and pack supplies. More often
the Argonaut cooked his own bacon and slapjacks and simmered his beans
over a lonely camp-fire, and slept wrapped in a blanket under the
trees. If he had much gold, he would go to the nearest town, buy food
enough for another prospecting tramp, and often spend all the rest of
his money in foolish waste.

Sometimes a company of miners would build a dam across a river or
stream, and turn it from its course, so they could dig out and wash
the rich gravel in the river-bed. A flume, or ditch, would often carry
all the water to a lower part of the river, leaving the bed of the
upper stream dry for miles. In this kind of mining the "pay-dirt" was
shovelled into long wooden boxes called sluices, and a constant stream
of water kept the gravel and earth moving on out to a dumping-place.
The gold dropped down or settled into riffles, or spaces between bars
placed across the bottom of the sluices, and once a week the water was
turned off and a "clean-up" made of the gold.

It was not long before the rivers, creeks, and gulches had all been
worked over and most of the gold taken out. The miners knew that this
loose gold had been washed out of the hills by the rains and storms of
countless years. So some one thought of using a heavy stream of water
to break down the foot-hills themselves and to carry the gold-bearing
gravel to sluice boxes. This is called hydraulic mining and is the
cheapest way of handling earth, as water does all the work and
very little shovelling is needed. But since a strong water-power is
necessary, a large reservoir and miles of ditches or wooden flumes
must be built, so the first expense is large. The water usually comes
from higher up in the mountains, and is forced under great pressure
through iron pipes, the nozzle or "giant" being directed at the
hillside, which has already been shattered by heavy blasts of powder.
The water tears thousands of tons of earth and gravel apart, and the
muddy stream flows through sluices, where the gold is left. In this
kind of mining a great quantity of debris, or "tailings," must be
disposed of.

For years this debris was washed into the rivers or on farming lands,
filling up and ruining both, and leading to endless quarrels between
farmers and miners. But at last the courts stopped hydraulic mining
except in northern counties, where debris went into the Klamath River,
upon which no boats could run and near which was little farming. But
al