them, down along the rough channel, stand men aiding the separation of the gold. They are picking the large worthless stones out of the stream, and piling them in an out of the-way place; they are walking about knee deep in the raging, mud-laden flood, continually poking out the heavier rocks and stirring up the bottom with shovels, in order that no gold may settle there. Through the stout sluice leaps a swift and noisy current, bearing in its thick waters thousands of minute flakes of gold, with now and then a nugget. These quickly sink to the bottom, and are caught by the riffles; so that the clean-up of a hydraulic sluice ought to be, and usually is, very rich, for a hundred times more earth is sent through it each day, under the tearing strength of the Little Giant, than ever shovels alone could handle.

Moreover, it often happens that there are five or six pipes and nozzles firing at the same bank. Then the destruction is very rapid, great masses of gravel being quickly undermined, and falling with a noise like thunder. The gold is collected from the sluice by shutting off the water, taking out the riffles, and scraping the bottom. Some quicksilver has usually been sprinkled in the sluice previously, and more is now added, the better to collect the gold, for which it has a strong attraction. The union of the two metals forms what is known as an amalgam, and there are two ways of separating them again. If the miners do not care to save the quicksilver (which is the same thing as the mercury in our thermometers), they put the amalgam in a bag, and strain out the quicksilver by squeezing, just as you press the juice out of grapes when jelly is to be made. Then the gold and the trifle of quicksilver remaining is placed upon a shovel and held over the fire until all the white metal passes off in vapor.

If, however, it is desired to save the mercury, the amalgam, as soon as it is cleaned out of the sluices, is put in a chemist's retort and heated. The mercury turns to vapor, which rises through a tube passing at a short distance through a box of ice or cold water, and is there condensed

or turned back to liquid again, when it runs into a jar and is ready to be used a second time. In this way the same mercury may be used over and over again with but little loss.

Sometimes several thousand dollars are the profits of a single week of hydraulic mining, but several hundreds would be a more ordinary estimate. Conducted on whatever system gold mining is not always so productive a business as it would seem at first glance. After all, an ounce of gold is only worth so much, and a pound only twelve times as much. To get a pound of gold requires much hard work, and a considerable outlay of money for food, for wear and tear of clothes, for rent of water, for purchase of machinery, etc. Sometimes the gains are enormous, but it is only a few who have become rich in gold diggings out of thousands who have struggled and failed. Nor as exciting or romantic as it seems, to live in this wild, outdoor picnic style, and to dig the shining, precious, poetic mineral out of the ignoble gravel where it has so long lain neglected, is it altogether enjoyable work.

You must be almost continually wet, and the water in the mountains is cold; you must handle all day long rough stones, heavy huge boulders, and shovel heavy dirt; you must swing the pick till your back aches, and waggle that rusty gold pan till your arms grow lame and your fingers sore, while the sun beats down straight and hot, or the chill wind cuts through your wet garments; you must work early and late, hard and fast, often defend your property by a little war, if you would equal your neighbors and hold your claim.

When a company of men find a new gold-gulch and begin to work at it, they call the village which grows up there a camp, and give it some name which is just as likely to be absurd as it is to be appropriate. Golden Gate, Sheep's Tail, Potato Gulch, Ruby, Black Tail, and Go-toHell Gulch, Two-Bit, and dozens of other comical names are examples. The miners hastily throw up little log cabins, six or eight logs high, covered with a roof of poles

and dirt, and having nothing better than the hard tramped earth for floor. In one end is the fire-place (the chimney is outside, like that of negroes' huts in the South), and at the other end are rough bunks, where the owner stuffs in some long grass or spruce-boughs or straw, and spreads his bed or blankets.

These miners (prospectors) all do their own cooking, but this was in former days no great art, or task, as when you had mentioned slap-jacks, beans, bacon and coffee, you were at the bottom of the "bill of fare."

CHAPTER III.

PROSPECTING FOR MINERAL BEARING ROCK.

Having established a headquarters the miners scouted out on prospecting expeditions in all directions. Of evenings, when they returned from the Hills, there was a big time among them, as they exhibited specimens of ore from the ledges they had discovered, and compared notes. All gathered about, and opinions were passed in regard to the values of the ores brought in.

The next business was to test the ore for the precious metals. In gold-bearing quartz, small specks of gold were often to be seen with the naked eye or aided by a small magnifying glass, such as every prospector carried in his vest pocket for use in the examination of ores. If gold could be seen at all, either with the naked eye or the glass, it was considered a good sign. In order to further test the specimen, it was then either beaten to a powder in a mortar or was ground as fine as flour on a large flat stone, using a smaller stone for a muller. This pulverized ore was then placed in a "horn," a little canoe-shaped vessel made of the split horn of an ox, when it was carefully washed out, much as auriferous gravel is washed in a pan. The gold, in case the ore experimented upon contained the metal, was found

lying in a yellow streak in the bottom of the horn, generally small particles of gold dust, almost as fine as flour.

This was the test for gold, and any miner was able to judge, from the prospect obtained in the horn, whether or not the quartz from which it came was rich enough to pay working in a mill.

In testing silver ore the miners in early days used acids. If a specimen of ore was supposed to contain silver, it was pulverized in the same way as gold-bearing quartz; it then was placed in the horn and the lighter matter it contained washed out. When that which remained in the horn appeared to be principally sulphurets and other metalline matter, the washing ceased. The heavy residuum was then washed from the horn into a mattrass (a flask of annealed glass, with a narrow neck and a broad bottom). Nitric acid was then poured into the mattrass until the matter to be tested was covered, when the flask was suspended over the flame of a candle or lamp and boiled until the fumes escaping (which for a time are red) came off white. The boiling operation was then presumed to be completed.

When the contents of the mattrass had been allowed to cool and settle, the liquid portion was poured off into a vial of clear thin glass, called a test-tube. If the ore operated upon contained silver, the contents of the test tube would at once assume a milky hue. This would begin at the top of the liquid in the tube, where the salt solution first touched the solution of silver in the acid, and would be seen to gradually descend to the bottom of the vial. If there was much silver in the ore, the milky matter formed was quite thick, and clinging together descended to the bottom of the tube in the form of little ropes. Muriatic acid poured into the tube produced the same effect as the solution of salt and water. The white matter formed was the chloride of silver.

In case the prospector had any doubt about what he had obtained being the genuine chloride of silver, he held the test tube in the strong light of the sun for a few minutes, when the chloride would be seen to assume a rich purple color, a

color which no photographer would ever mistake. Those who wish to try this experiment may do so anywhere. If no silver ore is to be had a few filings of silver coin, or anything containing silver may be used. The boiling in nitric acid may be performed in an ordinary saucer and a common vial may be used instead of a test-tube.

The chloride of silver obtained in the bottom of the tube may easily be reduced to the metallic state. To do this it is dried and placed in a small hole scooped out in a piece of charcoal, when the flame of a candle is blown upon it until it is melted, and a bright little button of pure silver is obtained. Lead ore (galena) treated with nitric acid, as in testing silver ore, will produce a chloride somewhat resembling that of silver, but is more granular in appearance, does not turn purple in the light of the sun, and is dissolved in twenty times its bulk of water; whereas washing with water does not dissolve the chloride of silver, no matter how many times the washings are repeated.

If the presence of copper is suspected in the ore tested for silver, a bit of bright iron wire or the blade of a penknife may be dipped into the solution obtained from the specimen, either before or after adding the salt, when, if copper be present, the wire or knife will show a coating of it in the metallic state.

Chloride ores of silver cannot be tested by the acid method they being chloride of silver in advance of the operation. Those ores must be subjected to the test of the fire-assay must be smelted in a crucible. This being the case, our prospectors were not utterly cast down when their pet specimens failed to show silver when tested by the acid process. They at once declared that the silver was in the form of chloride, and were not satisfied that they were not millionaries, until they had carried their specimen to some assay office and had a regular fire-assay made. Then when the certificate of the assayer came, they were generally obliged to take a back seat, receiving the imprecations of the camp. Occasionally, however, a big assay" was obtained. Then there was great excite

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