ABSTRACT
By subsequent convulsions of nature, this ancient river bed, of which the miners speak, was, they will tell you, in places covered over to the depth of hundreds of feet. It is supposed, for instance, that the famous Table Mountain, a mass of rock and lava, lies ove!" a part of it; while in other parts, the bed itself was raised or thrown up; so that its traces are, they say, sometimes found high up on the side of a mountain. Old California miners speak to you with great confidence of this ancient river bed; thry assure you that the signs of it are found over a considerable part of the State; and that wherever they can get at it they are sure of gold. I do not know what the geologists say about it, and, fOl' the purposes of this chapter, I don't need to know; for it is a fact that loose gold is found; that there are signs and peculiar marks by which the experienced know where it is; and that, finally, the deposit is so certain, that given a good locality, and a mining company will invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in flumes for carrying water, or in tunnels for carrying away the earth and loose rock, and will wash away immense hills hundreds of feet high, confident that at the bottom they will find theil' reward.
