A NEW SYSTEM OF MINING

Otago Witness, Issue 1383, 1 June 1878, Page 4

A NEW SYSTEM OF MINING

Last Saturday, in company with several gentlemen, we took a ride to the Wyandotte hydraulic mines, to .witness the working of Granston's Hydraulic Elevator. The bed oi: the ravine is, nearly level, and though the gravel is quite rich, yet, owing to the want of fall, it has been very difficult to work it. But with the elevator the difficulty is entirely overcome, and the earth was rushing through the flume at a rate astonishing to behold. It was the first time that we ever saw earth washed up hill, and yet it -is so simple and easy that the wonder is no one ever attempted to do so before. One box is placed in the cut, into, which the earth and gravel is driven just the same as.in any other hydraulic mine. At the lower end of this first box is a second short box, set deeper in the bedrock, and on the top of it is what is termed a "grizzly," or iron rods close to each other. The object is that the earth, water, and dirt may fall through the iron bars. The water flows but a couple of feet in the second box, when it enters a round iron pipe, when it is struck by a volume of water discharged' from a pipe, the nozzle of which is inserted in the top of this first pipe, and away goes the water, earth, and gold up an incline of 45deg., until it ia discharged into a flume 15ft. above the bedrock, where an abundance of, rock may be found further down the ravirije. Any person who has seen a sewer flushed | has seen the whole thing. It is on ; precisely the same principle. The only difference is that the sewer usually descends a little, while the box through which the earth and gold are driven by the water turns up. It is astonishing with what force the small rock rushes through the pipe. By this process: all the hard lumps 1 are well pulverised. The claim is paying well. After running 20 hours, one of the boxes was cleaned up and found to contain 40dol. worth of gold, though lOdol. would have been considered good pay. ' With this new elevator . there are hundreds of acres of good land here in Butte .county that will pay very well, that now cannot be mined except at great expense in cutting ■ a flume through the bedrock. — Oroville Mercury, March 29th.