ial from which the placer gold clearly was derived. Without doubt the more energetic of the constantly increasing influx of gold-seekers chanced upon gold quartz ledges as early as 1849. The surface gravels of Auburn and Ophir, as well as the richer deposits of Nevada City were first discovered in 1849. Here attention was soon directed to the numerous croppings of quartz which obviously were the source of some of the gold in the shallow gravels of the vicinity. Because, however, of the abundance in those days of rich, shallow placers which were easily worked, little interest was paid to any ledge accidentally discovered, unless, as must occassionally have happened, the quartz was so extremely rich that the gold could easily be broken out of the oxidized croppings and recovered in a hand mortar.

According to the information available, is was in October of 1850 that quartz was discovered and quartz mining begun. The discovery was made on Gold Hill, close to the present city of Grass Valley, where on a hill slope was found the broken top of a ledge very rich in gold. The occurrence of gold-bearing quartz was doubtless noted elsewhere at about the same time or previously. The Gold Hill find, however, was the first to attract fame, and it started gold milling in this state on its career.

The first gold was pounded out in hand mortars, but picturesquely crude and inefficient mills were soon constructed.

Although an excitement over quartz mining ensued, and mining was carried on in several localities in a desultory fashion, the lack of knowledge, skill, and appliances made rock assaying less than $50 per ton unprofitable, and prevented any early development of quartz mining on a notable scale. For the first ten years succeeding the inauguration of quartz mining, the growth of the industry was exceedingly slow for the further reason that the rich placer deposits with which the country abounded were not exhausted. These easily maintained their precedence because of the less amount of labor, capital, and skill required to work them. In 1855, there were but seven producing quartz mines, and these were operating on a very small scale. As the richest of the surface placers began to fail, however, more attention was given quartz mining, but it was not until the end of the sixties that the industry began to be carried on in an energetic manner. Since then this phase of mining has developed, and due to the curtailment of hydraulic mining in 1883, produced by far the largest part of the annual California gold product until the development of dredging operations.

Origin of Hydraulic Mining

The thousands of emmigrants who were drawn to the Pacific Coast by the discovery of gold arrived eager and energetic, most of them repairing at once to the mines and there engaging in the business of gold gathering. Thus it was that the more shallow and accessible placers were worked out with such rapidity that, had it not been for the discovery of larger and