MINING IN CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA.	49
	gutter, the company, a couple of years previously, obtained from Baldwin and Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a mining locomotive for their future work, and I found that these small engines did all the requisite work, in the shape of fetching out "pay-gravel (i.e., washdirt) and to take back timber, tools, and men over these heavy inclines, with great facility. The cars hold about 1,800 lbs. of pay-gravel each, and each train consists of thirty-two cars. The locomotives are a splendid sample of machinery, and each measures 13 feet in length, 4 feet in width, by 5 feet in height, the smoke-stack projecting only 3 inches above the top ; gauge of the lines is but 20 inches in the clear, the two driving wheels being 3 feet, and the four others 2 feet each in diameter. These are "camel back" engines, the tanks being fixed above the boiler. Each locomotive weighs but 7,850 lbs., and it can be worked up to 40-horse power, with a daily consumption of 400 lbs. of best bituminous Pennsylvania coal, which can only be got to this remote region for 40 dollars per ton. The driver sits at the rear of the engine, covered in, and does all the shunting, at slackened speed, by means of an iron crook. A very powerful reflector lights up the otherwise dark tunnel for forty yards ahead of the locomotive, and, during my inspection, the trains .going in at 6 a.m. consisted of thirty-two cars filled with mine timber, besides as many as forty-eight miners, and still an average speed of thirteen miles was maintained up the tunnel. This company was originally organised with twenty shares, at 1,000 dollars each, and these shares were ultimately subdivided into the present 1,360, upon which, during the last five years, 600,000 dollars have been paid in dividends. As regards the working of this large mine, one imagines himself almost at Ballarat, and the whole system reflects highly on the superintendents in charge. Water being very scarce, the pay-gravel is shot down into two large "dumps," or paddocks, during the dry season, which have a capacity of 18,000 and 28,000 tons respectively. These paddocks are floored with thick planks, placed at an incline towards a central line of sluice-boxes, running through the paddocks and for nearly two miles outside ; the ripples in these, charged with mercury, were constructed of chilled cast iron, the annual repairs of which alone exceeded 5,000 dollars during that period. Latterly, however, old worn-out truck or car wheels have been used at less cost and with the same effects, as far as gold-saving is concerned. As soon as the wet season has arrived, the pay-gravel in the , paddocks is " hydraulicked" by means of strong rubber hoses and iron nozzles. The gold seen, during the inspection of the workings and outside apparatus, was of a very fine nuggety description, consisting of solid pieces from a few pennyweights each up to one lump 64 ounces in weight. The value of this gold was exceptionally high for California, it being at the rate of 19 dollars 25 cents per ounce.