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}} Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park is a state park unit preserving the largest hydraulic mining site in California, United States. The mine pit and several Gold Rush-era buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Malakoff Diggins-North Bloomfield Historic District. The "canyon" is long, as much as wide, and nearly deep in places. Visitors can see huge cliffs carved by mighty streams of water, results of the mining technique of washing away entire mountains of gravel to wash out the gold. The park is a drive north-east of Nevada City, California, in the Gold Rush country.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, California State Parks, Beaches and Historic Parks )〕 The park was established in 1965. ==History== While beautiful in its own way, the Malakoff mine pit on the San Juan Ridge is a testimony to the avarice that was part of the California gold rush, and to one of the nation's first environmental protection measures. In 1850 there was little gold left in streams. Miners began to discover gold in old riverbeds and on mountainsides high above the streams. In 1851 three miners headed northeast of what is now Nevada City for a less crowded area to prospect. One miner went back to town with a pocket full of gold nuggets for supplies and was followed back by many prospectors. These followers, however, did not find any gold and declared the area "Humbug", thus the stream was so named "Humbug Creek". Around 1852, settlers began to arrive in the area and the town of "Humbug" sprang up. These miners could not decide how to move the dirt to a place where there was water.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=North Bloomfield )〕 By 1853 miners invented a new method of mining called hydraulic mining. Dams were built high in the mountains. The water traveled from the reservoirs through a wooden canal called a flume that was up to long. The water ran swiftly to the canvas hoses and nozzles called monitors waiting in the old riverbeds. The miners would aim the monitors at the hillsides to wash the gravel into huge sluices. Over time the monitors became bigger and more powerful. Their force was so great they could toss a fifty pound rock like a cannonball or even kill a person. Over 300 Chinese worked on this project and two Chinese settlements existed in North Bloomfield. By 1857 the town had grown to 500 residents. Locals felt the name "Humbug" was too undignified and renamed the town "Bloomfield", but California already had a town by this name so they renamed the town "North Bloomfield". In the late 1860s the towns of Marysville and Yuba City were buried under of mud and rock, and Sacramento flooded repeatedly.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Onsite Adventures - Malakoff )〕 The farmers in the valleys complained about the tailings that flooded their land and ruined their crops. Thousands of acres of rich farmland and property were destroyed as a result of hydraulic mining. By 1876 the mine was in full operation with 7 giant water cannons working around the clock. The town had grown to a population of around 2000 with various business and daily stage service. In 1880 electric lights were installed in the mine and the world’s first long-distance telephone line was developed to service the mine, passing through North Bloomfield as it made its way from French Corral to Bowman Lake.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=North Bloomfield, CA )〕 By 1883 San Francisco Bay was estimated to be filling with silt at a rate of one foot per year.〔 Debris, silt, and millions of gallons of water used daily by the mine caused extensive flooding, prompting Sacramento valley farmers to file the lawsuit ''Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company''. On January 7, 1884 Judge Lorenzo Sawyer declared hydraulic mining illegal.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Travel - Malakoff Diggins is pure gold )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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