of
Smith River, Del Norte County, diamonds are very likely to be found in
the flumes and sluices. Diamonds have been found at a few points in El
Dorado County. In 1867, Professor Silliman, at the meeting of the
California Academy of Sciences, before mentioned, showed a crystal of
1 1/2 carats (4.75 grains), of good color, though a little defective,
from Forest Hill. It was found at great depth, in a tunnel run into the
auriferous gravel. W. P. Carpenter, of Placerville, gives the following
account of it in a letter to Mr. Hanks, in 1882: "In 1871, W. A.
Goodyear, Assistant State Geologist, while examining the deposits of
auriferous gravels in the ancient river bed, about three miles east of
Placerville, found several specimens of itacolumite, and expressed the
opinion that diamonds should be found in the gravels. I assisted him in
searching for them, and we found several in the hands of the miners.
Mr. Goodyear bought one of them as a geological specimen. None of the
parties who had them knew what they were, but kept them as curiosities.
The gravel in the channel is capped with lava from 50 to 450 feet in
depth. Of late years the gravel is worked by stamp gravel mills, and I
know of instances where fragments of broken diamonds have been found in
panning out the batteries."
He
goes on to give the particulars of about fifteen diamonds obtained at
different times in the neighborhood, some yellow and some white. One of
these was a nearly spherical crystal, over 1/4 of an inch in
diameter, that was sold in San Francisco for $300, and another was sent
to England to be cut. Professor Silliman also showed to the California
Academy of Sciences a very clear and symmetrical crystal from French
Corral, Nevada County. It was thrown out of the cement-rock of deep
gold washings, as usual, and weighed 1-3/5 carats (5'11 grains). The
color was slightly yellowish; but this was perhaps due to its having
been exposed to a red heat, as a test of its authenticity. Prof.
Josiah D. Whitney of Harvard College stated, at the same meeting, that
diamonds had been found in some fifteen or twenty localities in the
State, and that the largest that he had seen was from French Corral,
and weighed 7-1/4 carats. Some small ones are reported from Trinity
County; and their mode of occurrence, similar to that of the diamonds
of Cher-
