rom three to six, the
water doing nearly all the work. In some claims a man is constantly
employed with a heavy sledge-hammer in breaking up large stones, so
that the pieces may be sent down the sluice. One man attends to the
sluice, and sees that the dirt does not choke up in the sluice, or in
the claim above it.

The quantity of dirt that can be washed with a hydraulic pipe depends
upon various circumstances--such as the supply of water, the height of
its fall, the toughness of the dirt, and the amount of moisture in it.
More can be washed in winter than in summer, because the dirt is then
moister, and requires less water to loosen and dissolve it. The
quantity of water used in a hydraulic claim is from forty to two
hundred inches. With one hundred inches, at least thirty cubic yards
can be washed in ten hours, on an average; and three men can do all the
work. If there were a cent's worth of gold in each cubic foot, the
thirty cubic yards would yield eight dollars and ten cents per day, or
two dollars and seventy cents to the man, exclusive of the cost of
water. But, as a matter of fact, nearly all the hydraulic claims pay
more than that, and they will average at least three cents to the cubic
foot, and many of them yield five cents. The water usually costs twenty
cents an inch per day, so that one hundred inches would cost twenty
dollars. Allowing for the water at that rate, a claim in which thirty
cubic yards could be washed in a day with one hundred inches of water,
and in which the dirt contained five cents to the cubic foot, would
leave a net pay of six dollars and sixty-six cents to each man per day.

One hydraulic company, of whose labors I have a note, washed two
hundred and twenty-four thousand cubic feet of dirt in six days, using
two hundred inches of water, and employing ten men. The wages of the
men amounted, at four dollars per day each, to two hundred and forty
dollars; the water cost three hundred dollars; and the waste of
quicksilver, and wear of sluice, perhaps one hundred dollars more,
making a total expenditure of six hundred and forty dollars: and the
gold obtained was three thousand dollars, leaving a clear profit of
twenty-three hundred and fifty dollars. The dirt contained one cent and
a fifth of gold in a cubic foot. The greater the amount of water used,
the greater the proportionate amount of dirt that can be washed, and
the greater the proportionate profits. It is far more profitable to
ha