Early Mining Methods
Miners in California used a variety of methods to extract gold. The simplest method was panning. Squatting by the side of a river or a stream, the miner filled a shallow, flat-bottomed pan with what he hoped would be "pay dirt." Then he held the pan under the surface of the water and swirled it about with a gently rotating motion for several minutes. With one side of the pan held lower than the other, the water washed away the lighter dirt and sand. The heavier gold particles--if any--would remain in the bottom of the pan.
Panning was a tedious and back-breaking job. Miners improved on this simple method by using a rocker, an oblong box without a top, several feet in length, mounted on rockers like a child's cradle and placed in a sloping position. Pay dirt was shoveled into the rocker, followed by buckets of water. As the miner vigorously rocked the cradle back and forth, the muddy water rushed through and the gold was trapped behind "riffles" or ridges in the bottom of the rocker.
Further improvements appeared by the end of 1849. The "long tom" was an open wooden trough about twelve feet long. Water and dirt flowed through the tom more rapidly and in greater quantity than could be handled by a rocker. The long tom later evolved into a sluice, a series of riffle boxes fitted together, sometimes as much as several hundred feet in length.
The easily available gold in California soon was depleted, but rich deposits of the precious metal remained far below the surface. Thus the early mining methods gave way to methods more complex--and more destructive.
Working together in large mining companies, miners turned aside entire rivers to expose the pay dirt of streambeds. They also dug deep shafts or tunnels into the earth. One of the most spectacular of the new mining methods was "hydraulicking." Miners used the destructive power of high-pressure water to wash away banks and hills, uncovering gold-bearing gravel far beneath the surface. Hydraulicking left the earth deeply scarred and in some places unrecognizable from its previous state.
Hydraulic mining was a true California innovation. In 1853 a former sailmaker named Anthony Chabot constructed a sturdy canvas hose, and a Connecticut Yankee named Edward E. Matteson invented a tapered nozzle of sheet brass. For the next three decades, hydraulic mining was the dominant form of gold extraction in northern California.
As the world rushed in to California, the gold seekers found themselves in a land beyond the reach of any established law. They ignored the tribal governments of the California Indians and had little respect for the past practices of Mexican rule. The mining regions remained largely unaffected by the actions of American military governors and officials of the newly formed state government.
Concerned about regulating and securing their mining claims, the miners took matters into their own hands. They formed more than 500 self-governing mining districts. Within each district was an elected recorder, variously called an arbitrator or chairman, whose duties were to keep a record of all claims in the district and to settle disputes over contested claims.
Each district adopted its own unique mining codes. The codes defined such things as the maximum size of claims, the process of filing them, the necessity for continually working them, and what constituted the abandonment of a claim.
The mining districts were democratic bodies, but many also were discriminatory. They commonly excluded African Americans, Asians, and Latinos. The miners also banded together to administer vigilante justice, banishing or lynching those whom they suspected of wrongdoing.
James Mason Hutchings, an English-born author and editor, published in 1853 a gold-rush letter sheet called "The Miner's Ten Commandments." A letter sheet is a type of illustrated stationery that can be folded to form a self-made envelope. Hutchings sold more than one hundred thousand copies of his "Commandments" in just one year.
The First Commandment was simple and direct. It reflected a stipulation found in many actual mining codes: "Thou shalt have no other claim than one."
The Sixth Commandment was a bit more complex but just as important: "Thou shalt not kill thy body by working in the rain.... Neither shalt thou kill thy neighbor's body in a duel.... Neither shalt thou suck through a straw...nor gurgle from a bottle...."
The Eighth Commandment was the toughest: "Thou shall not steal a pick, or a pan, or a shovel, from thy fellow miner, nor take away his tools without his leave...for he will be sure to discover what thou hast done, and will straightaway call his fellow miners together, and if the law hinder them not they will hang thee, or give thee fifty lashes, or shave thy head and brand thee like a horse thief with 'R' upon thy cheek."