Rows of rocks

[seafox]

I waas wondering about some rows of rocks on an old claim first worked by chineese in the 1800s and later in the 30s. the hill side was washed from ditches my general thought was a dirtch was dug from the creek acrost the hillside to above the area to be washed. it was taked as far dowen canyon as possable and the with a head gate let run down the hillside to wash the old gravels down to a choke point where the sluice started.
is this correct?

the rods oof rocks are mostle grapefruit to basket ball side and believe the chineese stacked them in nice walls while other just tossed them to the side? since washing with a ditch the down canyon end was washed first and tossed aside rocks where thrown down canyon.

question. were the rocks usually placed on the down hill side? most of the piles or rows are about as high a one could toss rocks out of the flow of slurry. the rows are straight. does tghis meen that they were being tossed out of the sluice? or from the ditch / area that leeds to the sluice?

while the rows of rocks tend to stay the same 6 or 8 feet above the sloping land ( ie the top of the piles slope with the conture of the valley floor) their is a field of these rocks and it seems that maybe as they moved the washed area upcanyon the side of the flow to sluice ditch worked its way up canyon and the rocks piled on the down canyon side but here they do not seem to follow thew sloping contour the flat tops are about 15 20 feet wide and are flat untill the final slope goes all the way to the valley botton ( 15 or so feet ) pr omn some cases to earler flat areas of rock. tryiing to figure out why, and would the sluice been as far out from thew will side as possable or would it be higher with an out flow ditch, and if so an out flow ditch would then have had a reasosn to toss the bigger rocks asside asfter the sluice. my first thought was that the idea was toss out the rocks before they got to the sluice so it would not break things .

also would the bottom of the washed area be a good spot to dig for anything left behind
thankyou
jef

 

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[BillA]

photos ?
where is bedrock ?

 

[Lanny in AB]

Depending on the size of the sluice, they would have people hired to use rock forks to walk along the sluice to get the rocks out and toss them beside the sluices, and that's likely why your rows of rocks are straight.

Check with your metal detector up by the start of the sluice runs where they might have been shoveling in to see if anything got dropped.

The size/width of the sluices and the volume of the water would determine what they were moving down the sluices (cobble sizes, etc.), and when the sluices were running (mid-1800's, etc.) would determine which type of riffles (round log slices, square blocks, etc.) were used.

Kind of difficult to picture exactly what you're talking about, and a picture or two would sure help if you can post them.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[N-Lionberger]

Sounds a lot like my claim.

 

[seafox]

The valley is sort of u-shaped you know like a block you then I'll sloping sloping sides in a fairly flat bottom that's did I think it was virgin ground that got over laid by the tailings in these Rock piles but Bedrock is about 4 ft below the working floor. Really feel dumb I actually forgot my camera but I'll try to take some pictures with the phone and figure out how to post them.

 

[seafox]

5 found a red layer that I'm pretty sure it's the water table where the rust colored rocks you know once and are and so I think I am in undisturbed ground now hope to find Bedrock another foot down but it's hard to dig down with all the on basketball sized boulders

 

[seafox]

The size of the sluice would probably be oh maybe 24 in wide the hillsides were washed with a ditch that was approximately v-shaped about 2 3 ft wide and 2 3 ft deep. The creek is about 10 ft wide and foot and a half deep