Our Flying Dutchman, Flying Dutchman Ext., Flying Dragon, Conquistador Placer, The Black Pearl and Queen Annes Revenge are located in the Quincy gold district in central Plumas County in the general vicinity of Quincy, the county seat. It includes the Elizabethtown and Butterfly Valley areas. The Meadow Valley district lies just to the west and the Sawpit Flat district to the south. The district was first mined during the gold rush, and there has been intermittent prospecting and development work ever since.
Geology - The principal rocks that underlie the district are slate, mica schist, and quartzite. Greenstone lies to the northeast and serpentine to the southwest. American and Thompson Valleys are underlain by Recent and Pleistocene alluvium. A few isolated peaks in the area are capped by basalt.
Geology- The east portion of the district is underlain by quartzite, slate, schist, limestone, amphibolite and serpentine. Meadow Valley is covered by Pleistocene lake beds while granite lies to the west. There are a number of scattered patches of auriferous Tertiary gravel, in the vicinity of and northwest of Spanish Ranch, were mined by hydraulicking and drifting. The Pleistocene lake gravels also yielded some gold. The only source of lode gold was the Diadem mine.
Work Cited: “Gold Districts of California” Edition 193. William B. Clark. 1998
