quartz-mills in
the county. There are twenty-two ditches in the county, with an
aggregate length of nine hundred and fifty-two miles, an average of
forty-three miles each. The most important ditch, called "Bovyer's,"
supplies Timbuctoo with five thousand inches of water in the winter,
less in the summer. The diggings at Timbuctoo are in a deep hill, which
is washed away by the hydraulic process.

West of Yuba and Plumas counties lies Butte, which is drained by the
Feather River. The principal mining towns are Oroville, Bidwell's Bar,
Forbestown, Natchez and Whiterock. In 1859 there were seventeen
quartz-mills in the county, of which four were at Oregon Gulch, at
Columbiaville and Hansonville, three each, two at Yankee Hill, and at
Evansville, Gold Run, Long Bar, Nesbitt's Flat and Spring Valley, one
each. The assessor reports for 1860, twenty-nine quartz-mills, worth
fifty thousand dollars, and crushing in the aggregate one hundred and
sixty-two and a half tons per day. There are sixty-four mining-ditches,
with an aggregate length of five hundred and eighty-three miles. The
bars and beds of Feather River were once very rich, and some of the
most extensive enterprises of river mining in the state have been
undertaken within the limits of Butte county. The greatest flume ever
built in California was that of the Cape Claim Company, near Oroville,
in 1857. It was three quarters of a mile long and twenty feet wide, and
furnished employment for two hundred and fifty men from May till
November. The expenditures during that period were $176,985, and the
receipts $251,426, showing a clear profit of $74,441. The next year,
after the water had fallen, the company commenced its labors again;
spent $160,000 and received $115,000, and thus lost $45,000. North of
Oroville is a "table-mountain" with a top of basalt, covering a rich
deposit of auriferous clay.

_Nevada and Placer._--South of Yuba and Butte is Nevada, the richest
mining county of the state. Within its limits the tom, sluice,
under-current sluice, and crinoline hose were invented, and the ditch
and hydraulic power were first applied to placer-mining; and
quartz-mining was first undertaken extensively. In 1859 there were
thirty-two quartz-mills in the county, and twenty-eight mining-ditches,
with an aggregate length of three hundred and ninety-four miles. No
part of the mineral region of the state is better supplied with water
than Nevada county. The richest quartz dist