HLST0E1CAL XOTKS1 MIXING, METALLURGICAL AXD STATISTICAL. 31
scale as compared to its present application. Mr. Wm. H. Ellet, writing in the Mining and Statistic Magazine1 early in 1858, in reply to Hon. T. L. Clingman's inquiry of December, 1857, says:
" I avail myself of my earliest leisure to answer your inquiries in relation to the hydraulic gold-mining operations lately introduced by Dr. 31. H. Vandyke,
in some of the western comities of North Carolina.....My observations in the
hydraulic process were made during the month of April - at the Jamestown mine,3 in McDowell county, X. C. The water was there conveyed .... about 4
miles. The uniform descent was 4 inches to the hundred feet.....The number
of hose pipes employed was four. The mass of earth moved in nine working days was 20 feet in depth, 82 in length and 26 in breadth, being at the rate of 1184 cubic feet, or 060 bushels, per day for each hose.....The laboremployed .... was that of four men and two boys..... The yield in gold
was S5.13 per day for each hose employed.
Shortly afterwards a further publication appeared in the same magazine/ from which the following extracts are taken:
" The Wilkinson gold mine in Burke county, X. C, is owned by Dr. Tan Dyke, and is worked by the hydraulic process. The water is brought .... by a
canal or aqueduct for a distance of 15 miles.....The water is not brought
upon these mines at a very high head, only about 40 feet. There was only one pipe in operation at the time of my visit. The water passed through a 6-inch
hose and a nozzle of 1% inches.....The average yield of the mine .... was
about $5.00 a day to each hand.....Obtaining a sample of the gold of this
mine, we passed over about 2 miles to the Bunker Hill mine, also in Burke county. This was formerly known as the Brindleton mine. It is owned and worked by Kev. Benjamin Hamilton.....It is now worked by the hydraulicprocess.....The amount of water is limited, sufficient only for abovit two
pipes, which is brought in a small ditch for a distance of 4 or 5 miles.....
The Collins mine in Rutherford county is owned and worked by Dr. Van Dyke. The water is brought to this mine in a canal about 4 miles in length, at an elevation of 150 feet, and sufficient in amount for 20 pipes, and will
command nearly 1000 acres of surface.....Jamestown mine, McDowell
county, X". C, [is] also worked by Dr. Van Dyke. The deposit workings embrace about 400 acres. The water is brought by a canal at an elevation of 70 feet, and is five miles in length. There is water enough here for 20 hose pipes."
Prof. AVm. P. Blake (in 185S) in a "Report upon the Gold Placers of Lumpkin county, Georgia, and the Practicability of "Working them by the Hydraulic Method, with "Water from the Chestatee River," " says:
" Desiring to see the results obtained [by Dr. M. H. Van Dyke] in Xorth Carolina, and thus to be enabled to form a better judgment of the probable results in Georgia, I first visited the placers in Burke and McDowell counties
1 Vol. x, pp. 27-30, January 1858. Our attention was called to this and related articles by the interesting paper of Prof. Wm. P. Blake, published in the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, October 1895, entitled Notes and Recollections Concerning the Min eral Resources of Northern Georgia and Western North Carolina.
-1857.
3 Afterwards and at present known as the Vein Mountain mine.
4 Vol. x, pp. 393, 394, May, 1858.
s Mining and Statistic Magazine, vol. x, pp. 457-476. June, 1858.
