Indian Hill — Sierra County

Source: Tom Ashworth's Prospectors Cache (tomashworth.com / Mike Higbee / 49erMike). Author: Tom Ashworth. Original page: sierra_ca.shtml. State index: https://web.archive.org/web/20040830075749/http://www.tomashworth.com/goldloc.shtml Area: INDIAN HILL. Map coordinates are an approximate county centroid — not a precise claim site. Indian Hill is in western Sierra County about 10 miles west of Downieville and just south of the Brandy City District. Much of the Production here has come from the Indian Hill and Depot Hill hydraulic mines. These mines were heavily worked from the 1850s until the 1880s, and intermittent development work and mining continued through the 1930s. Both mines used long flumes filled with copper plates coated with mercury to amalgamate the gold. Several nuggets over a pound were found at the Depot Hill mine. The Depot Hill mine has been prospected recently. The deposits are on the LaPorte-Brandy City Tertiary Channel. The lower gravels contain abundant quartz and are as much as 100 feet thick. They are overlain in places by inner volcanic gravels and andesite. Bedrock is granite with amphibolite to the west and slate, schists and serpentine to the east. There are also a few gold quartz veins in the Indian Hill district./P>