Location
This district is along the extreme west margin of Sierra County about 12 miles west of Downieville and 10 miles by road north of Camptonville. It is on the ridge between Canyon Creek on the north and the North Fork of the Yuba River on the south. It is principally a placer-mining district and was extensively hydraulicked from the 1850s until the early 1890s. Some work was done again from the early 1900s to the 1930s. The value of the total production of the district is unknown, but it probably amounts to several million dollars' worth of gold.
Geology
The main channel of the Tertiary North Fork of the Yuba River, which is also known as the La Porte channel, extended in a south-southwest direction from Poverty Hill into this district and thence to Indian Hill. Pay gravel here is 700 to 800 feet wide, up to 200 feet thick, and overlain by 40 to 60 feet of andesite. The upper 130 feet of gravel are mostly pebbles; the lower portion is bouldery and well cemented. The entire deposit is reported to have averaged 25¢/ yard in gold at the old price of gold, and near bedrock it was reported to have contained as much as $2.50/yard in gold. Bedrock is slate and serpentine with amphibolite both to the east and west.
Bibliography
Lindgren, Waldemar, 1911, U. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 73, p. 101. MacBoyle, Errol, 1918, Sierra County, The Brandy City district: California
Min. Bur. Rept. 16, pp. 6-8, 66.
Taylor, George F., The Brandy City hydraulic mines, Sierra County: Eng. and Min. Jour., vol. 89, June 4, 1910, pp. 1152-1153.
Turner, H. W., 1898, Bidwell Bar folio, California: U. S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas of the U. S., folio 43, 6 pp.
