These claims are located about 15 miles south of Quincy and about 4 miles west of the Plumas-Eureka townsite. They are in the historic Johnsville Mining District.

There is a road (pictured) going directly to the claims and there are good camping spots onsite.

The claims are named Continental 1-3.

The coordinates are for the boundaries are: northern 39.757268 -120.790783, southern 39.749085 -120.784861.

This is listing is for full ownership of the Continental 1-3 unpatented mining claims in Plumas County, CA Three claims totaling 60 acres in the historic Johnsville Mining District Commercial scale project on a rich tertiary channel Direct access and camping Good potential for hardrock discoveries as well Offered with owner financing so you can mine while paying for the claims. $450 down with the balance carried over 5 years at 5% interest, $340/mo.

A considerable variety of rocks crops out in this district, including north- and northwest trending belts of slate, schist, quartzite, and limestone on the west; quartz porphyry to the south; a gabbroic intrusion in the central portion; and greenstone to the east. Portions of the region are overlain by Tertiary andesite. Much of the central portion of the area is covered with glacial detritus. A number of patches of Tertiary gravels yielded gold in the early days.

There are a number of north and northwest-trending quartz veins and several wide complex systems of quartz veins. The individual veins usually are only a few feet thick. These contain free gold and often abundant pyrite. Ore shoots can be several hundred feet long and the sulfides can grade many ounces per ton.

During the tertiary age the topography of the area was very different which meant rivers flowed in channels that now can be found on mountains and hillsides. Like the modern rivers they were very rich in gold and the erosion of the old channels enriched the modern creeks. The Continental claims cover a remnant of channel that was preserved, along with its gold.

The depth of the channel is 20 to 90 feet and the bedrock consists of slate. The gravel is mostly quartz as it is pre-volcanic and is capped by andesite in some places. The richest gravel is found nearest the bedrock.

This channel is the same that is found at the Monte Cristo mine in Sierra County.

Given the number of gold-quartz deposits and the presence of mineralized quartz float found on these claims I think it is likely that undiscovered hardrock deposits also exist here. Because the early miners had difficulty identifying and processing sulfide rich ores, I also think it is very worthwhile to test the sulfides found on the claims as this district is known for its rich sulfides.

Claims with this amount of unworked tertiary channel are exceedingly rare. While working the channel won’t be a small project it could be very profitable one. There are multiple areas to find gold on the claims in the meantime and working the ravine and metal detecting could yield some great results.

Plumas County is at the northern end of California Motherlode country and therefore was largely unworked in the early years of the Gold Rush. Mining did begin in 1850 at what is now La Porte but it took longer for miners to discover the rich deposits of the surrounding areas.

In the Johnsville district, The Eureka quartz vein, discovered in 1851, quickly brought many miners to the region, and most of the area was soon covered with claims. Considerable coarse gold was recovered from the creeks and considerable high-grade ore from the lode mines during those early years. Both the Plumas-Eureka and the Jamison mines were operated on a major scale until the early 1900s, when mining activity in the area declined. Johnsville was named for William Johns, manager of the Plumas-Eureka mine. There was intermittent activity in the district from the period of World War I until around 1943.

The tertiary channel at the Continental Mine was discovered until 1903 as far as I can tell. At that time it was owned by the Langdon family from North Dakota. It is likely small scale mining was done on the creek itself in the 1800s. The Langdons apparently did not do much on the claims and they were later owned by B. L. Jones who discovered several $1500+ gold nuggets (gold being $18/oz at the time) which would be worth over $1 million today.

The next owners, the Mclean husband and wife worked the claims through drift mining and it isn’t known what their production was apart from a report saying some “very heavy gold” was taken out from the channel.

The claims, probably partly due to their remoteness appear to have not been worked since the early 1900s.