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Show 468 WESTERN WILDS. general course east and west. Towards the north ( or rather east of north) it falls away abruptly to a beautiful circular park. In all other directions than towards Caribou the inclosing walls of the park rise in gentle rounded hills, closed with heavy forests of pine. From the various gulches run clear streams to the center of the valley, form-ing a creek large enough for milling purposes; and far to the north-east stretch extensive pastures in the vales and timber on the ridges. In that part is the best locality for a quartz mill which the vicinity affords, and consequently all the tunnel claims are located on that side. They lie only a thousand feet apart, as the law allows each one that space,- and if completed will undermine the entire hill in sections of a thousand feet each, striking the various lodes at a depth of from five hundred to a thousand feet. The law allows a tunnel company five hundred feet on any lode they strike, " not located on the surface at the date the tunnel site was located." But if the owner of any mine opened above proposes to dispute title, the burden of proof is on him to trace connection, which it will obviously take him some time to do, and for this reason and the greater convenience of shipping ore through that channel, the interests generally unite. From Caribou I took the mountain road across to Central City site of the far- famed Gregory Gulch Diggings, and thence to Idaho City, and up to Georgetown. The way was over mountain meadows, mingling the rich green with bright- hued flowers; through dark pine forests and down lonely gulches, where the indefatigable prospectors had dotted all the slopes with holes in search of " indications." Some-times the route lay over levels where one could scarcely believe him-self on a mountain, though we were from eight to nine thousand feet above the sea ; and sometimes in depressions we saw heavy crops of rye and potatoes, ripening in late August, a mile and a half above the Missouri Valley. Near Central City hundreds of acres of bare gray rocks show where the surface soil has been " piped off" to get at the gold dust; and in a few places gangs of Chinese are still at work on the poorest diggings, long since abandoned by whites. But placer mining in this vicinity has long yielded to quartz mining, and the few Chinese at the time of my visit were even worse regarded than in California. A fire, a few weeks before, had laid a large section of the city in ruins ; and, as it originated among the Mongolians, they were for a long time forbidden to come into the upper part of town. But the poor, pathetically patient race, bided its time and held its own. My summer's work was done, and while September heats still lin-gered on the plains, we left the cool air of Georgetown for the journey |
