Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Hydraulic mining blasted water across the landscape to expose gold-bearing depos-
its. According to a
Butte Record
newspaper article in 1871, at the Hendricks mine
up the Feather River from Oroville, “the earth melts away, and even the bedrock is
torn up and thrown high in the air, shivered to atoms and whirled away down the
flume by the rapid current.” (UC Davis, Eastmans Originals)
washed on down these upland creeks to flow into the deep river canyons,”
writes historian Robert Kelley.
Mining debris soon choked the deep canyons of the American, Bear,
and Yuba rivers with deposits up to 100 feet deep. The upper reach of the