Bazooka Gold Trap Sluice Box! (Prospector Extended)

delnorter

Hero Member
Oct 28, 2008
906
2,292
Northern California
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hi Adam. I'm sorry for the delay in writing. I'm just plain busy between work and keeping up with all the other chores (planting the garden, cutting firewood .........!)

Any way, wow, you folks have quite a history over that way. I'm just a visitor; working (surveying), deer hunting and prospecting over the years. I don't think I know your family family. I know what your dad goes through keeping the roads open though. I do the same thing over here on Highway 199 for Caltrans.

Yes, the CB radio was, and still is, the only way to safely travel this road. The first time we did some survey work over that way we didn't have a CB. Oh boy! The next week when we returned we did. While driving in on Monday we heard the first log truck we passed say over the CB, " those surveyors are back, I sure hope we don't knock that little Datsun pickup into the river". Well, we got right on the radio, apologized for not having a radio the week before and told them the road was theirs. We pulled over in plenty of time to keep those guys moving and they really appreciated it. Keep the working man on wheels rolling. He's trying to make a living.

I'll ramble on a little more with one of many fond memory of your area.

One really neat old guy I met over that way was Gordon McNeil. He was a very knowledgeable native american born and raised along the Salmon River. He lived there at Red Cap Ranch. When we began the boundary survey of the Bloomer Mine we were having a hard time finding evidence of the original survey (stone monuments, scribed or blazed trees, etc.) to get started. We went and asked Gordon if he could tell us any thing about the mine. Well old Gordon gets quiet in thought and then says, " yes, I remember as a child playing on the giant they used to wash down the mountain". We walked through the vegetable garden, to the bluff overlooking the river, making small talk as we went. There on this overlook was Gordon's outhouse with the most beautiful view of the river far below. He laughed and told us of the many times he would be sitting here and would wave to the rafters going by, no need for a door.

When it was appropriate to bring it up again, we asked if he recalled anything about the boundaries of the mine property. After a while of visiting in his beautiful garden he said; "you need to go up the hill to where the mining ditch enters the pit. Then walk upstream, along the shoulder of the ditch to the place it bends around the ridge face. I remember a black oak tree, just below the ditch, with letters and numbers carved into it". This is exactly the information which can give a surveyor the heads up to retrace these old surveys after so many years of change. Fires, bears, logging, slides and the such erase much of this original evidence.

We went to the spot Gordon described and there it was. A very large black oak tree growing out of the side of the mining ditch which was carved into a very steep mountain slope. It was leaning down hill at a pretty good angle. Holding on to the tree with one arm and looking around the side, I could make out just a trace of the ax blow used to make a "face" through the bark, hopefully by the original surveyor 100 years or so ago. Since then, these corner or bearing trees often heal up entirely, leaving little evidence of what's inside.

Now to verify this tree was meaningful to our survey. Tying a rope off to me and another tree uphill, I leaned out into space with a chain saw to open up the tree. Using the saw I cut out a block of wood about 8" wide by 15" or so long. As I recall I only cut into the slow growing tree about 6" deep to reach the old face. I then took an ax and hammered the plug of wood. If the old face is in there, after a few blows, the plug of wood will pop out. This one did and there was a thing of beauty. In the space where the plug came out was the carved marking identifying the mineral survey and the corner number placed there by the original surveyor so long ago. On the inside of the plug of wood was a negative (reverse) image of the marking inside the tree. For a surveyor it does not get any better than this. The next "call" in the original survey notes was the bearing and distance to a penstock in the ditch. It was made of wood and had long since been destroyed by forest fire, but using our trusty metal detector, we found all the rusty square nails, in a perfectly sized opening in the ditch wall, used to construct the penstock. Using the penstock location and the oak tree for an initial bearing we were able to find a enough corner and or bearing trees to perform a proper resurvey of the mine.

I'm sure we would have been able to retrace this old survey with a lot more field investigation, but with Gordon's help it sure was a lot easier. This old timer knowledge is extremely valuable. We should all be keen to ask these folks about days gone by and what they remember. We were truly grateful to Gordon for his help. More importantly, he was my friend.

Mike
 

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