LOT Holabird-Kagin Americana  /  THE GOLDEN WEST AUCTIONS  / 

2574

Washington,CA - Nevada County - Washington Gold Nugget ~ 100 Ounce Whopper :

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:125,000.00 USD Estimated At:250,000.00 - 400,000.00 USD
Washington,CA - Nevada County - Washington Gold Nugget ~ 100 Ounce Whopper :
98+ troy ounces

The Washington, California Nugget - A New Discovery !
By Fred N. Holabird, copyright 2010, all rights reserved
Abstract.
The discovery of a huge, nine pound natural gold nugget was announced earlier this year in national news. The nugget was brought to my attention in late summer, and I met with the owner and looked over the property. The resulting research underscores the importance of the nugget. It is from a portion of the famous “blue lead” Tertiary channel now known as the Omega-Malakoff Channel, located near Washington, California. The area was first mined by hand in 1852, and the science of hydraulic mining was invented in this very region in a directly adjacent channel near Nevada City in Nevada County, California. The uncleaned Washington nugget’s physical characteristics match exactly those discussed by Josiah D. Whitney and his co-author W. H. Pettee in his epic The Auriferous Tertiary Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, published in 1880. This large nugget may be the sole remaining large nugget from California. It was standard practice to melt large nuggets into ingots, and thereby convert the prize into cash. No such nuggets have been found by the author at the Smithsonian or the California State Collection at Mariposa.
This paper is divided into several parts with additional subparts:
Abstract
Personal Narrative
California Gold Nugget Overview
California Gold-Bearing Tertiary Gravels
Literature Review and Study
History of Hydraulic Mining
Personal Narrative
Every now and again something really fun happens. The other day a fella walked into our office and told me about a 100 ounce nugget he found near Nevada City. Ha! While 100 oz nuggets are known from Australia and Mexico, I couldn’t think of a single specimen still in existence from California. Or at least any that I had seen or known of in museums, including the Smithsonian and the Mariposa Gold Museum.
Then something even more special happened. He opened up his box and got out the nugget. After I screamed and got back up off the floor from shock, he said he had been told to clean it and what did I think? I said “heck no, that rock, sand and gravel attached to it is proof positive of where it is from.” He, like you are now, was in complete puzzlement. You see, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding was still attached to the nugget, It was a verifiable, real authentic gold nugget from the “blue lead”, or bottom most layer of the Tertiary gold channels in California. The natural rock still attached was the absolute proof.
Backtrack thirty years—
I was a young field geologist for a mining company that liked to mine placer deposits, or anything else that would produce gold in ingot or natural form quickly. They had their own 250 ton per day mill, which was currently, at the time, fed by ores from the Moho mine in central western Nevada. One of the mining engineers on staff was a very accomplished placer guy. I was assigned to look at property submittals, and quite a raft of California central mother lode placer properties fell into my lap. Among them were Dutch Flat-Gold Run and more than I can remember. I got polished up on the latest professional papers by Lindgren and others on the Tertiary deposits of California, and proceeded to investigate about a couple of dozen of these properties. Most were from the upper sections, or later depositional periods of the Tertiary channels, but there were a few that were in the gut of the action for the primary Tertiary channels that were not buried under volcanic cover, and a few that were. I got to see the original “blue lead” basal conglomerate up close and personal, albeit the only exposures of the original material were in pillars left to hold up underground workings. I had the great opportunity to sample many of these pillars just for the fun of it. I say that, because they could not be removed unless the whole operation turned into an open pit. The pillars held up the roof, so if gone, no more underground workings. Smash!
This specific rock unit was generally well cemented. In places it was a clearly defined blue hue, but when oxidized, turned a red-brown. In places where it was near surface, it was generally red, and hard as heck. It took a pick to break it apart, and it wasn’t easy.
So when our new friend with the big nugget opened his box, there in front of me were thirty year old memories of my work on the “blue lead” and other basal conglomerates of the Tertiary section of California gravel deposits. The texture, content, and color is unmistakable, and I’m sure there are other geologists out there with the same memories. You never forget it. It was the real McCoy. Unmistakable. I screamed in excitement.
I can think of at least three other geologists who have spent more time on the central mother lode Tertiary gold deposits than me, and I think we all secretly share the same quest- to find that giant gold nugget. To have one sitting in front of me at that moment was special beyond words.
“Don’t clean it. Don’t touch it. That crusty stuff is the proof of where it comes from”, I said to the owner, and related the story. It is the ultimate provenance – irrefutable proof positive of its origin.
My immediate secret thought was “is this the largest verifiable California nugget in existence? Didn’t they melt everything else?” And so the quest began, and also a new friendship. People have always asked me over the years, “what do you collect?” and my answer is the same- friends. To me, they make the world go round.
After a few months, I had a chance to see the property and walk the land where this mammoth nugget came from. There is no way the owner can publish the exact location, or even his name, even though he owns the property fee-simple. In today’s crazy world, that would lead to nothing but trouble.
I later learned that the nugget came from the Nevada City-Washington area. After in-depth research, it is clear that the nugget came from the Omega-Malakoff Tertiary Channel as defined by nineteenth century geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney.
California Gold Nugget Overview
Natural gold nuggets from California are and were plentiful. Indeed, millions of ounces of gold has been produced from the seemingly inexhaustible natural supply in California since 1848. But even the “large” California gold nuggets, in general, are small compared to others throughout the world, especially Australia. Some authors have stated that anything over ten or twenty ounces from California is rare. But the nuggets of huge size- upwards of 100 troy ounces or more, are among nature’s great rarities. In fact, until now, it has been assumed that none of the original large nugget discoveries from California still exist. It appears all were melted.
The mechanism of reporting a big natural nuggets in the nineteenth century, as well as today, was through the media. But to a nineteenth century miner, the prize wasn’t the nugget itself, it was the cash that the nugget generated when it was melted into an ingot and sold. This is the manner that most nuggets are found reported through time – how much the miner received when he sold the nugget to a bank or assay office. In each case, the end result was the same – no more nugget. An ingot was created.
Another issue surfaces that is equally important. Today, as well as in the nineteenth century, there is confusion among the public sector about the definition of the word nugget. Non-geologists view a nugget as a piece of visible gold of nearly any size. They generally do not have the background to differentiate between a naturally occurring crystalline gold in quartz specimen versus the erosional product of the same rock. A true nugget is just that- the erosional product of crystalline or massive gold as it occurred naturally in the original vein or lode. It is a stream or river cobble, and found in the erosional environment of rivers and streams, along with other erosional detritus that mother nature has made into rounded pebbles, boulders and sand.
Historically, this differentiation was not always known, thus it can be difficult to interpret a nineteenth century author’s description of a 500 ounce “nugget”, when in fact it is a piece of gold in quartz mined from a lode deposit, and thus was not a true “nugget”.
Hanks Publishes List of Huge Nuggets
Henry G. Hanks published a paper on California gold nuggets in the Second Report of the State Mineralogist in 1882. Hanks was an accomplished assayer, first working in the mines at Inyo in the early 1860’s until he and his company were all run out by the Indians. With gold nuggets fascinating the world populace, he later took it upon himself to write a paper on the subject. It was the first of its kind, followed by another important, detailed article by eminent mining geologist William Phipps Blake in 1885. The timing of the articles was important because they followed the most important paper ever published on the California placer gold deposits, written by Josiah Dwight Whitney and William Pettee in 1880, The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California.
Hanks published a list of 83 of the largest or most famous of the world’s gold “nuggets” of 100 troy ounce size or larger. The first 26 “nuggets” on his list, all over 140 troy ounces, were found in Australia. The first important California nugget was found by a soldier in Stevenson’s regiment of New York Volunteers in 1848 along the Mokelumne River weighing 20-25 pounds. It was taken to San Francisco, given to Colonel Mason for safekeeping, then sent by General Beale to New York where “it fanned the smoldering flame” of the California Gold Rush. This set the stage for future public exhibitions of large nuggets, ingots and rich ore specimens to dive interest in western mines.
On the Hanks list, it can be difficult to ascertain which specimens are indeed real placer nuggets versus the large masses of gold in quartz. As an example, the famous Fricot “nugget” is on Hanks’ list, and it is clearly not placer gold. Today, it is also the only remaining specimen from this famous list, now housed in the California State Collection in Mariposa. A few of Hanks’ other entries are notable:
• A fifty pound gold quartz nugget was found near Columbia, Calaveras County, Cal. After it was broken up, it yielded an ingot of 396 troy ounces.
• In 1851 in French Ravine in Sierra County, a nugget weighing 426 ounces was found.
• A nugget found not far from this one in 1855 weighed 186 ounces.
• At Gold Hill, near Columbia, a flattened and smooth worn nugget of 360 ounces was found by Mr. Virgin.
• “A miner known to old-timers as Dan Hill…, famed as a finder of gold nuggets and as a drinker of whiskey…” found a nugget as big as his head in a creek near Nevada City. He sold it for $12,300.”
Two of these two localities- French Ravine, and Columbia, appear to have produced some of the largest nuggets in California’s history, and Hanks cited many more examples.
California Gold-bearing (Auriferous) Tertiary Gravels
Virtually all of the known large nuggets, as well as the huge rich pockets of placer gold from California are suspected to have come from the Tertiary channels. These were the first of the ancient channels to cut or erode the new surfaces that were exposed after the mountain building geologic events, known as orogenies, with associated global warming in late Miocene (23.8 to 5.3 million years ago) to early Pliocene (5.3 to 1.8 million years ago), about 5 to 6 million years ago. After the emplacement of the early gravel units, a series of volcanic flows covered large portions of the California foothill belt, which covered parts of the early gravel deposits. This period was followed by a period of global cooling, marked by the development of massive grasslands and large mammals in the lowlands, accompanied with glaciation (ice ages) in some of the higher areas.
The discovery of the large nuggets in conjunction with the huge amounts of gold coming from geologic-select areas led to unprecedented work on the California gold deposits.
Whitney Report Breaks Barriers on Understanding the Source of Nuggets
California had hired prominent mining geologist Josiah Dwight Whitney in 1860 as State Geologist to write a number of papers on California geology and other natural science topics, inclusive of the ancient river channels that produced so much gold, of which little was known. His work led to the publication of a professional paper on the elevated fossil (Tertiary) gravel deposits of California that harbored the famous “blue lead” and were so monumentally rich in gold, especially the giant nuggets. These massive Tertiary gravel beds were part of an ancient river system that flowed into the “gulf”, which later became the Sacramento Valley. Whitney’s plans to publish were thwarted when the California legislature informally disbanded the California Geologic Survey in 1868, then formalized it in 1874. Whitney’s paper on Tertiary Gravels was later published by Harvard in 1880. But this important, epic paper never discussed the nuggets themselves. Whitney’s work was the first of its kind and was, and still is a thorough examination of completely different geologic terrain not seen before elsewhere in the world. The report is monumental and has stood the test of time. Today, much of what he wrote about has been mined out completely, and it is thus the best surviving record of “what was, and is no more.”
The term “blue lead” was originally derived from the physical appearance of the basal most, gold-rich portion of the Tertiary gravel conglomerates of the Sierra Nevada foothill belt. Whitney, in 1880 stated: “It is supposed that the blue lead was once the bed of a large river, about fifty miles eastward of the present position of Sacramento River and parallel with its course.” This term then gradually morphed into a slang description of the basal conglomerate unit of the first of the Tertiary channels wherever it occurred in the California foothill belt. This unit was always rich in gold.
While California produced an unprecedented amount of gold the world had never seen before, it also brought in millions in capital for exploration and in the general business infrastructure of the mining business. Indeed, mining was responsible for arguably 90% of the state’s economy, and also responsible for a huge proportion of the nation’s economy because it added $50 million a year for ten consecutive years of new money (gold) to the American economy during the 1850’s alone. But the California legislature was oblivious to the capital coming in, because it wasn’t getting a big enough piece of the action, so it cancelled Whitney’s efforts to inform the public about its geology and mineral resources – a move that sounds familiar today. The state government literally cut off the key information necessary for future capital investment into mining – its key economic resource, and in so doing cut its own throat. But all was not lost. By 1880, they realized their mistake and began the office of the California State Mineralogist, who carried out the very same duties, though not to the extent of the technical papers of the California Geologic Survey.
Whitney spent several years mapping the gravel deposits of California, starting at the southern end and working his way north. He was unable to complete the job by the time the State legislature began dismantling the department in 1868. It was a massive job, he said, because there was little or no topographic information that could be used for accurate base maps for their geologic mapping of the tertiary channels. Most of what was out there was incorrect. He was able to utilize a portion of the topographic data produced by and for the Central Pacific Railroad, which cost the railroad more than the entire two year monetary allotment by the State Legislature for the entire geologic division. Uncompleted by the time of dissolution, Whitney chose instead to complete the work at his own expense, and to do so in a timely manner, he hired geologist W. H. Pettee to complete the northern gravel explorations, which are published as an appendix to Whitney’s main work. Pettee discussed the elevated channels near Nevada City and Washington in good detail, noting that mining had stopped “years ago”, and the area lay deserted.
The condition of affairs at the time of my visit was one of extreme quiet… The gravel deposit at Alpha is nearly exhausted and very little work has been done there for several years. I have not been able to find any allusion to the place in either of Browne’s or Raymond’s reports, which cover the years 1866 to 1875. In early days, as I have been told, Alpha was one of the most lively camps in the mountains, with two six horse stages daily from Nevada City. When I was there I found but two men” … “The original gravel at Alpha covered an area of, as nearly as I could estimate, seventy five acres, about four fifths of which has been removed. That which is left is either upon the borders of the deposit, or on its southern side, towards the main ridge.
He noted that the bedrock had a gradual fall, with no specific crevice or deepened channel to mark the central part of the channel.
There is no blue gravel to be seen, the lowest layers having a decidedly reddish color… the top gold is very fine; but nuggets of considerable size have been found on the bedrock.
The largest gravel mines of the region were the Malakoff, North Bloomfield, Omega and Alpha. Pettee estimated the Omega at 300 acres. He wrote that “the bedrock has been uncovered over about one third of that area.” The Omega was cut by four different modern drainages. The
lower stratum is decidedly blue in color when freshly exposed, but it changes very rapidly to a yellowish or reddish tint under the action of the atmosphere.”… “The bedrock is nearly flat in the transverse direction, showing no signs of a deep central channel or trough. From the lower or southwestern extremity there is an uninterrupted outlet for the channel, across Scotchman’s Creek, to Alpha.
Whitney and Pettee’s hypotheses regarding the origin and modes of deposition of the California Tertiary gravels was tested and further developed, refined and redefined. It was a major breakthrough in the science of geology, especially economic geology, though the term had not yet been invented. Their work was of such high quality that it remains the standard reference work on California auriferous Tertiary gravels today.
Other Reports of Gold Nuggets
W. H. Pettee’s report contained in Whitney’s epic The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, California, 1880, stated that the gold in the old elevated channels was generally fine. Waldemar Lindgren in his various short papers within the USGS Folio series covering the foothill belt in the 1890’s as well as in his important summary report the Tertiary Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California , discusses others yet, and the tendency for the large nuggets to be from Tuolumne and Sierra Counties. Thomas Hurley published a book on The Famous Gold Nuggets of the World in 1900. He reported that Sailor Diggins, near Downieville and Nevada City, produced a number of nuggets weighing about 100 ounces and up. Overwhelmingly, however, the historical reports mention the nuggets being melted into ingot form and sold. In only one case, the famous Fricot nugget, which is crystalline gold, can any record of its continued existence be found. As an example, Hurley cited one of the largest recent nugget discoveries: “The biggest nugget found in California in the last thirty years was picked up in Sierra County. It was melted less than twelve years ago by a New York goldsmith, after it had been used far and wide for exhibition purposes.” In another example, in El Dorado County, “in 1850 a 121 ounce chunk of gold was dug out with a common spade from the bank of the American River, near Lawson’s Bar. It brought $19,400” (when melted and sold.)
Lindgren reported in 1911 that the usual size of the gold grains in the larger channels in the Sierra Nevada were fine to medium fine, about the “size of wheat kernels.” The data given by Hanks and Blake regarding the occurrence of nuggets show that in the main channels large masses of gold are on the whole rare. Most of the masses noted are from gulches or minor streams close to the croppings of the Tertiary channels.
Placer Distribution
The distribution of placer gold is that it is concentrated upon the bedrock surface, the product of eons of natural winnowing or sorting, with the heavy minerals settling through less dense rocks, pebbles and sand to the floor, occupied by “bed rock”. Pay streaks develop along the bedrock, usually in the crevices, cracks, or lowest points of erosion of the original surfaces. Crevices, reported Whitney in 1880, varied in size, width, depth and length. They could be as little as “small elongated furrows” a few inches wide to “one or two feet in depth and often several feet in length” at places such as Todd’s Valley, to tens of feet wide and nearly 60-80 feet deep in areas such as Columbia in Sonora County. The richest were perhaps those of fifteen to twenty feet deep or deeper.
In Nevada County they (Tertiary gravels) are barren in the extreme eastern part, but soon after entering the metamorphic area they become greatly enriched, first by the Washington belt of quartz veins and second after crossing the long complex dike known as the Serpentine belt,
reported Lindgren. The crest of the Sierra at the time of the deposition of the Tertiary channels stretched from about Quincy to Markleeville, in an almost near-straight line, from northwest to southeast. Drainage was west, into a main channel, and from there into the “gulf”, as Lindgren and others called it, now occupied by the Sacramento Valley. He further stated:
The largest and richest masses of Tertiary gravel known in the Sierra Nevada are found in (the Colfax) quadrangle and derived their contents from a great number of gold-quartz veins. … It is impossible to obtain exact data regarding the total amount of gold produced in this quadrangle. That part of Nevada County which is contained in it has certainly produced $60 million.” … “On the south fork of the Yuba several important gravel bodies are found.
These included the Alpha and Omega, among other locations, though these were two of the largest elevated ancient Tertiary gravel deposits. Two of the largest camps that were directly associated with the Omega-Malakoff Channel were the Alpha and Omega, though there were at least a dozen more mining camps located at various points along the channel. These are, in order from east to west, Diamond Creek, Omega, Alpha, Gold Hill, Jefferson Hill, Cotton Hill, Relief Hill, North Bloomfield and Malakoff. Lindgren cited the Alpha as having has 5 million cubic yards removed, with “75 acres remaining … with banks of 90 feet high”, which might indicate that the deposit was only half mined. The reported overall grade was 13.5 cents per cubic yard, or $8.82/cubic yard in today’s figures with gold at $1350/ounce. A grade this low is only attackable by the lowest cost mining methods, such as hydraulicking, which is exactly what happened. The pay streak, of course, was much richer. This resulted in a mining operation nearly immediately, as reported by Mac Boyle in 1918. The Omega had 12 million cubic yards mined, with a reported 40 million “still available”. This was also attacked immediately by the post-1900 mining boom sprouted by the great deposits discovered at Goldfield and Tonopah Nevada, which yielded millions of ounces of gold and silver within a decade. Miners flocked to the old Tertiary channels and mined whatever they could.
Pettee reported on another ancient channel that extended about a quarter mile up Scotchman’s Creek, one of the modern drainages transecting the ancient channel. A tunnel had been drive into it, which is “now buried seventy feet beneath tailings”
it seems almost beyond question that this deposit came from the washing away by natural causes of a portion of the old channel between the Alpha and Omega, and it is probable that it has been caught where it is in consequence of a change in the courses of the ravines, for there is some evidence that there was formerly a different outlet, a little down the Yuba… or Scotchman’s creek… The high spur of gravel on the east of the creek indicates that there was once a large body of gravel at this point. The ground is worked by a company, whose claim also covers the deep mass of tailings in the creek, which have come from the alpha and Omega mines. Hydraulic mining can never be carried on here on a large scale, on account of lack of space for a dump.
Other Nearby Tertiary Channels
Whitney and Pettee’s work showed several significant early Tertiary channels. These include the Scotts Flat-You Bet Channel and the Excelsior-Dutch Flat Channel.

The Washington Nugget
The recently discovered large nugget came from an unmined portion of the Omega-Malakoff Tertiary Channel. It is one of the primary and early channels of the Tertiary period, containing portions of the famous “blue lead” so well known through history for its production of tremendously rich pockets of gold nuggets. The nearest town today is Washington, not far from Nevada City. The nugget was discovered while prospecting on private property when a metal detector was used over what was thought to be a relatively shallow or thin gravel unit consisting of old mined tailings from the old hydraulic mines that cleaned out the Tertiary channels. Unknown to all, the shallow ten foot thick gravel unit was sitting on top of a virgin segment of the well cemented basal unit (blue lead) of the Omega-Malakoff Tertiary Channel, probably covered by hydraulic tails before it was ever discovered, seen, or observed by 1850’s miners. The natural erosion of the tailings over the past 150 years removed most of the tailings cover, and exposed some bedrock nearby, indicating a potential “target” to modern day prospectors.
This remarkable discovery produced three huge nuggets, of which this near-100 ounce nugget is the largest, within just a small space. They were firmly cemented in the basal conglomerate, or “blue lead” portion of the gravel in what must have been a small crevice or chute, resulting in their deposition in one confined space. The original conglomerate is still adhered to the nugget, a formal record of its unique provenance and proof beyond all other factors that it is indeed a product of the “blue lead”, and more particularly from this specific portion of the blue lead. The very physical character of the conglomerate is specifically consistent with Pettee’s descriptions of the basal conglomerate in the Omega-Malakoff channel.
The source of the Washington Nugget is such that I leaned strongly toward technical papers for detailed research. The fact that the great Tertiary channels are the source, leads to these publications. A search of normal historical publications located next to nothing. In example, Lardner & Brock’s History of Placer and Nevada Counties , discusses nothing of the channels themselves, and only a little on the associated towns and mining camps that sprung up around the specific channel that sourced the nugget.
Literature Review and Study.
Whitney thoroughly reviewed the literature on the gold rush region in The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, which will not be rewritten here. A few pre-Whitney (1880) publications bear mentioning:
J. Ross Browne, in his epic Mines and Mineral Resources West of the Rocky Mountains (1868) stated what may have been the initial report later used by all subsequent authors regarding the area later known as the Omega-Malakoff Channel:
The rich hydraulic diggings at Gold Hill, Alpha, and Omega and other places, now mostly worked out, are on this range.” He was referring to a previous statement: “The evidence is conclusive that the channel extends a considerable distance up the mountains, perhaps 20 or 25 miles, and there is no reason to doubt that every thousand feet of its length holds its million of treasure.” “Besides this, large quantities of gold are found in the smaller channels that were probably once tributaries of the main streams, as well as in the alluvium…
J. D. Whitney wrote The Metallic Wealth of the United States (1854), six years before he was named California State Geologist and 25 years before his auriferous gravels paper. His early work failed to discuss the California Gold Rush adequately in detail, probably because he had not yet been there, and instead had to rely on the reports of geologists W. P. Blake, P. Tyson, and T. B. King. His opening statement underlies the importance of the gold rush:
we come now to speak of a country whose golden wealth surpasses anything yet known to have been discovered, and which, in its influence on the market of the world, is to be ranked among the great events of modern times.
He discussed the new method of mining, called hydraulic mining “the most extensive operations thus far undertaken in California, belong rather to the department of hydraulic engineering than that of mining.” Browne, and others, consider the method to have been developed in Nevada County where the massive dry ancient channels lie far above the active river systems. Whitney was so enthralled by the richness of the California discoveries, that he became the chief geologist for the California Geologic Survey and later wrote the premier paper on the Tertiary Gravels of California, published in 1880.
The American Mining Magazine, edited by William J. Tenney (1850’s) was the first technical mining Journal in America. It tried steadfastly to report on California production, though it was exceptionally difficult to report from a region that was essentially inaccessible to a reporting mining engineer, unless he wrote specific letters to the editors. Activity was so heavy by engineers and geologists in the gold region, that direct reporting rarely occurred. In general, reports from California were taken from local newspapers that made their way to New York, where the magazine was published, or from written observations of field geologists. The American Mining Magazine was perhaps the first to note a major change in mining in California. In the early 1848-50 period, mining operations were carried out by generally inexperienced miners with impunity. As the years crept along, the distinct need for science and technology to find and process more and different kinds of ores from different deposits, inclusive of the invention of hydraulic mining became apparent.
The application of science and skill through methods suited to extract it from its combinations will yield yet a rich supply. In other words, there are some indications of an approaching change in California, from a mere gold-washing country, to a scientific, intelligent gold mining country.
Observations about the early methods from technical mining men were rarely found anywhere except the technical journals. Tenney wrote in 1853
this was a rude attempt to apply the practical knowledge of the gold miners of the Atlantic States to mining under the novel state of social affairs which existed in California. To a certain extent, this particular case was a failure. The small results obtained in consequence of feeble machinery, under the high expenses which prevailed, were the principal cause. Low expenses and more powerful machinery, or sufficiently low expenses with the same machinery, would probably have made this instance a prosperous case.
Many journals reported that the mines were worked out. Often these reports were made to reporters by unhappy miners, who had fallen on their luck. Moreover, the reports came from those inexperienced and unknowledgeable about mining operations in general. The Mariposa Chronicle of May 15, 1854, in facetious response to nationwide reports that the California mines were worked out, reported (through Mining Magazine) that
the following, found during the last two or three months within a mile of Mariposa, will testify: one lump of 52 ounces; one of 50 ounces and $1; one of quartz and gold, which contained 147 ounces of gold; another of quartz and gold weighing 192 pounds, containing about 180 ounces; besides smaller ones of twelve ounces and less, too numerous to mention. The mines are worked out – entirely exhausted – of course they are.
Edward F. Bean in Bean’s History and Directory of Nevada County, California, 1867 does not discuss the tertiary channels by name, but there were notes on the towns contained within the Omega-Malakoff Channel. He reported that the first settlements at Omega were in 1850. This writeup indicates that there were about thirty gravel claims, and about $1.5 million taken out. He mentions up to 150 feet of gravel above bedrock, with water supplied by the south Yuba Canal Company ditch, the Diamond Creek Ditch and the Omega ditch. Two fires destroyed the town, one in 1861 and another in 1863. Alpha was formed in 1852, and at its height in 1854-5, $1.25 million in gold was produced.
The post-Whitney (1880) references, are however, very important, because there was a period of intense exploration and production in California in the Tertiary gravels after the publication of Whitney’s report of 1880, and another intense period of exploration and production after Lindgren’s various reports of the 1890’s, followed by his important summary work published in 1911. Each of his works were far more accessible to the general public than were Whitney’s which were published while he was a professor at Harvard. A few other notes from early sources are added here that were not part of Whitney’s discussion.
One of the most important groups of papers was published within Henry Hanks’ Second Report of the State Mineralogist, 1882. This massive tome contains at least four major separate papers on placer mining: “Placer, Hydraulic and Drift Mining” (Hanks); “Hydraulic Mining” (Hanks); “Notes on Hydraulic Mining” (F.W. Robinson); and “Hydraulic and Drift Mining” (Henry DeGroot).
August Bowie’s A Practical Treatise on Hydraulic Mining in California, 1885, only discussed the holding reservoirs necessary for operation of hydraulic equipment in use to mine portions of the Omega-Malakoff Tertiary Channel. By the time William Irelan produced his massive Tenth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist (1890), the mines of the ancient channel, principally at Alpha and Omega, were long dead and forgotten. Frisk’s Nevada County Mining Review, 1895, carries just a few sentences, all under the typical category of “gravel mines” near Washington and along that portion of the Yuba River. The Mining and Scientific Press might offer something, but time disallowed a thorough search.
The 1890’s produced a flurry of published papers by the newly created United States geologic Survey. Waldemar Lindgren began an important series of papers published in conjunction with early geologic maps known as the Monograph series. Each monograph covered a specific USGS published topographic quadrangle, and Lindgren provided textual discussion of the geology with each monograph. Eight different monographs were published covering the Sierra Nevada foothill belt. These papers created a stir in the mining world, and were directly responsible for increased exploration and production of auriferous Tertiary gravels in California. They were culminated by his 1911 summary paper, mentioned at length previously. Mac Boyle’s Mines and Mineral Resources of Nevada County, 1918, also only briefly mentions the production from these channels, citing, without specific reference, the work of Pettee and Lindgren, nearly word for word in places.
The most recent scholarly work is Hydraulic Mining in California, A Tarnished Legacy by Powell Greenland, published in 2001. It covers much of what is found here and much more regarding hydraulic mining.
Hydraulic Mining “Invented” In Nevada County
Mankind has always used water for the separation of gold from gravel. After all, it is the natural process in streams and rivers. Mankind’s earliest forms of gold recovery are not known and are, for now, lost to history. The earliest known manmade gold artifacts appear to come from two separate places, both approximately 2200-2600BC. These include the gold mines used by early Egyptians in Nubia, now underwater under Lake Aswan, and the Irish gold mines, as evidenced today by the existence of several magnificent gold collars, of which little to nothing is known of their specific origin, though there are known ancient historical gold mining sites.
The first publication discussing hydraulic mining in a technical manner is by J. Ross Browne published in 1868. This important publication shows that the process of hydraulic mining was invented for specific use in a Tertiary channel immediately adjacent to the Omega-Malakoff channel that produced the Washington Nugget, further underscoring the importance of this wonderful nugget. Browne researched the process and interviewed a number of people and reviewed written works. His original account is so good, a portion of it is worthy of reproduction here:
The hydraulic system came into use in Nevada County in 1853, and enabled miners to work with profit a vast amount of auriferous ground that would never have paid by the old process of sluicing. About April, 1852, A. Chabot, mining near Nevada City, used a hose of some thirty five or forty feet in length, through which the water was conducted from the top of the bank to the bottom of his diggings. There was no pipe or nozzle at the end, but still it was found to be a giant saving in sluicing off the earth and gravel that had been picked down, and also a convenience in cleaning up the bedrock. So far as known, the hose was not used that season on any other claims, and it does not appear that Chabot discovered the great advantage that would result by directing the stream of water against the bank. This discovery was made by E.E. Matterson a year later. In April, 1853 Matterson and his partners, who were working a claim on American hill, rigged up a hose, attached a nozzle at the end, and directing it against the bank, , as water is thrown upon a building by a fire engine, and found that a small stream of water would do the work of a hundred men in excavating earth. Very soon after, this the hydraulic was adopted by the miners throughout the country wherever water and a sufficient fall could be procured. Successive improvements have been made in hydraulic mining, until the appliances now in use but little resemble those of 1853; but the principle is the same, and to Matterson is due the credit of the important discovery.
This discovery led to the construction of ditches all over the country to carry water to the elevated Tertiary gravel deposits and enabled their mining. Ditch companies were formed in large numbers, stock floated, and mines charged by the miners inch for the water.
Conclusion
The Washington Nugget may be the sole remaining authenticated large gold nugget of 100 troy ounce caliber from the California gold region. It came from one of the best producing Tertiary channels and from the very area where hydraulic mining was invented. The story surrounding the nugget is important, and underlies the importance of not melting any more of the great nuggets. This nugget is thus one of the great gold specimens in California, and has a place in history along with the famous Fricot “Nugget”, the most famous of the surviving old crystalline gold specimens mined during the gold rush period.
Sign In to Bookmark Lot