water. The bed-rock in the bottom of this lead is worn into long smooth
channels, and also has its roughness and crevices like other river
beds. The lighter and poorer qualities of gold are found nearest to its
edges, while the heavier and finer portions have found their way to the
deeper places near the centre. Trees and pieces of wood, more or less
petrified and changed in their nature, which once floated in its
waters, are also every where encountered throughout this stratum.

"The clay and fine gravel in which these pebbles and boulders are found
to be tightly packed, is of a light-blue color, which gives the name to
the lead. Much of this clay is remarkably fine and free from coarse
particles, and is smooth and unctuous to the touch. It is said to be
strongly impregnated with arsenic, as was shown by chemical analysis,
and contains large quantities of iron and sulphur in solution, for
pyrites and sulphurets of iron are deposited in shining metallic
crystals in every vacant crevice. Fine gold is found among this clay,
and the heavier particles beneath it, upon the bed-rock. This stratum
varies in thickness from eighteen inches to eight or ten feet, while
the whole lead varies in width from a hundred and fifty to five hundred
feet.

"The same lead has been found at Sebastopol, four miles above Monte
Christo, and also higher up among the mountains. It appears at Monte
Christo, which is four miles above the high-lying Downieville, and over
three thousand feet above it, and at Chapparal Hill on the side of a
deep ravine; then at the City of Six, which is also on very high land,
about four miles from Downieville, across the North Yuba. It is next
found at Forest City, on both sides of a creek, and is there traced
directly through the mountain to Alleghany Town and Smith's Flat, on
the opposite side. There it is again cut in twain by a deep ravine. It
crops out on the other side at Chip's Flat, where it has been followed
by tunnels passing completely through the mountain to Centreville and
Minnesota on the other side. Here it is obliterated by the Middle Fork
of the Yuba, but it is believed to be again found at Snow Point, on the
opposite side of the river, and again at Zion Hill, several miles
beyond. There is no reason for doubting that after thus reaching over
twenty miles, it still extends further. Hundreds of tunnels have been
run in search of it. Where the line it follows was adhered to, they
have always found it,