Gold Hill Daily News

SURFACE MINING.—The surface mines of this country have not all been played out yet, by a great sight. They continue to be carried on in the gulches and ravines down on American Flat, and men are now working there all the time. A company has been at work sluicing down there all the past Spring and this Summer, and has met with encouraging success. The gold which is taken out is mostly fine, and the ground pays very uniformly and evenly. The great drawback which is felt, and which prevents a great deal of ground from being worked which otherwise would be, is the want of water. We are informed that in Gold Canon and Six-mile Canon, miners used frequently to make two and three ounces per day to the man at sluicing, but now no water can be had for washing many places which never have been worked, although it might pay well to do so. The mills have secured the right to all the water, and use it; and although there is much more water now in both the canons named than there has ever been heretofore, there is scarcely enough to supply the wants of the mills, which have already been erected in both of them. The only place where water can now be spared to wash gravel with, is on the Flat, and there it cannot be had in quantities large enough to carry on work to any great extent. But with what facilities they have, the boys make the ground pay them good wages, and while they do this we can claim surface mines as well as California.