Hydraulic mining, or hydraulicking, is a form of mining that employs water under pressure to dislodge rock material or move sediment. This form of mining was first used by Edward Matteson near Nevada City, California, in 1853 to exploit gold-bearing upland paleogravels.[1] Previously hydraulicking had been invented by the Romans, the ruina montium, to find gold using high-pressure water jets from a tank situated from 400-800 feet above the ground as in Las Médulas of Spain. In contrast, ground sluicing, which uses water at atmospheric pressures under the force of gravity alone, has been utilized for more than a thousand years.
In California, hydraulic mining often applied water under very high pressures developed by bringing water from high Sierra locations for long distances along ridge crests to holding ponds several hundred feet above the surface to be mined. Insofar as California hydraulic mining exploited primarily river gravels, it was one form of placer mining; that is, working of alluvium (river sediments).(wikipedia)
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