; he must erect expensive
dams and flumes, which can be used for only a few months; and then he
is exposed to floods which may come and destroy all his work before he
has commenced to wash. These disadvantages, and the exhaustion of most
of the river-diggings in the state, have almost put an end to
river-mining in California. In a few cases, extensive fluming
enterprises have proved profitable; but, as a general rule,
river-mining in this state has cost more than it has produced. A river
is seldom flumed for less than three hundred yards, and sometimes for a
mile; and the lumber and labor required to make so long a flume, and
one large enough to hold all the water of a river, are very expensive.
The dam will always leak, and water will run into the bed from the
adjacent hills and mountains, and this water must be lifted out by
pumps driven by wheels placed in the flume. The river-beds are full of
large rocks, weighing from one to ten tons, and these must be moved by
machinery, to allow the dirt to be taken out.

River-mining is now never undertaken by an individual, but always by
large associations, generally called "fluming companies," sometimes
composed of miners exclusively, sometimes of miners and all the
principal business-men living near the place where the work is to be
done. The lawyers, doctors and office-holders, pay their assessments in
cash; the merchants furnish provisions, the lumbermen supply lumber,
and the miners make the dam, and help the carpenters build the flume.

_Beach-Mining._--Beach-mining is the business of washing the sands of
the ocean-beach. Between Point Mendocino, in California, and the mouth
of the Umpqua River, in Oregon, the beach-sand contains gold, and in
some places it is very rich. The beach is narrow, and lies at the foot
of a bluff bank of auriferous sand. In times of storm, the waves wash
against this bank, undermine it, sweep away the pieces which tumble
down, leaving the gold on the beach. The gold is in very fine
particles, and it moves with the heavier sand, which alters its
position frequently under the influence of the waves and surf. One day,
the beach will have six feet depth of sand; the next, there will be
nothing save bare rocks. The sand differs greatly in richness at
various times: one day, it will be full of golden specks; a few days
later, at the same place it will be barren. The sand in the mean time
has been moved by the waves, and replaced by other sand.

It