Later he built another dam across the creek about 200 feet
south of the Barrington camp (see Fig. 4). During the sea-
sons of 1936, 1937, and 1938 Peacock, ground-sluiced a cut
below creek-level and recovered coarse gold on top of bedded
clay and in clayey gravel in an interglacial channel. Except
at the east side of the booming-dam, no bed-rock was exposed.
In the autumn of 1938 some of his men, who were "sniping"
along the bench beside the creek, discovered exceedingly rich
gold-bearing gravel. Within six weeks gold valued at about
$12,000.00 was recovered from a small area beside the creek
at the south end of the gravel bench on which Barrington's
camp is built.

Operations by Boulder Creek Mines Ltd., began in 1939.
The gravel being worked lies on bedded clay 15 to 20 feet be-
low creek-level. Work was started by the company at the lower
end of the Peacock lease by excavating for a box-drain. The
drain is carried up-stream on top of the bedded clay and is
advanced as the digging proceeds. In the early part of the
1939 season, the shovel was digging in worked-out ground, but
by July the excavation had advanced into virgin gravel about
500 feet from the north end of the lease. A 7/8-yard drag-
line-shovel equipped with a 47-foot boom, and caterpillar
tracks, is used for digging. Wheaton Creek is diverted around
the excavation through a ditch. The shovel stands on top of
the gravel and digs a pit below creek-level. Gravel from the
pit is cast into the hopper of a moveable sluice~box which
stands on top of the box-drain. All the gravel is washed in
the sluice-box, the gold is caught by riffles and the tailings
accumulated at the lower end of the sluice. The tailings are
stacked by a bull-dozer if they block the end of the sluice
before it is necessary to move the set-up. When the pit is
dug to the limit of the drag-line boom radius, the box-drain
is built ahead, lagged on top and sides, the sluice-box skid-
ded forward on top of it, and digging begins again. Care is
necessary to keep the level of the drain low enough to main-
tain drainage at all times. In the summer of 1939 the inter-
vals between moves ranged from 7 to 10 days. All large boul-
ders encountered are blasted to a size that can be handled by
the shovel and are then stacked in piles on each side of the
pit.

At present there is little indication of a pay-streak on
the bedded clay. The channel, however, is narrow and is con-
fined by sloping bed-rock on each side. Gold was recovered
from the east side on a slope rising from the bottom of the
channel. It is believed that the gold came from a reconcen-
tration of gold that formerly lay on the bed-rock bench lying
to the east of Barrington's camp. Consequently an ill-defined

= Be