an article in the "Overland Monthly," as found in the pagesof the "Pacific Coast Mining Review," for the year 1878-79:--
"A dead river is one which formerly existed, but exists no longer. Involcanic regions it sometimes happens that the liquid lava, seeking thelowest ground, fills up the beds of the rivers which die and arereplaced by water-courses running in other channels and in differentdirections. These dead streams are so few, and of so little importanceelsewhere, that, as yet, I believe, no class name has been given tothem; but in California they are among the chief source of its mineralwealth, and among the most remarkable features of its geologicalformation. They take us back to a remote era, before the time of Rome,of Greece, or of Egypt; far back beyond the origin of history ortradition, before our coast had taken its present shapes; before Shasta,and Lassen, and Castle Peaks had poured out their lava floods; beforethe Sacramento river had its birth; and while, if not before, themastodon, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the horse, the mammoth bull, thetapir, and the bison lived in the land. They are indeed among the mostremarkable discoveries of the age, and among the greatest wonders ofgeology. They deserve some common name, and we have to choose between'extinct' and 'dead.' We speak of 'extinct volcanoes,' and of 'deadlanguages,' and, as the latter is Saxon and short, we prefer it. Theyhave been called 'old channels;' but this name does not convey theproper idea, since a channel is not necessarily a river, and an oldchannel is not necessarily a dead one. A dead river is a channelformerly occupied by a running stream, but now filled up with earthy orrocky matter, and is not to be confounded with a channel that is openand remains dry during the greater part of the year because of a lack ofwater, or that has been abandoned by the stream for a deeper channelelsewhere. A dry river-bed is not a dead river.
"The dead rivers of California, so far as are known, are on the westernslope of the Sierra Nevada, from five hundred to seven thousand feetabove the level of the sea. They are all gold-yielding, and thereforethey have been sought and examined. They have yielded probably _threehundred millions_ in all; they now produce perhaps eight million dollarsannually. They are not less interesting to the miner than to thegeologist, not less important to the statesman than to the antiquarian."
At the risk of being considered tedious by some of my boy-readers, Iwill transcribe the writer's explanation of the existence of these deadrivers. For the reason we must go back to a remote geological epoch:"The main cause must have been the subsequent rise of the Sierra Nevada.Suppose that a range of mountains, seven thousand feet high, wereupheaved thirty miles east of the Mississippi; that the bed of thatstream were on the mountain side, three thousand feet above the sea, andthat thirty miles west the country maintained its present level; theresult would be that the present Mississippi would soon be a dead river;it would be cut across by streams running down the mountain side, andflowing into a new Mississippi, thirty miles or more west of the presentone. We know that the Sierra Nevada has been upheaved; that a largestream ran on what is now the mountain side, and that it has beensucceeded by a new river farther west, and we must infer that the deathof the old and the birth of the new river were caused by the upheaval."
Reference is here made to the Big Blue Lead, the largest dead riverknown in California, which has been traced for a distance of sixty-fivemiles, from Little Grizzly, in Sierra County, to Forest Hill, in PlacerCounty. The original river, however, is thought to have run for manyhundreds of miles. Eventually traces of its existence may be foundelsewhere.
It is not to be supposed that Tom and his friends knew anything aboutdead rivers, or troubled themselves as to how the rich deposits had beenmade, or how long they had been waiting discovery. They were chieflyengaged with more practical considerations. They found a rich harvest inthe ravines, and they went to work energetically.
The work was monotonous, and a detailed account of their progress wouldbe tiresome. What we chiefly care about is results, and these may begathered from a conversation which took place some five months later.
Under a tent, at night-fall, reclined the three friends. They lookedcontented, and on good terms with the world; but, though prosperous,they certainly did not look it. In fact, they were all threeexceedingly, almost disreputably, shabby. They looked more like trampsthan respectable gold-miners.
"Tom, you are looking very ragged," said Dick Russell, surveying ourhero critically.
"I know it, Dick. I feel as though I had just come out of a rag-bag. Ican't say that you look much better, nor Ferguson either."
"This rough work is hard on clothing," said Russell. "I wish there werea ready-made clothing store near by."
"So do I. I would pay a high price for a good suit."
"If our friends at home could see us, what would they think, eh, Tom?"
"That we were candidates for the poor-house."
"That's so. I've been into several poor-houses in the course of my life,but I never saw any of the inmates quite so poorly clad as we are."
"You are right," said Ferguson; "but there are generally compensations.I was taking account of stock, and I estimate that I have from sixteento eighteen hundred dollars' worth of gold-dust."
"I have nearly as much," said Tom.
"My pile won't vary far from Tom's," said Russell.
"That is a pretty good showing for five months, my friend," said theScotchman.
"It will make up for the old clothes," said Tom.
"I have been thinking," said Ferguson, "that we need a vacation. What doyou say to starting next week for San Francisco?"
"I agree," said Russell, promptly.
"And I," said Tom. "I should like to see John Miles."
"Very well. We will continue our work about a week longer, and thenstart."