Hydraulic Elevators

[Plumas]

Very few know they were also used in this area. Other than some flattened and mashed lengths of old rusty large diameter riveted pipe scattered on the hillsides, no trace remains that I'm aware of.

Here's a brief ditty about the Evans' elevator available online from the book California Mines and Minerals.

http://books.google.com/books?id=JGwZAA ... or&f=false

It talks about the largest Evans' as being able to lift 18 inch boulders 60 feet with 400 feet of head! Think for a moment about lifting a boulder that size at a velocity of 5 fps. straight up sixty feet. I'm betting they made the ground rumble while in operation.

It does capture the imagination doesn't it?

Thanks for the tip Leonard!

Plumas

[CalGoldDredger]

Ah, here it is. After being intrigued went to my personal library and hoard of old mining books and did some research.
Found this cool diagram amid all the information I found showing how it was used in the hydraulic mines to lift a slurry to an elevated sluice ussually after it had been classified through a rubble elevator then was flumed down to this hydraulic elevator and was proscessed.

[Plumas]

CAlGoldDredger

That image seems to be a variation of the Ludum type design.

Attached is a small image of the business end of an Evans' showing the auxiliary intakes. A is the main material intake. B and C are the auxiliary intakes. D is where the water enters the device and F is obviously connected to the elevators lift pipe.

All of the connections had swivel type connectors allowing things to move while it was in operation. Suction hoses could be attached to auxiliary intakes to drain unwanted water or to to clean off bedrock just as we do with our dredges today. Those old timers were pretty smart people.

Plumas

[CalGoldDredger]

Lets build us up some, got all the specs you could need right here. Nice of the oldtimers to leave us these instructions.