f. Bears north 70° 10' east, 521.8 feet distant from boundary monument or point e. This point is on an unused trestle. g. On line 16 feet east of and parallel to the west line of Santa Fe street, 332 feet north of north line of Eighth street, Kansas City, Mo. h. Point is on prolongation of center line of Broadway, 364 feet from center line of Second street, Kansas City, Mo. i. Point 35 feet north of south line of Front street, in prolongation of east line of Delaware street; also bears north 56° 4' east, 1,017 feet from Point h, Kansas City, Mo. j. Point on line between sections 32 and 33, and 590 feet north of intersection of center lines of Troost avenue and First street. k. On line between sections 33 and 34, and 1,950 feet north of section corner 2728-33-34, which corner is on Rochester avenue and alley between Garland and Anthony avenues, Kansas City, Mo. 1. Point on half-section line of section 27, and 1,985 feet north of center of section 27. Eastern city limit is a north and south line, 1,445 feet east of point 1. POSITIONS OF POINTS OF REFERENCE ON HARBOR LINE IN FRONT OF KANSAS CITY, The capital letters used to designate the points on harbor line are shown on the accompanying map. The small letters referred to and shown on the map are at points furnished by the municipal engineers. The bearings given are referred to the true meridian. A. Upper end of harbor line is at mouth of Dry Creek, in the northern part of Kansas City, Kans. Point of beginning bears north 37° 22′ east, 334 feet distant from point a. B. On prolongation of center line of Virginia avenue, 1,465 feet east of intersection of the center lines of Virginia avenue and Third street, Kansas City, Kans. C. Point bears south 87° east, 533 feet distant, from a point at the north end of railroad trestle over Jersey Creek, which point bears south 33° west, 834.4 feet distant from point a. D. Tangent point of Missouri River harbor line and the established line for the north bank of the Kaw River, bears north 74° 45′ east, 740 feet distant from point b. G. Kaw River, north line. Point of beginning of tangent bears south 50° 52′ east, 675 feet distant from point b. H. Kaw River, north line. Point at end of line and of tangent, at north pier of Kansas City, Argentine, and Independence Railway bridge across Kaw River, bears south 34° 22' west, 1,415 feet distant from point G. I. On prolongation of center line of Minnesota avenue, 1,690 feet east of center line of Third street, Kansas City, Kans. J. Kaw River, south line. Line begins at outer end of dike at a point bearing north 53° 10' east, 915 feet distant from south pier of Kansas City, Argentine, and Independence Railway bridge across Kaw River. K. Point bears north 18° 45' east, 2.055 feet distant from point d. L. Kaw River, south line. Point bears north 18 45' east, 1,855 feet distant from point d. M. Tangent point of Missouri River harbor line and line on south side of Kaw River, bears north 36 15' east, 1,762 feet distant from point d. N. Point of intersection of State line between Missouri and Kansas, 2,360 feet north of boundary monument referred to as point e. O. On prolongation of line 20 feet distant from, northerly and parallel to, the center line of Ohio avenue, 2,298 feet northeast from intersection of said prolonged line with the center line of James street. P. Point bears north 20° 30' east, 1,488 feet distant from point ƒ. Q. Point bears north 48° east, 1,608 feet distant from point f. R. On prolongation of line 16 feet east of and parallel to the west line of Santa Fe street, 1,247 feet north of north line of Eighth street, Kansas City, Mo. S. Point bears north 50° 35' east, 1,640 feet distant from point g; also bears south 70° 50' west, 1,072 feet distant from a point which bears south 51° 57' west 592.3 feet distant from point h. T. Point bears north 30° 55' west, 118 feet from a point which bears south 51° 57' west, 592.3 feet distant from point h. U. On prolongation of center line of Broadway, 454 feet north of intersection of the center lines of Second street and Broadway, Kansas City, Mo. V. Prolongation of east line of Delaware street, 95 feet north of south line of W. Beginning point of tangent bears north 55° east, 815 feet distant from point i. Meander corner is 225.25 feet north of intersection of center lines of Troost avenue and First street. Y. Point bears north 28° 25' west, 430 feet distant from a point which bears south 62° 30' west, 3,133 feet distant from point k. Z. Point bears north 55° 43′ west, 553 feet distant from a point which bears south 59° 33' west, 1,495 feet distant from point k. A A. Point on line between sections 33 and 34 and 158 feet north of point k. B B. Intersection of harbor line and revetted bank, bears north 53° 50′ east, 1,525 feet distant from point k. APPENDIX Z Z. Annual Report of the cALIFORNIA DÉBRIS COMMISSION, 1893. [Printed in House Ex. Doc. No. 16, Fifty-third Congress, second session.] CALIFORNIA DÉBRIS COMMISSION, San Francisco, Cal., November 15, 1893. GENERAL: The California Débris Commission has the honor to submit the following report: The Commission owes its existence to an act of Congress entitled "An act to create the California Débris Commission, and regulate hydraulic mining in the State of California," approved March 1, 1893. (Appendix E.) The jurisdiction of the Commission, defined by section 3 of the act, extends to hydraulic mining in the territory drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems in California. The Commission was organized in San Francisco on June 8, 1893, the senior officer becoming president, and the junior secretary and disbursing officer. Lieut. Gillette, Corps of Engineers, on reporting to the Commission for duty became, by authority of the Chief of Engineers, disbursing officer, relieving Maj. Heuer of his responsibility in money and property on November 8. METHODS OF PROCEDURE. On the date of its organization the Commission, as required by the act of Congress, adopted a set of rules for performance of business and instructions for applicants for permission to mine by hydraulic process. A copy of these rules and instructions is appended, marked A. These instructions are stated to be preliminary, and subject to changes as experience shall be found to require. A further schedule of requirements has been prepared, which fully outlines operations and instructions. In cases where mining properties are large, and the hydraulic process is to be operated on a large scale, it is regarded as indispensable that the project be fully presented by written description and by full drawings. These drawings will show the position and extent of the storage reservoirs and the means proposed for restraint of detritus, and, generally, all that is necessary for a full record of the case. permit is issued subsequent mining operations will be recorded by a system of reports from the operators, and by inspection under direction of the Commission. If a The greater number of applications will, however, come from owners of small properties, where two or three men are to operate the system, or where the miners are not in a position to furnish fully all desired information, either from want of knowledge or from want of means to hire suitable engineering advisers. These are cases where the output is small. Many are in remote parts of the country and work only for ENG 94-199 3169 two or three months of water supply during the year. In such cases the Commission expects to use its discretion in its requirements as to the form and fullness of applications. Inspection, however, of all mines in operation will be maintained. As required by law, the Commission generally, by a committee of its members, has in every case visited the locality of the application. Some of these journeys require five or six days of arduous traveling in the mountains. The number of applications for permission to mine has not been great. Of late they come in faster. The new system of limitations and restrictions has to be studied by the miners. An application involves expense. If the application be granted further expense is involved in impounding arrangements. The system is a novelty; its workings are yet to be defined in practice. The miner is in the hands of the Commission; his permit, once granted, may be revoked in the discretion of the Commission; he is uncertain whether his practical devices for impounding will be understood; the uncertainty whether or not, even if all goes well with the Commission, he may not be involved in litigation. These and other circumstances are sufficient to account for hesitation and delays. The Commission has no means as yet of estimating the number of applications with which it will have to deal. In 1880 more than 400 hydraulic mines were reported to be in operation within the drainage area of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. The assessors of the mining counties reported in 1880 over 10,000,000 inches of water used in mining. The State engineer's estimate of the quantity of gravel mined in that year exceeded 38,000,000 cubic yards. The amount of workable gravel yet remaining is indeterminate. Com. petent authorities place it at several hundred million cubic yards. It is not supposed that the Commission will have to deal with all, or nearly all, of this great mass; but, on the other hand, it is not possible yet to estimate the percentage to come under our control. Much depends upon the working of the system of control during the coming year. It is probable that the increased expenditures, and the restrictions upon freedom of operations involved by the new system of regulation, may act to make mining in many cases less profitable than formerly, thereby reducing the magnitude of the output and the number of applications. A list of all applications presented to the Commission is appended, marked B. Upon this list are shown the locality of mine, brief, and date of application, and action, if any, taken by the Commission. HYDRAULIC MINING. The following are sections of the State code of laws in force in California: SEC. 1424. The business of hydraulic mining may be carried on within the State of California wherever and whenever the same can be carried on without material injury to the navigable streams or the lands adjacent thereto. SEC. 1425. Hydraulic mining, within the meaning of this title, is mining by means of the application of water under pressure, through a nozzle, against a natural bank. This definition is accepted by the act of March 1, 1893, which, in section 8, provides that "hydraulic mining, and mining by the hydraulic process, are hereby declared to have the meaning and application given to said terms in said State" (California). This method of mining was practiced for many years on a large scale within the territory over which the jurisdiction of the Commission now extends. Large sums of money were invested by miners and capitalists in construction of reservoirs in high altitudes in the Sierra Nevada; in canals of many miles in length, traced along the steep flanks in the mountains; in long systems of wrought-iron conduits, ending at the ground to be worked, and in trenches, outlet tunnels, and sluices, in which the gold was gathered, and through which the detritus of stones, gravel, sand, and clay was carried away from the mines. A system of wonderful efficiency was developed from these elements by which it became practicable to wash with profit gravel containing a few cents per ton. But for this system the great placer deposits must, for the most part, have remained undisturbed for the reason that, while exceptional deposits of gravel lying close to the bedrock in some cases produce as much as several dollars per cubic yard, the average product from the top to the bottom of these gravel deposits, which are often several hundred feet in height, is but a few cents per cubic yard, and not enough to repay the cost of mining by any other process than the one hereinbefore described. But with a great output of gravel, say perhaps as much as 10,000 cubic yards per day, effected by large quantities of water under great pressure, which excavated the gravel and removed it, under the direction of a few men, there was probably a profit even when the product did not exceed 10 cents per cubic yard. So it came about that everywhere in the mining territory where auriferous deposits of sufficient extent were found so situated as to be accessible to water supply, and at sufficient elevation above the rivers to give fall to the sluices adequate to carry off the detritus, monitors were at work washing down hills and transferring them to the beds of adjacent streams, down which they were moved by freshets to the plains and water courses of the valleys, whereon and wherein large deposits were made. LITIGATION. The private and public injuries thus created and perpetuated in increasing degree gradually developed opposition among the valley people, and gave rise to litigation, which eventuated in an injunction by the circuit court of the United States in 1884, forbidding a certain mine to use the beds of streams as a dumping ground for mining detritus. This injunction remains in force. Its date marked the beginning of a period of decline, and, afterwards, suspension of hydraulic mining operations, which, with exceptions of more or less importance, yet lasts. Reworking of tailings in beds of streams has, however, been continued during the intervening years. In the course of this controversy, which lasted over a number of years, there grew up in the Sacramento Valley an organization, entitled the Anti-débris Association. It is composed of delegates from counties or districts injuriously affected by hydraulic mining, and is supported by funds procured by taxation in four or five counties situated in the valley. This association has its attorneys and inspectors. It collects information and aids in prosecution of cases. The United States also appears in its own courts as complainant, and has asked for injunctions against parties charged with depositing mining detritus not only in the beds of streams tributary to navigable |