Hydraulic Mine Questions

[Bluebeard]

In lieu of the most recent Washington Nugget find out of a ancient river channel, I have some questions I would like to have answered. A friend of mine has offered to allow me to poke around in his hydraulic pit:

1. Most likely, how did the old timers actually find the original hydraulic mine location? Were they just looking for river gravels sticking out of the side of a hill, up on a hill? Or perhaps were they panning the creeks and finding gold and followed the creeks up the hills to the source? So were most hydraulic mines originated from a side creek or from the face of a hill high above a canyon?

2. The previous question leads me to this one. I have got some mining claims downsteam from several large hydraulic mines in my drainage. Obviously, the gold found currently is in the active water channel and possibly up on the sides in any old river channel near the active water course. Is it worthwhile to metal detect even further up the canyon sides outside of the most geologically recent water flows? In other words, obviously the gold washed down in the current creekbed from the ancient channels. But the ancient channels are several hundreds of feet above the current channel upstream. Does this mean through the millenium, as the hillsides were washing down, the gold was also deposited on those hillsides which were once in the active water channels? Is it worth detecting 100+ feet up the hill out of the active water channel? My canyon has many active fault fractures which are great crevices and go from the active water channel, up hundreds of feet on the hillsides. Do you think it would be a waste of time to metal detect them for gold from very ancient river flows down this drainage?

3. When they were hydraulicing, was the gold only found on the bedrock of the hydraulic mine or was it found throughout the channel? I would assume throughout the channel, as many of these ancient channels were several hundred feet deep. Is there a way by looking at the cut face of a hydraulic mine to determine the best place to find gold?

4. When looking at the cut hillside of a hydraulic mine, you can see actual layers of stream channel- are these layers any indication as to where the best gold lays in the channel? Every time I drive by the mine cut on I80 at gold run (In California), I look at the cut and notice some parts are thick in gravel and some parts are thick in sand. Which parts most likely had the best gold?

5. When detecting a hydraulic mine, what are the best places to look? Drain tunnels? Gullys in the pit? Bedrock in the pit, maybe at the base of the washed hillsides? Rappel off the cliff and detect the channel on the face of the pit? Under the rock piles in the pit? The piles of washed off piles of gravel at the base of the cliffs?

6. When they were washing the pit, they had to place the rock piles somewhere as they washed the hillside down. Did they put the rock piles on washed ground or just anywhere? When they washed the flat faced bedrock, how did they move the gravel off of it? The monitors would work well for a steep hillside, but as they got lower and lower trajectories of the water flow, I would assume the effectiveness would be minimized. So would the bedrock under the rock piles be a good place to look?

7.When they were washing the hillsides, where were the sluice boxes placed? Were they in the gulleys at the base of the hillside or were they in the drain tunnels?

8. When washing the hillsides, did all the water actually go down all the side channels eminating from the pit, or did the water literally just wash over the side of the hill, anywhere? Is there a possibility some nuggets would be found in any of the side channels running out of the pit, or on a hillside off the bottom of a pit?

Have I forgotten anything? Any advice would be appreciated?