Malakoff Diggings at the North Bloomfield Mining Company's hydraulic gold mine in Nevada County, California is the subject of this albumen stereoview, number 1822 in Carleton Watkins' Pacific Coast series, published from his San Francisco gallery at 22 and 26 Montgomery Street. Watkins made multiple visits to the Malakoff site during the 1870s, producing some of the most significant documentary photographs of hydraulic mining in the American West. The orange-bordered mount is characteristic of the Watkins' Pacific Coast series issued during the mid-to-late 1870s.

The view is taken from an elevated vantage point looking across the vast open pit, exposing sheer white gravel walls eroded to dramatic vertical cliffs stretching across the full width of the frame. Isolated conifers cling to ledges and the pit floor, and a dense stand of evergreens lines the undisturbed ridge above. Sluice infrastructure and mining cuts are visible crossing the floor of the excavation in diagonal lines toward the foreground.

The Malakoff Diggings became the largest hydraulic gold mine in California, and Watkins' documentation of the site coincided with the legal controversy that eventually led to the landmark 1884 Sawyer Decision, which curtailed hydraulic mining operations statewide. The reverse of the mount is pink with a penciled notation reading "A0x11" in the lower right corner. Series number 1822 is printed beneath the right image panel.