Mugwamp Placer Drift Mine, California
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The Mugwamp Mine is a Placer
Drift Mine, this means that it is a tunnel that dug just below a ancient
river bed.
This particular mine dates back to the early 1850's and was reworked on and off till WWII. After the easy gold was exhausted in the stream and riverbeds, the gold rush miners turned to tunneling into the ancient river beds in search of their fortune.
This mine is located off
of a tributary of the North Yuba River, (See Guy, I told you I know of
some more mines up there!, but do you listen??? nooooooooo).
If you look at the photo
above, you can see the gravel or small pebbles that would be found at
the bottom of a riverbed, the trick was to dig a tunnel just below
this and find the heavier gold nuggets. The neat thing about this kind
of mining is that unlike hard rock mining, no expensive rock crushing
mill is needed.
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Let's Explore the Muwamp Mine,
Don't you think they should fix that bridge on the road to the mine?
Hey that green stuff looks like something I got from the Chinese take out last nite.
Oh shoot, I forgot my
headlamp, tell ya what, why don't you go ahead,
I'll just run back and get it.