Claudia...no mention of Wasson MOTHER LODE…The Story of California’s Gold Rush by Louis J. Stellman "At the height of Columbia's boom came the miners' tax, imposing a monthly assessment of $20 on each and all foreign-born miners. It was near to precipitating civil war on the Mother Lode, for a large portion of its inhabitants were affected and many casualities resulted from the attempts to enforce it. The exodus of outlanders was so great that Columbia and Sonora were practically depopulated over night. " "Not far from Marysville, to the north and west, lies Brown's Valley, where some of the first stamp-mills were operated and where the quicksilver process of reduction was invented and originally used. Gold bearing quartz was first pulverized in iron mortars and the washed for "dust". This was laborious. The first improvement was a large mortar and pestle fastened to the limb of a tree whose upward tension automatically lifted the pestle after it had been thrust down by the operator. Brown's Valley had its first mill for quartz-crushing in 1851, a primitive, rudimentary contrivance with a single stamp in each of several large mortars. Webb & Co of Brown's Valley erected a mill, but winter floods carried it away. Quimby & Co built another that failed. The Anglo Saxon Mining Co built another in Brown's Valley, importing machinery from England but failed to import a mechanic. It too fell into disuse. In 1853 John Rule, undiscouraged by this depressing record, built a nine-stamp mill in Little Dry Gulch, not far away, and it broke the spell of misfortune. But a few years later it was destroyed by fire. Brown's Valley, in the early fifties, proved a testing ground for stamp-mill reduction. In 1858 there were only six small mills in all of Yuba County, with an aggregate of sixteem stamps. Great batteries of stamps werew soon to arise in Grass Valley and along the famous ten mile strip between Jackson and Plymouth, whose mines produced more than half of the gold on the entire Mother Lode." Jackie in California [email protected]