MINING IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 705, 1 September 1870, Page 2

MINING IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

An interesting paper, containing the report of Mr William Baldwin, one of the earlier Wardens on the Otago Goldfiekls, upon mining in California, has been published by the New Zealand Government. The report treats more especially of the subject of water rights, and the following, advocating the adoption of iron piping in the place of fluming, cannot but prove interesting where, as with us, the miners often have to construct fluming for the purpose of carrying water across gullies and broken, precipitous country. Any substitute that will effect this purpose, and obviate the large annual expenditure, necessary to maintain fluming in repair, is certain to receive the favorable consideration of the miner; and these advantages Mr Baldwin claims for IRC-:* PIPE FLUMING. In California iron piping is now very generally used as a substitute for fluming. It is not only cheaper and more durable than the ordinary, fluming, but it possesses this advantage also, that by its use water can be carried across gullies of a very considerable depth, and where fluming would be impossible. For instance, at a water-race now in course of construction at Feather River, by means of this piping water is carried across a gully of considerable width and 800 feet deep. I believe the system to bo peculiarly applicable to the nature and requirements of the Colony. The sheet-iron most commonly used in making the pipes is No. 20, and the size of the sheet G feet by 2 feet. The diameter of the pipe is usually 11 inches, and the pipes are made in joints 2 feet long ; the joints being riveted together form sections 20J- feet in length. Small hooks are fixed in the ends of the several sections, and these are lashed together by tying them with wire, by which means the sections are kept from moving and in their proper positions. The piping is used in the form of an inverted siphon, carrying the water down the side of the gully which has to be crossed, and up again the opposite side to the same level. In laying down the pipes, each section is secured to a post, and the post itself kept in its proper place by a board placed edgewise and crosswise in the ground. An inch and a half or two inches is allowed for the lap of each section, and it is perhaps needless to say the ends must be carefully fitted into one another, so as to be" watertight, or as nearly so as possible. It may be further stated that the piping must be, as nearly as circumstances will permit, put together in a straight line, and the sections driven home by placing a board across the end and striking it with a sledge-hammer. Tar, as a preservative, is applied outside, and, when practicable, inside also, before the piping is buried in the ground. At Feather River, the case I have already referred to, the water is carried down the side of a gully 950 feet on the decline, and up the other side a distance of 900 feet ; the total depth, as stated, being 800 feet. By this plan the water is conveyed across a gully at Placerville 1700 feet wide and 200 feet deep, at a cost of about £109; whereas the cost of fluming the distance would not have been not less than five or six times that amount. The manager of the Vulcan Foundry, San Francisco, informed me that piping of this description, 11 inches in diameter, and made of No. 20 sheet-iron, costs 1 dollar 5 cents the foot. It will carry 95 "miner's inches" of water, and sustain a span of 220 feet. At 190 feet, the pressure is 8S lbs. to tho cubic, iuch.