2611

Fantastic Hydraulic Mining Photographs (3)

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Photographic Images - Antique Start Price:1,250.00 USD Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,500.00 USD
Fantastic Hydraulic Mining Photographs (3)
SHIPPING & HANDLING: Shipping and Handling cannot be estimated prior to invoicing, based on the size and weight of your purchase. All shipping is subject to a minimum charge of $19.00. If additional shipping and handling costs are required, the buyer will be reinvoiced for the balance due. Items are not shipped until the invoice is completely paid. Many buyers purchase a number of lots. Every effort will be made to include all lots in a single shipping charge calculated to cover the weight and size of the package(s). NOTE: Some shipments (of unusual size, dimension, or weight) may require sp...
During a process of mountain building in the California Sierras, the gravels of ancient gold bearing river beds were partially buried by an extensive sheet of later volcanic rocks. The relatively new Sierra Mountain range covered over these north-south ancient riverbeds, often thousands of feet deep. Today’s river canyons running east-west have eroded channels reaching down to these buried deposits and supplied the gold downstream where the first California placer miners worked their claims. However, in some locations these ancient Tertiary period gravel deposits were partially exposed out along the broad crests of the ridges between today’s river canyons. The most significant example of this is between the South and Middle forks of the Yuba Rivers in Nevada County, Calif. The bottom of these deposits was bluish in color and became known as the “Great Blue Lead”. Later some of the largest and most productive mines in California operated in these Tertiary gold-bearing gravels. The biggest being the North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company at the Malakoff diggings. Large high-pressure water cannons called monitors were used to were away these alluvial deposits releasing the gold downstream to be captured in long sluices. To supply the water under pressure for these cannons or monitors, an intricate system of dams, flumes and ditches were constructed higher up in the Sierras covering hundreds of miles. Water was sold to the mining companies by the “Miners Inch” which was equal to 0.025 cfs, cubic feet per second (1/40th of a cfs). These hydraulic mining operations started in the late 1850's and ran until 1884, when a court decision halted the dumping of debris into tributary streams the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers were ruining agricultural lands downstream" from Tertiary Gold-Bearing Channel Gravel in Northern Nevada County, California – Geological Survey Circular AR 566 - 1968. Three original 1870’s Hydraulic Mining Photographs by Carleton E. Watkins of the famous Malakoff Mine owned by the North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company. The larger boudoir photo is titled # B-180 “Hydraulic Mining Piping, Watkins' New Boudoir Series Yosemite and Pacific Coast” and is an original iconic image, most reproduced picturing California hydraulic mining. This remarkable trio has an original large matted photo 5.25 x 8.5” with a very clear, sharp, bold image of a large scale hydraulic mining pit at the Malakoff Mining operations. The accompanying two CDVs are exact blowups of sections of the larger photograph emphasizing different aspects of the hydraulic mining process. One of the CDVs has a shot of a nozzle spraying water from right to left, and the other CDV shows the portion of the larger photograph with an elevated long tom sluice box and a miner controlling the hydraulic nozzle blasting the hillside. In the quest to capture the rich ancient alluvial deposits of gold these giant monitors blasted 1.5 billion cubic yards of soil and rocks from the Sierra hillsides down into the streambeds, rivers and onto the farmlands below. Farmers launched lawsuits and a law forbidding hydraulic mining was passed in 1884. In 1871, the North Bloomfield gravel mines in Nevada County commissioned Watkins to photograph their hydraulic gold mining operation. Although the owners of the mines were interested in securing funding from English capitalists, Watkins sold a number of the smaller CDVs to tourists and other interested parties who visited his San Francisco Gallery located in the famous Palace Hotel. CDV’s are much rarer than stereo views and Boudoir size photos even more rare. The Mining and Scientific Press from Nov. 7, 1872 describes how the “the pictures…taken by C. E. Watkins, are really masterpieces of the photographic art, and represent the most perfect and lifelike representation of hydraulic mining which we have ever seen depicted on paper…” "Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) is perhaps the most famous early western photographer. He found international fame for his award winning photographs of Yosemite, San Francisco, the Pacific coast and subjects throughout the western states. Watkins is best known for his mammoth plate photographs but actually published the majority of his work as stereoviews. They represent a comprehensive look into California and the West from the 1860s through the 1890s." from carltonwatkins.org. Extremely Fine. Extremely RARE! Date: c. 1870's Location: Nevada County, California HWAC# 60833