Figure 16.26

Hydraulic mining during the Gold Rush. Miners used water cannons called water monitors to loosen sediments, and the gold contained in them, from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Mining put more sediment into the streams than they could carry, resulting in aggradation in the stream channels. This photo shows mining operations in the 1860s in what is today Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park in California.

(U.S. Geological Survey/photo by Carlton Watkins)