NINETEENTH CENTURY HYDRAULIC MINING IN THE SIERRA NEVADA AS A CONTROLLED SEDIMENT TRANSPORT EXPERIMENT

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Allan James ◽  
◽  
Carrie Monohan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sediment Transport ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Hydraulic Mining ◽  
Transport Experiment

Transportation and the Environment

2017 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-61
Author(s):  
Douglas R. Littlefield
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Mississippi River ◽  
San Joaquin Valley ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Major Health ◽  
San Joaquin River ◽  
Natural Wetlands ◽  
Prevailing View

Some histories of California describe nineteenth-century efforts to reclaim the extensive swamplands and shallow lakes in the southern part of California's San Joaquin Valley – then the largest natural wetlands habitat west of the Mississippi River – as a herculean venture to tame a boggy wilderness and turn the region into an agricultural paradise. Yet an 1850s proposition for draining those marshes and lakes primarily was a scheme to improve the state's transportation. Swampland reclamation was a secondary goal. Transport around the time of statehood in 1850 was severely lacking in California. Only a handful of steamboats plied a few of the state's larger rivers, and compared to the eastern United States, roads and railroads were nearly non-existent. Few of these modes of transportation reached into the isolated San Joaquin Valley. As a result, in 1857 the California legislature granted an exclusive franchise to the Tulare Canal and Land Company (sometimes known as the Montgomery franchise, after two of the firm's founders). The company's purpose was to connect navigable canals from the southern San Joaquin Valley to the San Joaquin River, which entered from the Sierra Nevada about half way up the valley. That stream, in turn, joined with San Francisco Bay, and thus the canals would open the entire San Joaquin Valley to world-wide commerce. In exchange for building the canals, the Montgomery franchise could collect tolls for twenty years and sell half the drained swamplands (the other half was to be sold by the state). Land sales were contingent upon the Montgomery franchise reclaiming the marshes. Wetlands in the mid-nineteenth century were not viewed as they are today as fragile wildlife habitats but instead as impediments to advancing American ideals and homesteads across the continent. Moreover, marshy areas were seen as major health menaces, with the prevailing view being that swampy regions’ air carried infectious diseases.

Peak Pursuits

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Schaumann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Leisure Time ◽  
Mountain Regions ◽  
The Andes ◽  
New Models ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Alps

European forays to mountain summits began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with the search for plants and minerals and the study of geology and glaciers. Yet scientists were soon captivated by the enterprise of climbing itself, enthralled with the views and the prospect of “conquering” alpine summits. Inspired by Romantic notions of nature, early mountaineers idealized their endeavors as sublime experiences, all the while deliberately measuring what they saw. As increased leisure time and advances in infrastructure and equipment opened up once formidable mountain regions to those seeking adventure and sport, new models of masculinity emerged that were fraught with tensions. This book examines how written and artistic depictions of nineteenth-century exploration and mountaineering in the Andes, the Alps, and the Sierra Nevada shaped cultural understandings of nature and wilderness in the Anthropocene.

Protecting the Land

2019 ◽  
pp. 48-83
Author(s):  
David Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The State ◽  
State Parks ◽  
John Muir ◽  
Nature Protection ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
Hydraulic Mining ◽  
Forestry Commission

This chapter discusses the efforts to protect Yosemite and the sequoias in the Sierras in the nineteenth century and then turns to the more heated conflicts over the fate of the coastal redwoods. The roots of California's tradition of civic mobilization lie in nature protection. This tradition began with the efforts of a few prominent individuals—including John Muir, Horace Greeley, and Frederick Olmsted—and then became institutionalized in the upper-middle-class Sierra and Sempervirens clubs and the predominantly upper-class Save-the-Redwoods League. Broader grassroots citizen mobilization played a critical role in campaigns to return control of Yosemite to the federal government, expand the size of and increase the funding for state parks, and protect endangered sequoias in the Sierras. The state's administrative capacity to protect California's scenic environment was initially limited, paralleling its inability to regulate hydraulic mining during the mid-nineteenth century. However, this capacity subsequently expanded through the establishment of institutions such as the State Board of Agriculture, the State Forestry Commission, and the State Parks Commission.

Nahoa’s Tears

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Gold Mining ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Sea Otter ◽  
Agricultural Work ◽  
Pacific World ◽  
Alta California ◽  
Sierra Nevada Mountains

Meanwhile, the California Gold Rush opened up yet another front in the Hawaiian migrant experience. Eighteen-year-old Henry Nahoa wrote a letter home from California’s Sierra Nevada mountains in the 1850s to express his “aloha me ka waimaka [aloha with tears]” to family members in Hawaiʻi. Nahoa’s tears were not alone. At least one thousand Hawaiians migrated to California in the period before, during, and after the Gold Rush. Chapter five explores workers’ experiences in Alta California from the 1830s to the 1870s. During this time, men like Nahoa lived and labored under Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. rule. They worked in sea otter hunting, cattle hide skinning, gold mining, and urban and agricultural work, from the coasts, to the sierras, to cities and farms. Nineteenth-century California was an integral part of the “Hawaiian Pacific World.”

THE CROSS-SHORE SEDIMENT TRANSPORT EXPERIMENT (CROSSTEX)

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy B. Maddux ◽  
Edwin A. Cowen ◽  
Diane L. Foster ◽  
Merrick C. Haller ◽  
Timothy P. Stanton
Keyword(s):  
Sediment Transport ◽  
Transport Experiment ◽  
The Cross

Data files from the Grays Harbor Sediment Transport Experiment Spring 2001

Data Series ◽  
10.3133/ds98 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Landerman ◽  
Christopher R. Sherwood ◽  
Guy Gelfenbaum ◽  
Jessica Lacy ◽  
Peter Ruggiero ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sediment Transport ◽  
Harbor Sediment ◽  
Transport Experiment ◽  
Data Files

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Fawn Chung
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
American West ◽  
Chinese Immigrants ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Chinese Workers ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Chinese Labor

This book examines the role of the Chinese in the lumber trade in the American West during the late nineteenth century, with a focus on the Sierra Nevada in the 1870s to 1890s. It looks at Chinese laborers' contribution to the building of the American West by analyzing their migration, their communities and lifestyles, lived experiences, transnationalism, and their work in relationship to mining and railroad construction. It also considers the timber barons and companies that employed Chinese workers, their departure from the Sierra Nevada forests, and the anti-Chinese sentiment that they endured. It shows that Chinese immigrants new to North America were first attracted to mining, but they turned to other work, such as logging, when they met with resistance and opposition from miners. The book also challenges some of the popular stereotypes that developed during this period of emerging unionism, along with the assumption of “cheap Chinese labor” that has been used to interpret the Chinese experience in late-nineteenth-century America.

scholarly journals Effects of human alterations on the hydrodynamics and sediment transport in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California

2015 ◽  
Vol 367 ◽  
pp. 399-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. Marineau ◽  
S. A. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sediment Transport ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Shear Velocity ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Tidal Marshes ◽  
Water Conveyance

Abstract. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California, (Delta) has been significantly altered since the mid-nineteenth century. Many existing channels have been widened or deepened and new channels have been created for navigation and water conveyance. Tidal marshes have been drained and leveed to form islands that have subsided, some of which have permanently flooded. To understand how these alterations have affected hydrodynamics and sediment transport in the Delta, we analysed measurements from 27 sites, along with other spatial data, and previous literature. Results show that: (a) the permanent flooding of islands results in an increase in the shear velocity of channels downstream, (b) artificial widening and deepening of channels generally results in a decrease in shear velocity except when the channel is also located downstream of a flooded island, (c) 1.5 Mt/year of sediment was deposited in the Delta (1997–2010), and of this deposited sediment, 0.31 Mt/year (21%) was removed through dredging.

Chinese in the Woods

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Fawn Chung
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
American West ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Work Relationships ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Workers ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Boom Period

Though recognized for their work in the mining and railroad industries, the Chinese also played a critical role in the nineteenth-century lumber trade. This book continues an examination of the impact of Chinese immigrants on the American West by bringing to life the tensions, towns, and lumber camps of the Sierra Nevada during a boom period of economic expansion. Chinese workers, like whites, labored as wood cutters and flume-herders, lumber jacks and loggers. Exploding the myth of the Chinese as a docile and cheap labor army, the book shows Chinese laborers earned wages similar to those of non-Asians. Men working as camp cooks, among other jobs, could even make more. At the same time, the book draws on archives and archaeology to reconstruct everyday existence, offering evocative portraits of camp living, small town life, personal and work relationships, and the production and technical aspects of a dangerous trade. The book examines the role of the Chinese in the lumber trade in the American West during the late nineteenth century, with a focus on the Sierra Nevada in the 1870s to 1890s. It looks at Chinese laborers' contribution to the building of the American West by analyzing their migration, their communities and lifestyles, lived experiences, transnationalism, and their work in relationship to mining and railroad construction.

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