5 MILES

From Sacramento the grade is easy and the country fairly open until
Auburn is reached (35-1/2 miles.) The roads are excellent, the
disintegrated granite affording local material close at hand for
perfect road building. The Sierras stretch away to the east in gently
ascending billows, covered over with richest verdure of native trees
of every variety, and of the thousands of orchard trees that are
making this region as famous for its fruits as it used to be for its
mines. For from 1849 until the hydraulic mines were closed down by
the anti-debris decision in the U.S. Supreme Court, this section and
beyond was one of the richest gold mining regions of California, and
historically, one of the greatest importance to the State. Such places
as Auburn, Illinoistown (Colfax), Gold Run and Dutch Flat, were rich
producing camps and branch roads reached to Yankee Jim, Todd's Valley,
Forest Hill, Michigan Bluffs, Bath, and other towns on what is known
as the Forest Hill Divide, a divide being a local term, to signify the
rocky, mountainous mass,--nearly always having a level grade on its
summit,--that separates two forks of the same stream, or two different
streams. From Colfax another road led to Grass Valley, Nevada City,
and North Bloomfield in Nevada County, and Iowa Hill, Wisconsin Hill,
Monona Flat, and Damascus on the Iowa Hill Divide. All these were
centers of rich mining districts which were scenes of the greatest
activity in the days of their productivity. Now, however, most of them
are abandoned, except Auburn, Colfax, and Nevada City which have other
resources, and Grass Valley, which maintains its high standing owing
to its rich quartz mines. Forest Hill, Iowa Hill, and Michigan Bluff
have drift mines which maintain small and meager populations compared
with those of the early and prosperous days. In the 'fifties Yankee
Jim and its tributary mines had a population of 3000, while to-day it
is entirely deserted. Todd's Valley, which was also a flourishing camp
has suffered the same fate.

_Auburn to Colfax 16 Miles, Colfax to Emigrant Gap, 30-1/2
Miles_. Leaving Auburn the road ascends more rapidly until Colfax
(16 miles) is reached (elevation 2422 feet). Then ten miles further
one is in the heart of the most extensive hydraulic mining operations
of California. Thousands of acres are passed which yet bear the scars
of the "washing down" for the precious mineral hid away during the
centuries until the Argonauts