Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 36

Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 36

On Mormon Island, standing like a goose on one leg in the edge of the

river, was a tall awkward water-wheel, turning round with the current,

and dipping up with its long arms a quantity of water, which falling

into a wide spout was thence conducted into a shallow trough fifteen

feet long and as many inches in width. A miner standing by the side of

the trough threw into it, from time to time, several buckets of earth,

which being carried along by the water to a riddle or sieve at the

lower end, fell in a hundred little streams into a shallow box below.

Its contents were thus kept in a constant state of agitation, and the

gold working its way beneath the surface was saved, while the greater

part of the sand and gravel was floated off by the water. This simple

apparatus was called by the imposingly suggestive title of Long Tom.

The advantage it possessed over the common cradle in enabling us to

wash a larger quantity of earth was more than counterbalanced by the

difficulties that would beset the use of so cumbrous an ally as the

wheel. Yet the wheel was with us the principal attraction,--the splash

of its paddles made a pleasing concert, and it performed its task so

easily and cheerfully that it was a comfort to look at it.

 

My urgency having at length prevailed over the wiser counsels of St.

John, Tertium maintaining a strict neutrality, we were yet obliged

to wait several weeks for the big-bellied carpenter to construct the

apparatus, and for the South Fork company to turn the river into their

canal, on the edge of which we proposed to set up our works.

 

In the mean time we were led to embark in an enterprise more weighty

than any of our previous operations, and which, after various

disappointments, was at length, and in the most unexpected manner,

crowned with success.

 

A quarter of a mile above our tent, a party of miners were engaged in

repairing a dam that had been built the preceding summer, and had paid

its original proprietors over fifty thousand dollars. The new-comers,

who had taken the name of the Washington Damming and Mining Company,

had already made considerable headway in the undertaking, and expected

in another week to get to work in the bed of the river. One of the

members, intending to leave the mines, offered us his share for one

hundred and fifty dollars; after some hesitation, we paid the money;

and the next day I listened, with becoming gravity, to the reading

of the constitution and by-laws, signed my name to that important

document, and went to work with the rest.

 

The company consisted, chiefly, of English sailors and adventurers

from Australia, hard-workers and hard-drinkers, but possessing little

Yankee adaptation. Their names were generally Tom, Dick, and Harry;

the three more prominent members who alternated through the different

offices alone rejoicing in the dignity of a surname. Yet in the

division of our labour we maintained strict republican equality, each,

in turn, wielding the shovel and the pick, and in due time exchanging

them for the more laborious task of carrying earth and stones in

buckets along the narrow pathway of the dam.

 

The dam itself was an immense structure, and its massive solidity

had enabled it partially to withstand the freshets of the preceding

winter. Half the foundation was formed by a pine three feet in

diameter and a hundred feet in length, which had been drawn into the

river by oxen, and was now held firmly in its place by the jagged

rocks against which it rested. On this were laid, at right angles,

their blackened butts projecting like a close array of pikes, a large

number of stout saplings; and on these, again, a second timber, much

smaller, however, than the first. Large stones were then thrown in

on the upper side of this rude breastwork; other logs successively

added--and, when the whole had thus attained a sufficient elevation,

it was made tight with stones and gravel, and, finally, the finest

earth we could procure. When I joined the company, about half the

dam was completed, but a large part of the river still found its way

through the farther extremity. The dam was here ten feet high, and

twelve feet wide at the base; and all this mass of earth and stones

had to be carried to the spot in buckets, a distance of two hundred

and fifty feet, the labour being but slightly relieved by a small

flatboat that was employed to bring earth from the opposite bank.

 

As the long forenoon dragged slowly on, many a chiding look was cast

towards two towering pines that stood just one hour apart, high

up on the hillside. When the sun at last had reached his meridian

tower above the southernmost pine, the buckets and picks and shovels

fell from our willing hands; the rest of the party got into the

boat and paddled slowly across the river, while I, wearily and with

long breaths, picked my way over the rocks--crossed one or two deep

ravines--till, reaching the Red Bank, I descended with a bound, and,

stretching myself on my blankets, lay in cloddish immutability till

called to dinner. At two our long afternoon commenced, and, ah!

how earnestly we desired the shadow, bringing with it health and

refreshing. Slowly but gently our work went on, like the coral island

rising from the deep Pacific. As we hemmed in the headstrong river,

the pond above our dam continually enlarged, and more of the water was

compelled to find its way through the canal.

 

But now my companions were impatient to obtain the reward of their

labour, and they all said, "Let's go to work in the river bed and earn

a little money."

 

We dug holes here and there in the gravel, but the water filled them

like so many wells, and we were compelled to work higher on the bank.

Still we made little or nothing, and again returned to the dam.

 

There were several ugly leaks that defied all our efforts; boat-load

after boat-load of earth was emptied on the spot--bushels of old

clothes, enough to make the fortune of all the rag merchants of

Little Germany, collected in the neighbourhood, and carefully stowed

away at the bottom by the most amphibious of our party, who used to

emerge from his bath, dripping like a river-god and shivering as in an

ague--all was in vain. It was really too bad; we had stopped the whole

river, but we could not stop that trifling leak.

 

And just now, too, our boat was sunk. Pushing heedlessly off from the

shore, it went down, full of earth, in ten feet of water; and when

we reproached the crew for their clumsiness, we received no other

consolation than that of knowing they had lost their boots.

 

The next day was cold and cloudy--a few wild geese flying south,

dripped upon us some drops of rain.

 

"Well, boys," cried our democratic president, "and what shall we do

now?"

 

"The rainy season is coming! we must go to work, and make what we can,

each one for himself!" cried half the members.

 

We made, during the forenoon, fifty dollars. "This will never do,"

said the president; "we must have another meeting." We sat round on

stones--the surnames argued with a deal of heat and acrimony, to which

Tom, Dick, and Harry, opposed an impregnable front of sullen disdain.

 

The president, by far the ablest man in the company,--though, like all

the rest, hasty and passionate,--resigned his office in disgust; and

all my persuasive flattery could not induce him to resume it. They

_would_ go to work in the river, in spite of my remonstrances; so I

left them, and returned to assist in working the Long Tom.

 

The wheel, some eight feet in diameter, was attached to the end of a

long, heavy shaft, projecting two or three feet over the current, and

supported at a single point by an iron bolt passing through a stout

post set firmly among the rocks at the edge of the canal into which

the river had been diverted. By means of this shaft, we could raise or

depress the wheel at pleasure. The earth we proposed first to wash was

a gentle slope, rising from the river towards our bank, and consisting

of a fine sand almost free from stones, and paying from three to ten,

or even twenty cents to the bucket.

 

Thursday morning, September 12, we commenced operations. Round goes

the restless wheel, scooping up the dizzy water. The canvass hose

rises and falls with its frequent pulse, like the great artery of

a whale. The thirsty sand drinks eagerly the cooling stream that

dissolves and sweeps it away, leaving bright grains of gold sticking

here and there on the bottom of the trough. So, if nothing happens, we

shall get rich, after all.

 

"But seems to me, the river is rising," cries St. John.

 

"So it is, I declare; what in the world is to pay now, I wonder; there

comes Cameron; perhaps he can tell us."

 

"Well, Mr. Raven," cried Cameron, as well as he could for want of

breath, "the dam's gone."

 

"Dam gone! how? where? when?"

 

"Just now, down the river, swept away. The Missouri Dam has burst, and

the flood has swept the top of ours clean off; I just saved the tools

and that's all."

 

"That's what made the river rise?"

 

"Yes, it has so."

 

There was our two thousand vanished into thin air; we all looked

rather foolish, and then and there decided that damming was a very

unprofitable business, and we would have nothing more to do with it.

 

It was now twelve o'clock; so raising the wheel out of the water, we

walked up to our tent; where we spent an hour or two very pleasantly

in forming a comparison between our own situation and that of the

great mass of our fellow adventurers. It was of course highly

gratifying to find that we belonged to that numerous and respectable

class whose praises have been sung in all ages from Solomon to Dr.

Franklin; and if half of our acquaintance had more, the other half had

even less than had fallen to our share.

 

Full of this consolatory reflection, and strong in faith, we resumed

our labours in the afternoon; but had hardly washed a dozen buckets

when suddenly the water in the canal fell two feet or more--the wheel

ceased its revolutions--St. John dropped the uplifted shovel--Tertium

rested on the handles of the wheelbarrow--and we all stared with open

mouth at this new wonder. The flume just above had burst, letting half

the river back into its original channel, and we could do nothing

until the breach was stopped. I laid my hand on the shaft, intending

to raise the wheel, when the whole fabric slowly toppled over into the

water. We at once threw off our nether garments, and wading out into

the rapid current, which rose nearly to our shoulders, succeeded by

a violent effort in restoring the post to its upright position. The

cause of this accident was the water undermining a large stone that supported the post.