oards. The cost of
cutting a tunnel varies from two to forty dollars a longitudinal foot,
according to the nature of the ground, the cost of getting timbers, &c.
Tunnels are usually made by companies of eight or ten men, of whom
one-half may be merchants, lawyers, physicians or office-holders, and
the remainder laboring miners. The latter class do the work; the former
furnish provisions and tools, and a certain amount of cash weekly until
the pay-dirt is reached. Two or three men work at a time cutting a
tunnel; one or two to dig the earth, and one or two to haul it out. The
dirt of the first fifty yards is hauled out in a wheelbarrow; beyond
that distance a little tram-way or railroad is laid down, and the dirt
is hauled out in cars, pushed by the miners. It is not customary to use
horses. It is common to have two relays of laborers--one set working
from noon to midnight, the other from midnight to noon. Work in a
tunnel is as pleasant at night as in the daytime. When a company is
rich, or has many laborers, it may have three relays, each to work
eight hours in the twenty-four.

It is not uncommon for two companies, owning adjacent claims in a hill,
to unite and cut a tunnel on joint account along the dividing line.
They go in until they reach the pay-dirt, and then a surveyor is
employed to run the line between their claims, and the tunnel is
continued through the pay-dirt. The dirt from the tunnel is washed for
the joint account of the two companies. After the dividing line has
been established, each company keeps on its own side, and each has its
time to use the tram-way. They may also have a joint-stock sluice at
the mouth of the tunnel--one company having the privilege of using the
sluice one week, and the other the next. All the dirt brought out in a
week can readily be washed in a day. The work of taking out the
pay-dirt after the main tunnel has been cut, is called "drifting;" and
the holes made by the men engaged in it are termed "drifts." The drifts
are usually not so high as the tunnels. The large stones and barren
dirt obtained in the drifts are piled up here and there to sustain the
earth overhead. Sometimes wooden posts are likewise necessary.

_Shafts._--Shafts are used in prospecting, and also in mining, where
the claims are deep and cannot be reached by either the hydraulic
process or the tunnel. The prospecting shaft is sometimes sunk into
hills supposed to be auriferous, where the shaft is far less