University of California Berkeley ??<7 CHRONICLE, TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1892. The recent action taken by Congress, looking to a revival of the gold mining industry in this State, lias aroused public interest in the subject of the supply of the precious metals, and makes this an opportune time for summarizing the facts in regard thereto, particularly with refer- ence to the great mineral region of the West. The wonderful discoveries of gold aud silver made in this region during the last half century have surpassed any- thing recorded theretofore in the world's history. That these discoveries revolu- tionized financial methods need not be more than pointed out. That they added more to the world's wealth than any other fifty years since the dawn of creation will not be denied. That the deposits, instead of approaching exhaustion, have, in fact, only been exploited to an inconsiderable degree, is firmly believed by every miner who has made the subject a study. The surface hag been skimmed over, a small way. Along the seashore in Huruboldt and Del Norte counties, for- merly the chiet sites of this cl iss of min- ing, the residents of that section of the St;ite gather from these sands by hand sluicing a little gold every year. Their earnings are small and their labor inter- mittent, being prosecuted only when they h ive water for the washing, which in most localities is the case during only a sm ill portion of the year. Besides these "gold bluffs" and "beaches" we have in California a variety of other auriferous deposits, some of which, like the gold bluffs, are peculiar to the State; nor do more than a few of the others rnoet elsewhere with such large development as fiere. The principal of these deposits, designating them by the local names, consist of the following, viz. : The dry diggings, so called, are simply such surface placers as, being without a sufficient nitur.l supply of water _ lor washing, cannot be supplied by artificial means. There are many localities of this character in California, in cases of this kind, it the auriferous earth is not rich enough to bear transportation to water, the goi'l is separated from it by "dry washing," a process formerly conducted by means of the Mexican batei, still em- ployed in some places. By the Sp mish- s pei kin g races ttie batea continues to be exclusively used in the dry diggings, and these people are very skillful in handling it. Latterly dry-washing machines of various Kinds have been invented, some of which are efficient, as mucli so, in fact, t arce of supply will in time have to be h systematically exploited in order to keep ' pace therewith. It is certain that the gold production of the world ia steadily decreasing, while there is a constantly increasing demand for purposes of ornamentation. Not mo/e than $100,000,000 worth is now mined an- nually, and that is not enough to meet sources which will in time yield as greal an amount as has yet been produced, if,' indeed, they do not largely surpass it. From the last report ot the Director of the Mint, covering the year 1891, the fol- lowing facts are taken: "The product of gold from the mines of the United States aggregated 1,604,840 fine ounces, of the value of $53,175,000. This is an increase oi $330,OOU over the product of the previous calendar year. The in- the demand, as shown by the constantly increasing value of the metal, as evidenced olc creased product is due largely to improved by its increased purchasing power. The ^ j processed of treatment and to the in- creased amount of gold extracted from fol i ea d and copper ores. of The product of silver from our own -P mines was 58,330,000 fine ounces, of the available mines of the world are being rapidly exhausted, while the unexplored portion of the world's surface grows less in extent each year and the possibility of finding new mines becomes less prom- commercial value of $57,630,040 or of the ising, In ancient times gold was obtained D t coinage value in silver dollars ot $75,416,- abundantly from the rivers of Asia. The " 665. This is an increase of 3,830,000 Bands of Pactolus, the yellow metal of ounces over the previous year. The in Ophir, the fable of King Midas, all illus- be creased silver product was due principally trate the Eastern origin of gold. Alexan- T - to new finds in Colorado and Idaho, and der tb<5 Great brought nearly $500,000,000 ^ to the cheapening of the process of smelt- of gold from Persia. Gold also came froni vei -ing lead and copper ores hearing silver. Arabia and from the middle of Africa by rJoi The Director of the Mint has made way of the Nile. But all of these sources ' " n^mma of supply were long since exhausted. Bra- zil, which a century ago was a rich gold pro- , state, a. to the sources of Deduction. ien| He estimates that of the total product for Irid! th Ia8t calendar y ar 28 ' 497 - fin ounces were produced from * quartz and milling y it ores, 23,707,000 from lead ores nnd 6,126 000 produced $500, 000,000 worth of the precious from copper ores. Total ailver output metal, but little is now obtained there. CI1L 58,330,000 fine ounces. Australia has yielded $1,300,000,000 worth ds Th tn^i ' * i total product of Government and of gold, but the production has greatly decreased. Not less than seven billion 8pecial effort time the to di8tr ibnte for the producfc Qf * ducing country, famous Gold Coast of Africa has lost its productiveness. Since the commence- ment of the sixteenth centurv Africa has dollars' worth of gold has been dug in the p\\ world since the discovery of America, but, j nevertheless, the world's supply is be- j coming so scarce that the yellow metal will undoubtedly soon be hoarded to such an extent that before the expiration of many centuries it will have attained a private refineries in the United eluding foreign material to- fined, was: Gold, 2,169,863 fine ounces- silver, 69,336,415 fine ounces. The total value of the gold deposited at the mints during the year was $70,915,632, of which $24,853,180 was foreign coin and bullion. The deposits and purchases of silver aggregated 73,088,626 standard Talue several times greater than at present, -j ounceij) of the c ^^ The importance ot exploitmg al the ^ The amount Qf Bilyer > '^ TT4laHlA /Mirr>o /-if oilnnlTT in riatt-fVltmia 11 ! ,-. government during the year was 54,393,- 912 fine ounces, costing $53,796,833, average cost of the silver purchased available sources of supply in California and elsewhere on the Pacific coast is em- phasized by these undisputed tacts. The belief is widespread that our gold mines have been exhausted, and little is to be expected from them in the future. This those who have examined the matter know to be an erroneous conclusion. They know that there are undeveloped dur- ing the year was $0.989 per fine ounce. The average cost of the total amount pur- chased under the act of July 14th, 1890, "" has been $1.02 per fine ounce." The price of silver at the commence- ment oi the calendar year 1891 was $1.058 per fine ounce, and at the close, December 31st, was $0.955 per fine ounce. The aver- age, price for the calendar year was $0.99 per fine ounce. At tho date of the pasn&ge of the act of July 14, 1890, the price of silver was $1 07J4 per fine ounce; at the date the law went into effect it had advanced to $1 13. The highest point touched was on August 19, 1890$! 21 per fine ounce. j The lowest point reached was on March | 28, 1892 $0.85J4 per fine ounce. According to the reports of the trana- ! portation companies tho bullion product ! of the States and TerrLories west of th*e( Missouri river ior 1891 was as follows: in T,n past. i All this and more, too, will be given in as plain and straightforward a man- ner as possible, for the purpose of educating the pe ople to a correct knowl- edge of the great wealth that may be theirs for the taking. CALIFOENIA. HER VAST DEPOSITS OF THB PRE- CIOUS METALS. Alaska.... fj Arizona. ... California. Colorado.. . Dakota.... 850,000 5,570,157 28,20.^,0:57 3,422.871 Idaho 11,595,000 Montana. .$28,011,000 Nevada. ... New Mex.. Oregon.... Utah Wash'gton 8,745,611 4,237,740 l.OW 13,408,493 Where Gold Was First Dlscorered Different Methods of Mining Valu- able Stlrer Mines Copper, Coal, Quicksilver, Etc. A.sphaltum and Petroleum The Cajaloo or San Jaclnto Tin Alines. In the variety and extent of her mineral wealth California has scarcely a rival and certainly no superior. The popular coti- caption in regard to this matter is that These figures, however, do not repre- sent the entire production to a large ex- tent. Much bullion, is carried otherwise than by the express companies, while vast j- the principal" If "not the sole resource" of quantities of ore are shipped for treatment | this character possessed by this State is to outside points, the product of which the deposits of gold, which the majority does not nppear in such reports as that quoted. As will appear further on, these figures require considerable revision in order to arrive at the actual production of the various States and Territories. In the succeeding columns the various sources of production will be pointed out, the more notable districts and mines will be described in detail and an effort will be made toward removing the widespread misapprehension that exists upon this subject, that the mines of the Pacific coast are "played out," and that further j effort in this direction is useless. It will be shown that from Alaska to the Mexican line and trom the Pacific to the eastern slopes of the Rocky mount- ains are mineral belts of vast extent which have as yet scarcely more than begun to give up their wealth. It will be shown that besides the vast deposits of gold and silver bearing rock, there is a of people outside its boundaries undoubt- edly believe are nearly or quite exhausted. In both ideas they are mistaken. The gold mines of California will yet yield, it is the opinion of those who have made the subject a study, fully as much if not many times more than the amount of treasure that has already been delved from them. But in addition this State possesses latent mineral wealth of the most surpassing and extensive variety. To prove this it is only necessary to men- tion the fact that the range of deposits includes silver, quicksilver, copper, tin, iron, lead, coal, antimony, asbestos, sul- phur, borax, soda, petroleum, asphaltuin, and a host of other substances of more or less value, the exploitation of which is certain to add millions to the wealth which they have already created. From whatever standpoint the mineral wealth of California be considered, the subject is one of interest and always will remain so. True, the romance of the early gold-mining days is past, never to return, and the search for the golden treasure has store of other minerals of a diversity not | become a prosaic industry similar toother found in any other part of the world. It !| productive enterprises. Nevertheless will be shown that there are opportnni- !i there is always an interest about the con- ties for investment and for the exercise of | test for tne contents of nature's treasure energy and ability that equal, even excel, H bo1 tha * makes fche Deject one of per- those that have made fabulous fortunes j| enmal freshne8S - GOLD MINES. er the Yellow Metal Was First DIscoTered Fears of a Plethora. The history of the discovery of gold in 1848 in California has been so frequently told and the facts are so well established that there is nothing of interest to be added to the well known and familiar account of the Coloma Mill, the finding of the particles of gold in the tail-race, and the subsequent operations of General Sut- ter, Marshall and the others who were present or were at once apprised of the discovery. The story has been told a thousand times and is familiar the world over. It is not so well known, however, that, while Marshall's discovery was unques- tionably the one that produced the most wonderful migration and subsequent de- velopment of an unknown region that the world has ever seen, he is by no means entitled to the honor of having been the first person to find the precious metal in California. Nothing can be more assured than the fact that from almost the first exploration of the Pacific coast by the hardy naviga- tors of the sixteenth century, the idea in some way gained a foothold that gold existed here in abundance. Sir Francis Drake, who visited this region in 1579, asserts it, and so do other -writers who have other sources of information. The Spanish conquerors of Mexico were per- suaded of the existence of rich gold do- posits in a country far to the northwest, corresponding exactly with the location of our State, but were unable to verify their belief, though sending out frequent ex- peditions to do so. That the founders of the missions knew of the existence of gold here there is good ground for believing, as well as for believ- ing that they profited by that knowledge. In 1775 gold was discovered near the Colorado river in the vicinity of Yuma by Mexicans, and half a century later de- posits were found near San Ysidro, in San Diego county. In 1833 placers which are still being successfully worked were found in the mountains to the northwest of Los Angeles, and from them were taken con- siderable quantities of the precious metaL Some of the prod uct of these mines found its way to the Atlantic seaboard long before Marshall was ever heard of, and the knowledge of the existence of gold on the Pacific coast was quite gen- eral even then. This fact was kno wn to the Mexican authorities as early as 1844, as shown by documents found in the archives of that Government. In one communication, dated September 1, 184 it was said that fully 2000 ounces of goUl dust taken from the placers of the Santa 1 Clara were in circulation at one time in Los Angeles, and in the same letter the existence of silver mines is also mentioned, though their exact location is not given. In March, 1846, nearly two years before the discovery at Coloma, Thomas Larkin, Consul at Monterey, wrote to his superiors that he had no doubt that mines of gold, quicksilver, copper, etc., would be found all over California. Five years before that 3. D. Dana, who accompanied the Wilkea expedition and made an overland trip from Oregon to. San Francisco, re- ported that he found indications of the existence of gold in Southern Oregon and in the Sacramento valley. Many other facts might be cited, all tending to estab- lish the certainty that the discovery of Marshall was no discovery at all in the real sense of the word, though by a fortui- tous combin ation of ciicumstances bis lucKy (or ra ther unlucky for himself) find set the world in a blaze of excitement. Not only were the people of every civil- ized land carried away by the tales of great fortunes to be made in a day, but the financial and monetary world was ap- palled and shaken to the base by Califor- nia's extraordinary output of the precious metal. Europe bacame alarmed. A ple- thora of the noble metal was feared, and for a time the idea was strongly enter- tained of demonetizing gold. PrimitiTe Mining: Methods. The yield of gold was some chine ex- traordinary. At first the general gains of the miners, though great, were small compared to what shortly afterward were collected. By comparing different ac- counts and endeavoring to form from them something like a fair average, it is found that from $10 to $15 worth of gold dust was at first about the usual proceeds of an ordinary day's work. But while that might have been the average, well authenticated accounts describe many persons as averaging from $100 to $200 a day for a long' period, and numerous oth- ers are said to have earned as high as $500 to $800 a day. If, indeed, a man with a pick and pan did not make a fortnne rap- idly he moved off to some place which he supposed might be richer. When, the miners knew a little better about the busi- ness and the mode of turning their labor to account the returns were correspond- ing increased. At what were called the "dry diggings," particularly, the yield of gold was simply enormous. One nugget of pure metal was found of thirteen pounds first made usa of VMS a butcher's knife Af erward the pick and shovel were used. The auriferous earth, dug out of ravines and holes in the sides of the mountains was packed ou horses for one, two or three miles to the nearest water to be washed. An average price of this washing dirt was $400 a cartload. In one were built and magnificent roads laid. By the use of ingenious contrivances water was given a pressure sometimes as hiszh as 500 i'eat and a velocity of 160 feet per second. With this, equal to the force of a small Niagara, the base of the hills was washed away and the summit top- pled over like a building undermined. Great rocks of hundreds of pounds weight instance live loads sold for $752, which, ?< were tossed about like straws in the cur- after washing, yielded $16,000. -Cases oc- ^ rent. Whole mountains were moved in curred' where men carried tbe earth in \ this way and the very topography oi the sacks on their backs to the watering places and collected $800 as the proceeds oi their labor. Individuals made their $5000, $10,000 and $15,000 in the space of only a tew weeks. One man dug out $12,000 in about six days. Tnree others obtained $8000 in a single day. But these, of course, were extreme cases. Still, it is undoubtedly true ta vt a lar^e proportion or the miners earned such sums as they hid 'never seen in their lives, and which six months before would have appeared like the wildest fable. The washing was effected by patting the earth in a pan or bowl, mixing w tter with it and violently shaking the contents. A peculiar shake of the wrist, best under- stood and learned by practice, threw the and to all of us, of the country changed. It is interesting to note here that while we take the credit to ourselves of having i invented hydraulic sluicing, our mighty i nozzle work was but an exaggeration of j the process used by the Romans in Spain. Thus Pliny writes: "Another labor, too, quite equal to this, and one which entails even greater expense; is that of bringing rivers from the more elevated mountain heights, a distance in many instances of 100 miles, perhaps, for the purpose of washing these debris. Then, too, valleys and crevasses have been united by the aid of aqueducts, and in another place impass- able rocks have to be hewn away and forced to make room for hollow troughs of wood. The earth carried onward in the do stream arrives at the sea at last, and thus T ., T^ ., j. i , ,1 i is the shattered mountain washed away, Library Building, which, thoj causeg which have greatly tended to ex- means the least, among the I tend the shores of Spain by these en- croachments upon the deep." thought and generous impul The hisiory of hydraulic mining in Cal- is at this moment and in tH ** tt manifestation of that sentiir rich placers lasted there was little induce- ment to seek for their origin; but as they j to express our thanks, and f< incoming ages, we foreshadc tions of students of the fu advantages, the seeds of whi us. I said a moment ago th; all the citizens of the State ing so, I spoke advisedly, you all feel, that this is the founded by the people, for For a few of the moments your attention, I shall ask declined the more enterprising of the miners commenced tracing these alluvial deposits to their sources. The researches thus undertaken led to some remarkable and astonishing discoveries. In many in- stances the gravel, being worked in open river beds, was found to burrow abruptly into the sides of high mountains, and then it was re dized that the stream which had accumulated the t'-easure belonged to a past geological period and that its bed had been filled ages ago by a stream of very different character a solid instead of a liquid stream; in other words, a lava flow. Numerous instances have occurred where such an extinct river bed has re- ceived successive lava flows, , one super- imposed upon another, with auriferous gravel between, showing that the river re- sumed, as nearly as might be, its original channel after each invasion of molten rock. Tbe yield of gold from these ancient f streams, locally known as "dead rivers" a most apt expression has been immense, >- for they must have been mighty floods, draining huge areas, and during their long and active lives they were ceaselessly Helping to accumulate the scattered riches contained in the surrounding rocks, these riches being liberated by the action of Irost and thaw and rain and snow and sun, whose combined effect disintegrated the quartz veins that carried the gold. Thus Nature, working in her own slow and se- cret way, collected into comparatively narrow limits, ready for the use of man, tho srold which had been disseminated through millions of tons of rock, probably in auch small proportions .as not to repay the coat of extraction by human methods. More than that, the precious metal actu- ally underwent a certain degree of refin- ing at the same time, the accompanying base metals having been dissolved out and washed away. Hydraulic Mining:. Hydraulic mining added largely to our annual output until in 1876 litigation commenced between the farmer and the miner. A bitter fight in our courts en- sued, which resulted in favor of the agri- culturists. This was followed by the ap- pointment of a commission of engineers to investigate the subject from an en- gineering standpoint and report. For years there has been a practical in- terdiction of hydraulic mining except in a few remote localities, and many millions of dollars have been lost to the people of this State. Finally, however, owing to the discoveries of the engineers in charge of the investigation, it has become apparent that it is possible to bring about a re- sumption of the working of these valuable deposits, and from present appearances it will not be long before the foothills of the Sierra will again be contributing their golden wealth to the industries of the State. The importance of hydraulic mining may be seen from the fact that it is esti- mated that of the entire gold product of this State at least nine-tenths was yielded by the auri.erous gravels. The total yield thus obtained would be represented by a cube fourteen feet square. These auril'er- ous gravels occur in the channels of ancient rivers, and there are 400 miles of these, which at a low estimate will yield $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 to the mile. According to the reports of the engineers detailed by the Government to examine into the question of raining debris, there were some 857,000,000 cubic yards of mate- rial excavated during the prevalence of ulic operations, of which 230,000,000 remained in the beds of the thr.ee pal rivers affected the Ynba, Bear and American. Aicer a caremi examina- tion of the damage done by this debris the engineers reported the following as the injury done along the three streams where the greatest amount of loss was caused: NAMK. Feather river. . Yuba river Bear river Destroyed, acres 1 if Amount... 17.628 11,845 9,741 $1,097,038, 1,079,577 694,970 6,940 3,500 3,515 $196.750 144,500 81,200 Total 39,214 $2,871,585 13,955 $422,450 It is conceded and was demonstrated to tne board of engineers that certain lands are capable of being improved by the addition of small quantities of slickens. It is also stated that some lands are benefited by the rising of the adjacent water, which makes them moist and cultivable. The extent of these favorable features was not possible of de- termination. Acres. Area destroyed as above. 39,214 Area injured as above 13,955 Total area. 52,169! Value of land destroyed $2,871,585 Value of land injured 422,450 Total loss $3,304,035 There can be no doubt that the miners have contributed to the filling of the min- ing rivers ever since mining commenced in California, and that the people whose lands have been covered by debris have a right to complain, and had they when the evil first commenced taken proper measures the money value of their injury could have been compensated.^ It was not until the flood of 1861-62 swept down into the lower stream the thirteen or four- teen years' accumulation in the mount- ains of mining debris that the evil be.ran to be very injurious; that every creek, gulch, stream, canyon or bar was up to that time swarming with miners is well known. Perhaps no better evidence of the fact can be shown than the yield of gold during the intervals of time between 1*48 and including 1861: From 1848 to and including 1849 it \vasonly $10,306,661 From 1849 to and including 1854 it was 335,553,456 From 1854 to and including 1859 it was 249,060,717 From 1839 to and including 1861 it was only 35,080,158 Total from commencement of 1848 to close of 1861 $680,990,992 The largest yields were in 1851, $75,938,- 232, and in 1852, $61,294,700. The yield for 1866 was only $12, 579, 356, being the THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED GOLD. smallest yield ever known. The total yield, so far as known, has been $1,144,- 364,521, but it. is believed that the actual yield has been in excess of this um, cer- .tainly up to $1,200,000,000. Daring the first thirteen years, or up to the time When the flood of 1861-62 lilled the mining rivers, more than half of the total product (or $680,000,000) was ex- tracted, while daring the twenty- five suc- ceeding years some $466,000,000 only was extracted. Hydraulic mining did not commence on a large scale until about 1867, although it was some years after that date before it assumed the proportions of 1880. Prior to 1867 it was carried on upon a very limited scale. The myriads of miners at work on the slope of the Sierra deposited their tailings all of light character into the streams adjacent to where they worked, for water was scarce and expensive, and as every miner so disposed of his tailings as not to deposit them upon the claim below him, these vast quantities accumulated until the flood of 1861-62 swept them all into the rivers and the evi's now complained of them became of serious nature. After this time the miners on the Yuba contributed $80,000, unasked, to aid in building levees along the south side of that river above Marysville; so that all the evils now com- plained of are not chargeable to the hy- draulic miner*. It is, however, upon thi- heads of the present miners that the doings of nearly forty years now fall, to their ruin and to their loss to an extent of over $100,000,000. sand, clay, or refuse matter resulting or arising from mining thereon ; and also from allowing others to use the water supply of said several mines or mining claims or any part thereof for the purpose of washing into said rivera and streams any earth, rock, bowlders, clay, sand or solid material contained in any placer or gravel ground or mine." As a result of this inhibition a product of $10,000,000 annually was cut off, a large share of which had found its way directly into the channels of trade. At the same time property in wtiich had been invested fully $100,000,000 was made useless, and has remained BO to this time. In reply to the question, "Can hydraulic mining be resumed without injury to the navigable streams?" the Board of En- gineers reported: "It is not apparent to the board that any expression of opinion or recommenda- tion will have any effect in rehabilitating the industry in the present legal status of the question. Without some modification, then, of existing conditions hydraulic mining must cease. It cannot be carried on without violating the decrees of the courts. 'If, however, by a reversal of the opin- ions of the courts or by other means hy- draulic mining be permitted in whole or in part, or if without such reversal an ex- pression of opinion is required as to the feasibility of impounding mining debris, the board will state that the investiga- tions and examinations made indicate that in isolated cases it is possible to irn- The famous decision of Judge Sawyer, * Pound debris without injury; also, that locations exist in the canyons of the different mining streams in the Sierra dis- trict where permanent stone dams, pro- under which hydraulic mining was sus- pended, contained the following clause, thecase being that of Woodruff vs. the North Bioomfield Mining Company et al. : , perly constructed, will retain largo quan- tities of material of the character formerly mined out and which caused the destruc- tion of the farming lands and injured the navigation of the rivers. "These dams, however, will not be ef- "On consideration whereof it is by the court ordered, adjudged and decreed as follows, to wit: That the defendants herein and their and each and all of their servants, agents and employes are per- petually enjoined and restrained from ! fective in impounding all the material de- discharging or dumping into the Yuba or j Hvered into the canyons from the mines. into any of the forks or branches or into Being in the streams and in the pathway any stream tributary to said river or any i of the freshets, portions of the heavier of its forks, ravines or branches, and es- i material will be carried over the crests of pecially into Deer creek, Sucker Flat ra- | the dams to eventually find lodgment in vine. Humbug creek, Scotchman's creek, i the river below. The finer sands and any of the tailings, bowlders, cobble- i clays cannot be effectually impoun led by stones, gravel, sand, clay, debris or refuse i such barriers, but. will be carried off iii suspension. With the improved condi- tion which it is desired to give to the nav- matter from any of the tracts of mineral land or mines described in the complaint; and also from causing or suffering to flow into said rivers, creeks or tributary streams aforesaid therefrom any of the tailings, bowlders, cobble-stones, gravel, igable rivers, it is probable that the greater part of this finer material can be carried off .without being productive of harm." A detailed statement is made by the chief of the corps of engineers, in which I the location of the impounding dams de- sirable to be constructed is pointed out, together with their cost and the amount of debris capable of being restrained thereby. It is estimated that by an .aver- age annual expenditure of $300,000 for eight years fully $10,000, 000 each year may be taken from the mines. At a moderate ' calculation there remain in the known auriferous deposits over 2, 100, 000, 000 cubic yards of gravel, and this at a low rate \vill yield over $552,000,000. These facts, which are well established, show the vast im- portance to California. of the reopening of these mines. John H. Hammond, a prominent min- ins engineer and expert, estimates th;tt there are available for hydraulic working deposits that contain iullv $800,000,000, while there are in the ancient lava-capped channels fully $500,000,000, or a total of $1,300,000,000. In accordance with the recommenda- tions of the board of engineers a bill is now before Congress providing for the commencement of operations uoon im- pounding claims which shall enable the mines to be again worked. Although washing by the hydraulic method has been enjoined in the central mining counties, formerly the field of its largest operations, it is still carried on in the northwestern part of the State, chiefly in Del Norte, Trinity, Humboldt and Siskiyou counties. In that region there exists no objection to its being prosecuted, wuile the conditions for doing so are ex- ceptionally good. All included, there are in this group of counties not less than fifty hydraulic claims being operated at the present time, the most of them, how- ever, only for a portion of the year, and in a small way. They nearly all make i liberal returns for the labor employed and the amount of money expended in fitting them up; the latter is not generally large, as lumber is cheap, and no costly bedrock tunnels are over required, while comparatively short ditches suffice to in- troduce water on the ground to be washed. The auriferous gravel banks throughout this region are generally large, the ma- terial being at the same time of good grade, and free from pipe clay and other barren matter. 'There it everywhere fall enough to prevent any troublesome ac- cumulation of tailings below the washing pits, and there being no farming lands along the outletting streams liable to be injured by the debris from tha mines, there is apparently no reason why hy- indefinite perioa, ana with large profits. It was in thia section of country that the style of hydraulic mining known as " booming" WHS first introduced, and has since been most largely used. It ii prac- ticed only alonsr the gnlches. These af- fording but little water, it became neces- sary that the limited supply be reser- voired and properly distributed in order to make it effective in this method of gravel washing. The object is attained by retaining the water in dams and then releasing it sud lenly, with a rush or boom. Near the bottom of the dam built for this purpose is leit an aperture so large that when opened thewiiter escapes rapidly. Placed on the top of the struc- ture is a small race, through which tha water flows when the dam is tull, and ia discharged into a larga wooden box sus- pended from the end of the sweep, turn- ing on a pivpt, and the upper end of which extends to and over the top of the ,dam. Attached to this end of the sweep is a strip of heavy canvai, which, drop- ping in a fold over the aperture below, keeps it tightly closed when the dam is full. "When this stage has been reached the water flowing through the race into the wooden box mentioned soon fills it, cas- ing this end of the sweep to sink and the other end to rise, carrying with it the strip of canvas and uncovering the large aperture below, allowing the water to rush out. Meantime, the wooden box having emptied itself through numerous small holes made for the purpose, this end of the sweep, relieved of its weight, rises and the other end drops. The canvas falls over the outletting aperture, closing it as before. Then the dam fills again to the brim and the operation as above is repeated. This plan for handling water ia wholly automatic. It takes care of itself and goes on clay and night without any attention on the part of the miner, doing its work as long as the water lasts. This is one of those ingenious contrivances for which the California miners have ever been noted. Since its introduction in tha northwestern part of the State it has been brought into use in many other places, some of which have presumed to claim its paternity, a diatinclion that un- questionably belongs to this State, where this device was originally known as the "self-shooter." While to us belongs tha credit of this invention, to others belongs the credit of having substituted for the above name the more appropriate one &y Drift During the period of cessation of hy- draulic mining attention was largely di- rected to other methods, mining, quartz mining paining. Drift These are drift and river-bed mining, which seems to have gained a remarkable impetus since the suspension of hydraulic mining, is conducted as follows: The prospector having come to the conclusion that there is a bed or deposit of gold-bearing dirt, quartz or gravel within the recesses of a certain hill then seeks the easiest way , to get at it. If a vertical shaft from the top of the mountain be considered tha shortest direct road to the treasure then such a shaft is sunk. If the pay dirt ia thought to be best reached by a horizontal tunnel through the side of the mountain tnen such a tunnel or drift is run, with such ramifications or drifts as occasion, may call'for. The ore taken out is treated according to its character. It is a com- ; paratively cheap form of mining, and eo far it has been found Work long suspended on partially com- L pL ted structures has been resumed, while operations on the productive mines are being pushed with energy. Some of these drift mines already employ from 100 to 200 men, their uross yearly output varying irom $150,000 to $30i),OUO. Most .of the claims, however, ' are operated with a much smaller working force, the number of men employed ranging from tea to fifty, the production being correspond- ingly small. The deposits sought by drift- ing rest for the most part in the "deadt river" channels before referred to. The Forest Hill divide in Placer county, the Magalia district in Butte county and the vicinity of Forest City in Sierra county continue the most active and largely productive drift localities. A good deal is also being done in this line of mining along the Liberty Hill ridge, about Nevada City v near Gibsonville and at otner points in Western Sierra. Some* very heavy operations of this kind have recently been set on foot in the latter lo- cality. Since the suppression of hydraulic just as remunerative to honeycomb Wa shing in the central mining counties of a mountain as to wash . it away. t ho State a number of claims before Drift mining, now comparatively in its -openfted by that process have been infancy, is bound to assume considerable | worked by drifting, and in most cases prominence. It is of most importance now in Placer, Nevada and Sierra coun- ties. It really is a revival, having been pursued to a considerable extent early in ttie history of the State, and then aban- satisfactory results. In a few in- . stances, however, these attempts proved ;BO disappointing that they have been '.abandoned. No very heavy drift operations are car- ried on in the extreme northern part of the State, nor in any of the counties of Tuolumne, for the reason that in doned for the hydraulic style. During the past ten or a dozen years, however, it has been resumed with very satisfactory results. Already it has done a good deal ipjumas and*Butte"drift "mining iT prose- to replace the millions added to the an- ,cuted at a great many different points, ruial production of the State under the; but mostly in a limited way and along old system, and drift mining will in fu- ture years add scores of millions to the the banks of present streams or in the buried river channels of a comparatively recent data. In the regions mentioned , iK p ,. I -i 11 -i- ivrvcuv u.at7. 0.11 me icijiwuo u.nrn nuuou. Drift mining. m-i the claims worked iu thw manner are so deed, is now regarded as about the most limited in extent and their product so, safe and certain branch of tha business unimportant that they scarcely require to ex: ant. Through the employment of ma- be individually mentioned. The working chine drills and more powerful explosives, force employed is invariably small, rarely ,oth the cost and length of time required 1 J*SS^&X*^ "* for opening this class of deposits have, Oom | ng south into Butte and pi umaf been greatly reduced. The engineering counties we enter a very extensive and difficulties that formerly attended this : productive field of drift mining. The work have also been much diminished, a "dead rivers" here appear in great with the position of ^ength. The Spring Valley Company at better to drive the exploiting tunnels almost BUCCeS3 b f the hydraulic process, con- always on the right level. eluded to abandon that plan and adopt the This class of deposits has come to be drift method. The increasing depth of sought after, and where open to iocationithe superincumbent volcanic matter is are speedily taken up. A vast amount of the cause * thia change. Surveys for the exploratory work has been projected d fe^ much shafts commenced, a large number af e tfecting the contemplated change also and tunnels being in operation, j made. The expense is much less than wasat first anticipated. This mine has , tire Monte Cristo gravel range. lor the past twenty-five years employed j. 1 J? ere re several prosperous dritt camps an average oi 250 men; its output of |\J Nevada and^Plucer. ^ In the vicinity of gold amounted, meantime, 000,000. To make this production Ked Dos and You Bet this style of gold mining gave profitable employ ment to PWyWVW* J. V ^I.AilA.^> t U A O /& W U%* ViUXl j j . v only about 4800 linear feet of the channel ! hundreds of men many years ago. The included within the company's ground j bu9i "ess afterward fell into decadence, have been exhausted. Over 4000 feet still I a . nd ifc ls now undergoing marked restora- remain, but this being of extra large ui- tion In other parts of the county a number of drift claims have in like manner been resuscitated and are now success .uliy usual complement ot gold dust, its entire ! ouiput amounting now to about $7,000,- 000, a portion saved by the hydraulic process. In El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties some drilt mining is carried on, Placerviilo and Mokelumne Hill being the most active centers of this class of mininer. Many drift claims were opened years ago un ;er the "table mouat- mensions 800 feet wide and nine feet thick it is believed the remaining sec- tion, worked by the more economic drift method, will yield a total ot $15,000,000. 1 P e rated for the first time in several As the company own over 2000 inches of T ear8 - The Manzanita, near Nevada water and only about 300 inches are re- ^ tv > a large and steady pioducur for a quired for drifting, .they will have a largo ^ eca de or more, continues to turn out its surplus to be, sold for Irrigation purposes. The principal drift claims worked in this county are the Magalia, Lucretia, Bay State, Oro Fmo, Indian Springs and Eu- reka, several of lesser importance having been operated in the vicinity of Little and Big Butto creeks. The value of the gravel extracted In Butte ranges from $1 to $5 par carload ; mean value, about $2. In thickness the - ,, . stratum removed ranges from two and a ;e brought into a 'lings reworked, the latter yielding often flourishing condition along with the en- wore metal under the new processes than yas obtained from he ore at its nrst handling. The object of river-bed mining is to re- cover the gravel forming the bottoms of river channels or streams and known to be aun'erous. To do this various expedi- ents are resorted to, such as draining the channel, wholly or in part, subaqueous armor, dredging, etc. Where it it sought to drain the whole bed of the stream the water is diverted by means of dams into a ditch or flume constructed along the bank of the stream to a point below the section to be reclaimed, and there the entire How is returned to the channel. By this means such fection can be so far ireed from water that it is possible to control the seepage by pumps, wheels, etc. Where there ex- ist natural facilities for running tunnels, the entire river bed can in like manner be laid bara by such means. When the design is to dry and work only a strip along one side of the river-bed this is effected by what in mining parlance is termed a "wing dam," that is a water-tight wall which starts from the b ink and is carried out a short distance into and down the river, the will being continued bacic to the bank. The water inside the space so inclosed is then raisea with wheels or hand pumps and emptied into flumes that discharge it into the river. The above comprise the only methods successfully employed for river-bed work- ing in California. The trials made with dredgers, diving apparatus, etc., have proved failures alike in our river channels and in the gold-bearing sea sands along our northern co tst. While not peculiar to California, river- bed mining has been pursued here on a scale not paralleled in other countries, and the efficiency of our methods greatly sur- pass those employed elewhere. Outside this State the business does not appear to have reached large proportions, nor has any great amount of gold been gathered elsewhere by this method. Working the beds of the rivers that tra- verse the mining regions of California was begun here at an e irly day. The first crop ot gold dust harvested by this mode, however, was very bountiful. Like some other kinds of gold mining here this branch nf the business, after having pros- pered and attained large dimensions, un- derwent a marked decline. It has for several years past been on the increase, however, both as regards the number and magnitude of the operations. The northern tier or counties is distin- guished for the manv river-bed operations in progress there. The business in that section of the State is prosecuted mostly by the wing-dam system. Many of the claims are worked by the Chinese, who hold some by loc ition, but more by pur- cht.sa or under lease from the whites. Several thousand Mongolians are engaged in this class of mining in that region. For the time they are at work they make good wages. Their annual earnings are estimated to aggregate a million dollars at xpense of the school itself. 1 -4- * -C 4- * 4- * has exceeded the above amount, though their average earnings are of course much smaller. These companies are numerous along these northern rivers. Being able to work their claims only during the sum- mer and fall months, this class of miners turn their attention to other pursuits for the rest of the year, such as farming, lumbering, fruit-growing, etc. The following constitute the principal localities in which river-bed mining is now being carried on elsewhere in the State: Along the several forks of the Yuba, the American and the Feather j rivers there are many small Chinese with I a few larger white companies, en- ! gaged in reworking the beds of theso streams, the greater portions of which have been gone over and cleaned out many years ago. These river- beds have since become so much enriched j through the deposit of tailings from the j mines, chiefly the hydraulic washings, that they can, with the present improved gold-saving appliances, be reworked with profit. There are here, too, some spots ot . virgin ground that, accidentally passed over by the pioneer miners, remain to bless the gleaners of the field. Most of the operations along these streams, as well as at the few points further south, where any of this sort, of work is being done, are carried on either by wine-damming or by diverting the water into artificial conduits along the river banks, freeing the entire channels. Recourse to tunnels for effecting the same end is had in, only two or three localities. Quartz Mining. So far as productiveness and extent of operations go, however, quartz or vein mining is the leading branch of the busi- ness in California, fully two-thirds of the gold product of the State being orrtained from auriferous ores. This branch of min- ing, says an authority, is spread over the entire length and nearly the entire breadth of California, being pursued to some extent in three-fourths of the coun- ties of the State. This industry employs about 4000 stamps or their equivalent, some of the crushing being partormed by arrastras, roller mills and similar devices. Of the above number it may be calculated that 3500 stamps are constantly in active service. Estimating that these stamps crush ten tons of ore per day for 300 days in the year, there results an annual toi'al of 2,100,000 tons of ore crushed. As this ore will average nearly $7 per ton. the yield amounts, at the lowest calculation, j to $13,000,OUO per annum. That this prod- uct will be steadily increased for many years to come there is good reason to be- lieve. Nevada, Amadornnd Sierra remain the leading quartz mining counties of the ; State, their annual output amounting to $3,000,000,000, $2,000,000 and $1,500,000 re- spectively. Tiie now impetus in auartz mining is due^'fo the introduction of im- proved mechanisms, appliances and pro- ceases. Through the use of these aids the tendency is constantly toward the work- ing of poorer ores and other low-grade ma- terial, so much so that mines not long since considered worthless are now being operated with profit. Gold-bearing quartz is now being milled in this State, ;>.nd made to pay, that yields a total of less than $2 per ton, the conditions in such cases being, of course, exceptionally favor- able. Then, too, invention is ever on the rack to discover new means of re- ducing rebellious ores, the steady re- sultant being an ever increasing out- put or gold. Again, science has been called in and tha extraction of gold from sulphurets is no longer a mere mechanicul process, but involves wasting, treating with chemical solutions and other intri- cate and delicate operations known to metallurgists. Many a mine really de- pends for its success upon the adoption of the most suitable method for dealing with the sulphureta. There are perhaps 100 arrastras running in different parts of tha St.ita, some of them by water, the greater number, how- ever, by horse or mule power. The latter crush an avenge of one ton, and the for- mer two to three tons per day. Those machines are employed where there is only a raall amount of ore to be crushed, and which must necessarily be or' good grade to justify its being worked by this slow method. The arrastra process is a favorite one wilh the Mexicans, in whose country it is largely adopted in both gold and silver mining. Of our California quartz mills, about 60 per cent are run exclusively by water, 30 per cent wholly by steam, and 10 per cent by both water and steam, the latter being used when the water tails, as fre- quently hapoens toward the end of the dry SB iion. Attached to a few of the larger mills are chlorination works for treating the sul- phurets wed by concentration, now practiced where the ore carries any con- siderable percentage of auriferous sulphu- reta, as most of the California gold-bearing qu irtz do. The stamps in use with us range in weight from 400 to 1000 pounds each. The average is about 800 pounds or a little less. In former years they were much lighter than now, the tendency having been steadily toward increased weight. In U KIIOW, mat the nnai only a few instances, however, have stamps been used weighing as much as 1000 pounds each. There prevails among our millmen a disposition to tincl some- thing that will do not oniy cheaper but better work than the stumps, and many experiments with the various other ma- chines mentioned are, being made to that end. That either these or other more h'ighly perfected devices will succeed in largely, if not wholly, supplanting the stamp is not improbable. The latter has, however, succeeded in keeping its place in most of tho larger mills. As in every mining country, the cost of ore extraction and reduction varies over a wide ran.ie in California, there being mines in this State where the cost of both operations is reduced to iesa than $1. These are, however, exceptional cases, nor are they at nil numerous, the cost of mining varying here from 40 cents to $3 per ton, and the coat of milling from 39 cents to $2 per ton, the mean cost of the former being about $2 And tne latter about $1 per ton. The figures here given refer to our ordinary gold-bearing quartz. There is a class of this ore so debased that the cost or its reduction is much greater than the rates above given. The expense of reducing our argentiferous ores 13 also srreatly in excess of these rates, some of these ores requiring to be treated by roasting or smelting, though generally susceptible of reduction by the simple mill or pan process. Exclusive of the big establishments de- signed to buy ores and do custom work, there are not more than a dozen smelters in the State, the mo*t of these being lo- cated in Inyo county, only a small por- tion of the whole being now in operation. The silver etamp mills are included in the list of quartz mills. Other Kinds of Mining. Besides those already mentioned and partially described, the gold-bearing de- posits of California occur in several other forma, all designated by names more or less nt, a few being perhaps a little fanci- ful. The most of these deposits are, in fact, distinguished not so much by any inherent peculiarities as by the conditions under which they are found and the methods and appliances adopted in work- ing them. The auriferous beach sands, which once afforded profitable employment to many men, have years since became so im- poverished that they figure no longer among our available mineral resources. These ocean placers have, in fact, re- sponded so feebly to the attempts made of late to work them that beach mining muy be ranked among our extinct indus- tries. But, for all this, we have these de- posits of low grade in indefinite quantity occurring at interval*. They reach along I jtie seashore for many miles, extending: at several points, in the'form of buried chan- nels, some distance inland. So abundant, but now so poor, these gold-bearing sands await the coming machine that is to make their further working profitable. Many machines claiming the ability to do this h ive already been invented and tested, but none of them have fully, or even more than partially, met the requirements of the case. Meantime the auriferous beaches con- tinne 10 be worked at a few points and in a small way. Along the seashore in Humboldt and pel Norta counties, for- merly the chief sites of this cl iss of min- ing, the residents of that section of the State gather from these sands by hand sluicing a little gold every year. Their earnings are small and their labor inter- mittent, being prosecuted only when they h .ve water for the washing, which iu moat localities is the case during only a sm .11 portion of the year. Besides these "gold bluffs" and "beaches" we have in California a variety of other auriferous deposits, some of which, like the gold bluffs, are peculiar to the State; nor do more ihan a few of the others meet elsa where with such large development as nere. The principal of these deposits, designating them by the iorial nam?s, consist of the following, viz. : The dry diggings, so called, are airnply such surface placers as, being without a sufficient nitur.l supply of. water tor washing, cannot be supplied by artificial means. There are many localities of this character in California, in cases of 'this kind, it the auriferous earth is not rich enough to bear transportation to water, the gold is separated from it by "dry washing," a process formerly conducted by means of the Mexican batei, still em- ploved in some places. By the Spanish- speaking races the batea continues to be exclusively used in the dry diggings, and these people are very skillful in -nan iling it. Latterly dry-washing machines of various lands have been invented, some of which are efficient, as much so, in fact, as cm reasonably be looked for, consider- ing the inhernt diffi uity of the work. An entirely satisfactory dry washer re- mains, however, a desideratum. There are in this State extensive deposits for which the dry washer alone is adapted, but these remain little utilized, owing to I lack of a more effective machine of this I kind. These deposits occur mostly on the Mojave and Colorado deserts. Some are met with, also, in Los Angeles and San j Diego counties. Whsti found farther north they are situated for the most part in small gulches and flats, often at con- siderable altitudes. The seam diggings consist of narrow veins of auriferous quartz, v rying from not more than half an incn to an inch or two in thickness, found in this State oc- * casionally traversing other formations, , and which but for their extreme richness . would not ; jutiiv the expense attendant on extraction. Carrying so much gold as they do, the working of these veins has generally proved remunerative. The weak point about these "razor-blade" veins, as they ;\re called, is their unreli- able character; seldom do they extend to any great depth, nor does their we dth of gold always run with their downward continuity. The best paying deposits of this kind were found some years ago in Greenwood valley, El Dorado county. They yielded largely for a time, but are now pretty well worked out. In the South Fork dis- trict, Shasta county, occur many of these narrow veins, their average thickness be- ing about three inches. They are not so rich, but thev go deeper here, more gen- erally than has elsewhere been th? case, some of them carrying their usual quant- ity of gold and holding it for forty or fifty feet before the inclosing granite pinches t!v?tn out. In this locality the ore taken out is worked in arrastras; there have for many yi'ars been live or Six o' them running in the district, earn- ing for the owners very lair and occa- sionally large wages. Tnese machines are driven i:y w ;ter and crush from two to three tons of ore psr day. As a ruie tho quartz mined in the "seam diggings" is worked in hand mortars; its small quantity and great richness rendering this the most deatrubla method for its re- duction. The cement deposits are composed of fche indurated gold-bearing gravel taken trom the hydraulic -and drift mines, mostly iroru the latter, and which, owing to its hardness, has to be crushed witii stamps. This indurated gravel is met with more largely in the southern than iu the more northerly drift mines, 75 of the 100 stamps employed in crushing it being in Nevada and Placer counties. A* the hydraulic washings approached bedrock mote of this material was encountered, and but for tne check put on this class of operations twice as many stamps as are in use at present would probably be em- ployed crushing cement." "Pocket" mining: consists in the exploit- ation of that class of quartz lodes in which the available ore occurs mostly in the form of rich bunches or "pockets'." While these bunches are apt to be much scat- tered, occurring only at long intervals, this is sometimes a lucrative branch of nuininz. Its grand chances Drove very al- luring to the more adventurous class of j prospectors. While rich pockets have been encountered in the quirtz loies in i all parts of the State and throughout the j entire history of mining, Tuolumne ' county has been most distinguished for deposits of this kind. From what is known as the Bonanza claim, near the town of Sonora, there was claimed to have j been taken durinar the four years precad- ; ing 1882 nearly $1,000,000, all realized at | small expense not ino,-e than naif a : dozen laborers were employed. Since that time the claim has yielded, it is stated, with equal net profit, about as much more. Since 1852 this neighbor- hood has been noted for finds of this character. During that year uilding undermined, eda of pounds weight ce straws in the cur- ains were moved in 7 topography of the not* here that while ;o ourselves of having sluicing, our mighty $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 to The mile. According to the reports of the engineers detailed by the Government to examine into the question of mining debris, there were some 857,000,000 cubic yards of mate- rcavated during the prevalence of hydraulic operations, of which 230,000,000 yards remained in the beds of the three principal rivera affected the Yuba, B THE MAN WHO DISCOVKRED SOLD. exaggeration ot tomans in Spain, nother labor, too, ne which entails and American. After a careful examina- tion of the damage done by this debris the engineers reported the following as tbe injury done alon/? the three streams pended, contained the following clau: the case being that of Woodruff vs. t North Bloorn field Mining Company et a "On consideration whereof it is by t; court ordered, adjudged and decreed follows, to wit: That the delendan herein and their and e.ich and all of the servants, agents and employes are pe petually enjoined and restrained fro discharging or dumping into the Yuba ( into any of the forks or branches or in any stream tributary to said river or at of its forks, ravines or branches, and e pecially into Deer creek, Sucker Flat r, vine, Humbug creek, Scotchman's creel any of the tailings, bowlders, cobbl stones, gravel, sand, clay, debris or refu- matter from any of the tracts of miner land or mines described in the complain and also from causing or suffering to flo into said rivers, creeks or tributai streams aforesaid therefrom any of tL tailings, bowlders, cobble-stones, grave sand, clay, or refuse matter resulting o arising from mining thereon; and al* from allowing others to use the watt- supply of said several mines or minin claims or any part thereof for the purpos of washing into eaid rivers and stream any earth, rock, bowlders, clay, sand o solid material contained in any placer o gravel ground or mine." As a result of this inhibition a product of $10,000,000 annually was cut off, a laru share of which hud found its way directfj into the channels of trade. At the sam time property in whicn had been investe< fully $100,000,000 was mad : e useless, an< has remained so to this time. In reply to the question, "Canhydrauli< mining be resumed without injury to the navigable streams?" the Board of En gineers reported: 'It is not apparent to the board that any expression of opinion orrecommenda tion will have any effect in rehabilitating the industry in the present legal status o the question. Without some modification then, of existing conditions hydrauli< mining must cease. It cannot be carri on without violating the decrees of courts. 'If, however, by a reversal of the opin- ions of the courts or by other means hy- draulic mining be permitted in whole or in part, or if without such reversal an ex- pression of opinion is required as to the feasibility of impounding mining debris, the board will stata that the investiga- tions and examinations made indicate that in isolate 1 cases it Js possible to im- pound debris without injury; also, that locations exist in the canyons of the different mining streams in the Sierra dis- trict where permanent stone dams, pro- perly constructed, will retain large quan- tities of material of the character formerly mined out and which caused the destruc- tion of the farming lands and injured the navigation of the rivers. imit Tied r THB3 ,^r a party of Mexicans took out on B ild mountain, two miles north of Sonora, as much gold as wouM load a mule, exactly how much was never known. Near Littleton, a few miles south of Sonora, two miners camo upon a neat of these "chispis," and gathered over $100,000 worth. From a claim at Don Pedro's bar, in this county, there was taken aotne years ago the sura of $100,000, at a cost not to ex- ceed $5000. From the Morgan quartz claim, on Carson hill, just over the line ; in Calaveras countv, tuere was, in the early fifties, pounded out with a, hand mortar and pestle, gold vlaued at $3. 000,000. With such results extend- ing through so many years and scattered all over the State, it is not strange that this exploiting for pockets should be with many a favorite style of mining. Hunting for "nuggets" is carried on in both vein and placer deposits. The greatest success of late has been met with in the latter. During the year 1889 Appel & Grant, working their quartz claim at Chip's Fiat, Sierra county, it is recorded, took out in a few months, and with little more cost than their own labor, over $100,000 worth of nuggets, besides largo quantities of rich ore not yet reduced. From the Baughart mine, located twelve miles northwest from the town of Shasta, there was taken, several years since, a large number of nuggets which weighed over a pound each, besides many of lesser weight. From a placer claim situated on the Monte Cristo graval range there was taken a lot of nuggets ranging in value from $300 to $800 each. These nuggets much resembled in size and form small cobble stones. tion. We, the teachers of t paths trod by generation al with the vain idea that we ticians, and were securing in But we not only did nothing knew that we had the pow( as if one should attempt to of himself by following a le The student of to-day mus done for us by others. He followed. His teacher sta: efforts are well directed and sary delay in overcoming un So, also, as regards the : YBAR. 1848.. 1849.. 1850.. 1851. 1852. 1853. 185-1. 1855. 1856. 1857 . 1858. 1859 . 1860. 1861. 1862., 1853. 1864. 1865. 1866.. 1867 .. 1868.. 1869.. 1870 . . 1871.. I 1872 . I 1873.. 1874.. 1875.. 1876.. 1877.. 1878.. 1879.. 1880.. 1881.. 1882.. 1883.. 1884.. 1885.. 1886.. 1887.. 1889. 1890. 1891. Cali- fornia. $10, 000, (XX 40,000,000 50,000,00( 55,000,00( 60,000. 0(K 65,000,000 60,000,000 '55,006, OCX 55, 000, OCX 55,000,000 50.000.000 50.000.00C 45,000.000 49,000,000 34,700,00( 30,000.000 26,000,000 28 500,000 25.500,000 25,000.000 22,000 O.TO 22.500.000 25,000,000 20,000,000 19,000.000 17,000,000 18,000 000 17,000,000 17.800,000 15.000,000 15,300,000 17600,000 17,500 000 18,200,0(30 16,800,000 14,120,000 13,600,000 12,803,000 13.200.000 11,800,000 10.100.003 10,800,000 9.900.000 10,400,000 Other States. 1,000,000 3,000 000 4,500,000 10,000,000 19,500,000 24.725000 28.000000 26,725,600 26,000,000 27,000,000 25,000,000 23,500,000 17,000 000 19,000,000 15,400,000 16.400,000 22,100.000 31,800,000 35,900,000 21,200,000 18,500.000 13,500,000 15,700,030 15,500.000 17,200,000 14,100,000 16,400.000 20,700,000 19,900,000 22,200,000 21,900.000 21,300,000 Total Product. $10,000,000 40,000,000 50.000,000 55,000,000 60,000.000 65,000,000 60,000,000 55.000.000 55,000,000 55.000.000 50,000,000 50,000.000 46.000,000 43,000,000 39,200.000 40,000,000 46,100,000 53,225,000 53,500,000 51,725,000 48,000,000 49,500,000 50,000,000 43,500.000 36,000,000 36 000,000 33,400,000 33,400,000 39,900,000 46,800,000 51,200,000 ' 38,800,000 36,000,000 34,700,000 32,500,000 30,000,000 30,800,000 26,400,000 29.600,000 i 32,500,000 j 80,000,000 ! 32.500,000 31,800,000 31,700.000 Gold Not JKxhausted. In corroboration of the position as- sumed at tne outset that the gold deposits of this State tiro not by any means ex- hausted, the opinion of the State Miner- alogist, William Irelan Jr., may be cited, together with interesting statements bear- ing upon the subject of mining in general, some of which have already been quoted. The impression widely obtains, he says, that the gold" mines in California have b-?en depleted below the point of profitable production. Many otherwise "well iiv- formed persons entertain this idea. Nothing can be more erroneous. The gold taken out ha* exhausted but little of our auriferous wealth, nor has tho annual production heretofore much exceeded wh.it we may reasonably hope to reach and m:dnttin in tne future. Again, it is a mistake to suppose, as many do, that the earnings of the pioneer miners were greatly in excess of those at the present day. They were, to be sure, somewhat larger, but "not in the pro- portion popularly believed. Daring the era of the largest gold pro- duction in this State sajr from 1850 to 1855 inclusive tha annual output of gold averaged about only $55,000,000. As the mining: population numbered, meantime, about 150,000, their individual earnings averaged barely $366 per year, not much 1 state, it fa yet rnora than the sm iller population now sta Re of sturdy infancy. in the mines are able to earn, ! ^ r ?_ r ^ t ^ in the . fuiure - working by no means si> many days in the year as their predecessors. Tnos e who work for wages do nearly as wo! 1 now as they ever did, all things consid- ered. But it now requires a larger amount of both skill and capital to ac- complish much in our mines than w ere needed in the early days, a condition of things that put* the mere wage-ear ner and worker at a disadvantage. As regards the extant of our mining field it is simply illimitable. A hundred millions of additional capital might as well bo invested there as not, nor would 100,000 men crowd it any more than 60,000. Or the mineral deposits that actually ex- ist in California not a tithe probably has yet beea discovered, nor hag u much larger proportion of those already dis- covered been developed to a productive condition. We hava made a good begin- ning h.-trdly more. fined, as formerly, to the production ot the precious metals. While gold mining continues with us the le idin<* branch of the business, several of the inferior metals, as well as many of the useful minerals, are now produced here in con- siderable quantities. Of the latter th-.To remains still a number with which little Or nothing has been yet done, though we have them of good quality and iu the greatest abundance. Besides her srold fields, the most exten- f sive and prolific of any in the world, and silver-bearing lodes in countless num- bers, C difornia possesses the more com- mon metals and in nerals in great variety. This State is amply supplied with depop- Oar true golden . not in the past. Our M Dorado has not yet beea revealed to us. It lies buried deep in the bowels of the earth. The placer deposits that have made for us such a name and given to mining such impetus and eclat were but driblets which nature, having released from their mat- rices, brought within our easy reach as a rae:ns of encouraging us to* further ef- forts, and leading us on to that greater and more enduring wealth stored away in the rocky rib* of the mountains. What is here claimed tor the future of mining in California ia strongly fore- abudowed by what has already* taken place. For several years past our annual cutout of bullion has boon considerable, and but lor the suppression ot hydraulic minium, formerly a prolific source of pro- duction, would have shown a marked in- crease. That gravel washing by this me: hod will be resumed, at least u^ u.truiy U1UJ.U. - ~i " v iv * i' ail Mining in this State 13 not now con- we h;ive reason to hope. It would hardly be creditable to our engineering skill should we fail to devise means and methods whereby this class of debris could be so disposed of that hydraulic; oper- ations might be largely carried on without, serious detriment to other interests. Could this very desirable end ba reached the gold product of the State would at once uo advanced by several millions an- nually. There has among writers on the sub- let ever existed a wide difference of as to the number of men engaged e business of mining in California, for that mailer in other of the Pa- States and Territories. H. C. Bur- Director of the Mint, in his report and ciric chard. , its of iron, tin, lead, copper'and'qulcksTl- torm2 > estimated the number throughout ver borax, salt and soda; peiroleSm, nat- our eutlre m *K region as follows: i* ** I f V ' V * '*>VJ I* 111. J id If* At ,* -. ___^sand a sphaitnm;.gypsum,steatUe, ^fS^;; , , graphite manganese and chromium, and With coal, nickel, antimony, asbestos, Dakota cements, ochre, sulphur and magnesia to Idaho ............ 4,70 a more limited extent; the plastic clays, infusorial earth, lime and ouilding stones, including the fissile slates, abounding in many parts of the State. There is scarcely a county in California but possesses valuable mineral deposits Nevada 6,674 , New Mexico 1,496 Colorado 28,970 Oregon 3696 Daknto q iv7,i Wyoming 328 Utah 2,592 This, though much larger than the number fixed on by some, was at the time probably very nearly correct, the total in ___________ ________ all these States and Territories, except Of ou kind or another, the wide distribu- California and Nevada, having been some- tion of these products being something re- what, and in most cases, largely increased markable. Of the fifty-four counties in since, reaching now 140,000 at" least. By the State fourteen make a notable pro- tn ^ s * s meant persons engaged directly duction of gold and twelve of both gold and indirectly iu mining for gold, silver, and silver, there being a number of coun- | eft( i nc " copper, there being a good many ties in which these metals in snvillar I in California, with a few also in some of quantities are turned out every year. I the other States and -Territories named, engaged in various other branches of min- in ?- apportioning the present mining Five counties produce more or less quick- silver, two borax, three salt, four asphal turn, two petroleum, three copper, etc. Wre California even poor in the pre- population among the different States and cious metals she would yet become a great Territories they may be assigned as fol- mmins State. With such wealth as this lows: she is, in this respect, destined to be a Arizona 5,000 ^rsW^r ' in the fiaancial 1ir" :::::i I ; E Montana . .' .' .' .' .' ' ." 25 .'OOO Idaho 15,000 Nevada. 6,000 New Mexico.... 6,000 Oregon 5,000 Wyoming 1,000 Utah.... 6,000 Total 146,000 In the absence ot any ornciai count, there can only be claimed for these figures- can un approximate correctness. season wlien It is more difficult to arrive at accnracv cias sas work on this point in California than in our other mining States and Territories, owing to the much larger number of self-- employers we have here, the many differ- ent kinds of mining in which they arei engaged and the manner in which they are scattered over a great extent of terri- tory. In these other countries mining operations are carried on more by large ^ companies, the number of whose em- ployes can easily and definitely be ascer- ( his labors only in the dry the streams are low; other' to better advantage in the wet season, when the water is plentiful. Only then can the so-called "dry dig- Kings" be worked or ground sluicing be carried on. Much of the hydraulic wash- ing is ojso confined to this season. Owing to this condition of things, most of our placer miners devote a portion of their time to other pursuits, such as farm- ing, fruit and stock raising, lumbering, etc. They are apt to be land-owners in a small way, nearly all of them possessing an orchard and garden, with a Jew acres for grain growing and prbturage. The tained. Where men are employed by scores hundreds and even thousands, as on the lria .1 r portion of the gold fields are ad- Com stock range and in the big mines of , mirably adapted for grape and fruit cul- Utah, Colorado and Montana, it is much I ture. The wages paid underground miners in this State, both vein and drift, are almost uniformly $3 per day. Millinen and other above-ground hands receive irom $2 50 to $2 75 per day. Chinamen, where em- ployed, are paid about one-half these rates. This is without board and lodging; when these are included the miner is charged for them at the rate of about $8 per week. If the average earnings of the miners who work their own claims full below the above rates it is to be considered how much of their time is to be given up to other pursuits which, besides contribut- ing largely towards their livelihood, in- sure them always comfortable homes. In no otner part of the world does the minw 1 live so well nor is he so independent as in California. In comparing the annual bullion product of this with that of Other countries the above consider.ition should also be given due weight. Besides our output of bullion we pro- duce here of the economic minerals and metals values to the amount of several millions annually; far more than is pro- duced by any one of our neighbors of pernaps by all of them put together. These several industries, omitting the less important, give employment to some 4000 men, distributed about as follows: Quicksilver, 1000; borax, 300; salt, 400; petroleum and natural gas, asphaltum, oOO; coal, 250; chromium and antimony, mills. In the northern countie* the Chi- J each 50 ? slate > marble and other stone nese cam- on hydraulic washing in a few quarnes ' 6UO; hm9 ' PyP sum and tb -e places. "In some cases they own the P^! tlc cla y s 8oda tin manganese, etc., ground, though oftener it is owned by the- whites, being worked under lease or on 1 shares. The enactment of the Exclusion law has tended to draw thia class ot for- eigners away from the mineral districts, the increased demand for their services elsewhere insuring the most ot them beU, ter wages than they can earn in the mines. ies troublesome to take their census than where a like number is scattered along tha "dead" and the '"live" rivers, the guiches and ravines or throughout the hydraulic, drift and quartz mines of Cali- fornia. Dispersed over such wide area and hid away in the (Jeep gorges and can- yons or toiling in dark pits and tunnels, a good many ot these miners would be missed were even a careful enumeration of them undertaken. Of the entire number of California miners some 10,000 or 12,000 consist of Chinese, about one- third of whom are em- ployed by the whites on wages, the bal- ance working on their own account or for companies composed of their own coun- trymen. Very few of this race engage in vein mining on their own account, nor are more than a fe\v of them so employed by the whites, as they have a great aver- sion to deep underground workings. They ccnnue themselves mainly to the various branches of placer mining, such as work- ing over the partially exhausted or wholly abandoned bars and gulches, reworking tailings, and in river-bed operations, the former effected by hand -sluicing, the rocker also being "sometimes employed, and the latter mainly by means of wing- damming. The Chinese engage in but little drift mining, never in a large way, though some of them are employed by the white drifters, and also a lew about the qu irtss 1000. WHERE GOLD IS FOUND. in California the miners, more especially tbose engaged in placer operations, riot only are sell-employers to a much greater extent than is the c;ise elsewhere, but their laoors are here largely intermittent. Very few of them, except those eng iged in vein or drift mining, work steadily' throughout the year. The river-bed miner It Exists in Practically Every County in the State. In order to show the widespread pres- ence of gold throughout the State each county Willie taken up briefly and the leading mines referred to. It will be seen that with one or two minor exceptions gold exists in paying quantities in every county in the State, from San Diego oa the south to giskiyou on the north, and from Alpine on the east even into the sands of the P cific ocean on the west. r The accompanying statements are not , r - . mere hearsay or iale rumor, but are de- soli-dated, Amador, Kennedy, Summit, rived from the report of experts in the ^* >l * e > Be . il Wether, Volunteer, McKinney employ of the State Mining Bureau, and * Crannis, Hardenburg, Sargent, Oneida, are conservative to a degree, being re- |j Jvm ^ u ^ x Consolidated, Gover, Bunker liable to die fullest extent. The showing iLill, Kennedy, Sutter Creek, Mammoth will be as surprising to many Caiilorniuns and many others. us it undoubtedly will be to those who ar BUTTB. residents of other Stales. The gold mines of Butte were among ALPINE. the most famous in those early days that The lower middle portion of this county have now become only a tradition, and abounds with gold and silver bearing' Billions of dollars were taken from her lodes, a majority of them bein<* of regular gravel and quartz deposits. While the formation and large dimensions. Moat of Cessation of hydraulic mining shut off the ores, however, are of low grade und a I ar 8 e P art of the production of gold, more or less base, making their re luction nev rt heless much continues to be done, difficult and expensive. The facilities m an . d at . tue present time every kind 01 the way of woo^i, wator, etc., are such, minj ng la carried on with success, however, that with proper management^ . ne m 8 t extensive river-turning enter- and the use of tho latest improved meth- P nse ove r undertaken is now in progress oils there is no reason why these deposits n , ear Oroyille, the entire flow of the should not be profitably exploited. It **"** river having been lifted from its should bo mentioned, by tht? way, that courae D 7 means ot a dam and system of the first copper deposit ever found in Jj um es, thus laying the Bed of the stream California is located in this county, Da for washing. being known as "Uncle liillv Tn e Big Bend tnnnel, constructed for Rogers' " copper mine. It is situated draining tha bed of the Feather river, is in Hope valley in the northwestern P ot onl y th . e ]ar S e st enterprise of the kind , part ot the county, and its l^wyery ante- lr California, but the largest probably ever undertaken for a similar purpose. The operations of the Spring Valley Hydraulic Company at Cherokee in this county are also among the largest now carried on in the State. In this locality, too, was picked up a majority of the more valuable diamonds found in California. In Butte the pliocene river system, the principal site of the drift mines, meets with its greatest development. Of drilt gravel mines the Bay State, Eureka, Magalia Con- solidated, Oro Fino, Lncretia, Aurora and Indian Spring are among the most promi- nent. The principal quartz mining locali- ties are Forbestown, Wyandotte, Cherokee, Brown's valley, Merrirnac, Yankee Hill, Inskip and Oregon City. There are eleven qunrtz mills in the county, and the pres- dates the finding of the Comstock lode by several years. There tiro several districts in which much work has been done in the past, including the Monitor, Mogul, Sil- ver Mountain, Silver King, Hope Vulley and Blue Lakes. AMADOB. This county stands in the very front rank of the bullion producing sections ot the State. It is crossed bv the mother lode, and nlontr that notable ledge are some twenty-five quartz mills in active operation, with upward of 650 stamps at work. These are ail included within a belt about hlteen miles in leneth. The mother lode between Plymouth and the Mokelumne river is covered by United States patents. Near Plymouth there are claims being prospected. Near Drytown a number of mines have formerly been worked more or less which are now idle, as for instance the Potosi, Italian, Sea- ton, and the North Gored; near Amador City, the King, the Little Amador, the South Keystone, Median and El Dorado; ent season has witnessed a decided re vival in mining operations. The quartz deposits already known to exist afford op- portunities that are practically inex- haustible. CALAVEKA8. The very name of this county brings to Koutn Keystone lueaian ana 1^1 ^oraao; mind the meraO rie3 of the old mining near Sutter creek (where was situated the d but if one fandes for raomen b t famous. Hayward's Eureka) undeveloped thafc the ld deposits of Ca laveras are ex- properties are numerous the Nortjj hauste d he is sadly mistaken. Mining ia Lincoln, the Occident, the Comet ond Btm carried on here in D8arl u p u Waoash and Mechanics' mine. Just south, formStand there are mine3 a / Ange ls, of the Eureka -the Summit is situated ; Mny , Copperopolis, Milton, Moke- and on Kennedy .flat the Clyde, the Vol- L^ - H | n Camoo Seco, Sheep Ranch, unteerandihe Pioneer immediate y ad- ^i ta ville, West Point, Rich Gulch joining the #ennedy on the south, and lp ougla8S Flat and elsewhere which are partially prospected by its shaft come L m & paying handsomely. The Uiica the Hoffman A Bright properties; the mine ^^ lg ig the leading quartz dt- ^y^^J 1 ^* B 3? oli; t a V ^ par H a - S h posit of the county. The Stickles at the near Middle bar-connected with which * lace ig anotner good rain and 8O isaHuntington mill in operation; the , ^ are tn ^ S mvth and McCreight mines in New York claims; the old Hardenburg the V icinity'ot Angels. Other prominent - mine and McKinney properties nnd many others. Among the bullion producers are the Keystone Consolidated, South Spring: Hill, Talisman, El Dorado, North Star, Lincoln. Pioneer, Wildman, Amador Con- mines are the Sheep Ranch, Esmeralda, tlex, Torch wood, Blazing Star and Water Lily, Angels, Quaker, Buena Vista, Union, Plymouth Rock, Calaveraa, etc. There works at Angels and is stul carried on along Smi^^^r and the trib- utaries of the IvlamaiTj, and an occasional deposit of quartz has been found. Just over the line in Oregon from Del Norte are large gravel d posits which have paid gravel deposits in this county which would pay well for working, while there is quartz enough to keep all the mills in the county busy for a century. COLUSA. Colusa, though a great wheat-growing handsomely in the past, and which ^are county, contains a variety of mineral known to bo rich in gold, products, the more important of which consist of eold, copper, cinnabar, sulphur, coal, petroleum, bitumen, natural gas, clay and limestone. There are also sev- eral mineral springs in the county, some them noted ior their medicinal proper- ties. The principal the county are the ld quartz mines i EL DOHADO. This is the fitting name of tho county where the discovery was made which lit- erally revolutionized the finances of the world. It was at Coloma that Marshall made the memorable discovery on that, zanita, located on Sulphur creek Along ^"f^'T- 6 , lh , a ,0 W " s ^ tand8 tho nionu- Bear creek and in the vicinity of the"! I * ? H n ^J ornla ijas e * ed iu com ' minesmanv of the gulches have afforded .^moratioa of the event wruch meant so some placer diggings, but being neither much to ner - It must not be supposed rich nor extensive tne amount ot gold ob- ' hat tne mineral wealth of this section tained from them has not been large. The has been exhausted simply because the Manzanita, mine is located on Sulphur halcyon days of the rocker and pan have creek, twenty-seven miles southwest of lon * since , P as * ed awa y- . On tho cou - Williams, a town on tne California and ^ rar ^ tne development ot the vast quartz Oregon railroad. The original claim lo- deposits has scarcely baen commenced, cated February 21, 1863, is 2700 by 1000 and ln these hllls he treasures far feet. The country rock here consists of surpassing in amount all that have sedimentary shales and a sandstone with: >' et beei \ wrenched from their grasp, occasional outbursts of eruptive rock. In A broad beJt ot q^rtz veins ex- many places these rocks are coated with a tends through tne county which has been siliceous sinter, evidently deposited from ta PP ed here atld ihe > but wljlcfa T e e ' hot siliceous waters, traces of which in sents the most favorable opportunities for the form of thermal springs, are still S^^^S^^JS^fi^I^tlS plainly visible. The substance not only coats the rocks, but it has found its way into all their cracks and crevices. It has, as a rule, free gold associated with it and! constitutes the auriferous ore of the dis- trict. The gold does not appear to per- meate the quartz, but is deposited on it in the form of an incrustation. This is the case at least in such parts of the mine as contain much gard to tne gold mines shall have been There exist large deposits of revised. gravel in various places which can be doubtless will be opened again before long. Tho mother lodo crosses this county from north to south a distance of twenty miles. After entering the county and proceeding a few miles north it makes a rather violent deflection to the east, car- places this sinter is assoc ated a so w i h ry ing it into the neighborhood of Placer- cinnabar and bitumen, which latter is 7 llje ' A l \ iil farther on it comes back to olten in such quantitv that it causes ereat lts ormal co " r . s . e ' f wh j c{1 , l J h hol A d9 l1 . 11 " loss of gold, imparting a coating to the r ?j ? es ^ jJt n er ^ r bound ^^f" the tion of the mother lode, its porphyritic appendages included, nearly a hundred Contra Costa county is known chiefly mining claims, on all of whicn more or from a mineral standpoint as the center less exploratory work has beeu done, many of the coal- producing region of California, of these claims having been equipped with and this feature of her resources will be found dealt with elsewhere. But in addi- tion gold and silver have both been found, though not in any Appreciable quantities. Still the precious meiais are known to ex- ist here, and doubtless close research would develop one or both in paying amounts. DEL NORTE. This county was the scene of one of the famous gold rushes in the early period of the history of the State. The streams in the interior carry considerable gold-bear- ing gravel, while there are deposits of black sand at different points along the coast which are known to contain much gold. Some cby a process will be discov- ered for working these sands successfully, costly plant and developed into largely productive mines. Among the leading properties are the Josephine, Oakland, Central, El Dorado, Equ itor, Superior, Big Sandy, the group at Placerville, the Dalmatia, Esperanza, Ivanhoe, Taylor, Bona Torsa, Zentgraft and others. On the Georgetown divide are many gravel and quartz deposits which will repay working. Much of the ore found in El Dorado county is low grade and many mines were opened in the early days which were abandoned because they did not come up to the exalted ideas of those times. Now that ores can be forked for less than a dollar a ton, as is actually being done at present in El Dorado county, there is no reason except lack of enterprise why ihese low-grade deposits should not be extensively developed. FRESNO. From the earliest history of the State this section hns been known to be rich in mineral wealth. Placer mining was begun about the yea i'' 1850 in the San J< river and its tributaries, auci a mining population of about 1500sprunj? up in that vicinity. Many men made small fortunes, while the degree .of success of others was less. One of the claims there paid its proprietor $117,000. There were also sev- eral Chinese companies engaged in min- ing who i'aied very well. At Fine Gold creek alone there were at one time in the early fil ties 500 people mining. The pla- cers were worked lor all they were worth until the winter of 1867-68. when the heavy floods swept everything away, dis- couraging the miners, the greater number of whom sought more promising and newer fields. The advent of the agriculturist auout this time and the exhaustion of the old placers also contributed to bring about the cessation of placer mining. There are still some very good claims there, but they have never been worked on account of the difficulty of turning the water. Some quartz mining was done early in the fillies. The quartz mining belt is from eight to ten miles in width, running parallel with the Sierra Nevada, its edge being about twenty-five miles from Fresno. The various mining districts are Hildreth, Auberry, Mount Raymond, Fresno Flats, Grub Gulch, Coarse Gold, Fine Gold, North Fork and the Minarets. Many fine prospects have been made, which will no doubt prove valuable prop- erties when developed. When experi- enced mining men become interested and invest capital the scarcity of which up to the present has prevented the full de- velopment of the mines the results will be most gratiiying. The ores extracted have in many cases assayed very hietily, as much as $500 and in some cases eve'n $1000. Of course, this is much above the average, but the ore is of a high grade generally. The capital invested in the mines in this county amounts to fully $350,000, while the number of men ern- ployed is about 500. Though many of the mines have been worked quite steadily, the operations, except in a few instanced, have not been on a very extensive scale. UUMBOLDT. Humboldt county possesses some valu- able gold mines, notable being those at what is known as Gold Bluff, where there are extensive black sand deposits. These deposits created much excitement some thirty-five or thirty-six years a^o. They extend from Oregon e'ight miles in a southerly direction. Tlie whole line of the beach was worked for the gold the sand contained. This deposit of black sand contains traces of platinum, osmium iridium too minute to have any com- mercial value, but with sufficient gold to make the business of gathering it lucra- tive. Several parties engaged in this auriferous harvest have retired with a competency. From the date of discovery to the present writing these beaches have been annually worked, success depending, . ^ i ^.^^ - i more or less, on. the occurrence of tierce gales of wiiul in" the winter time, and the consequently heavy surt that breaks along the shore. These nlack sands, as they are called, come from the disintegration of the bluffs facing the ocoan, and which rise nearly vertical to a height of from 100 to 800 feet above the se i level. The bluff* are a formation of aurif- ' erous gravels deposited by the Klamath i and its tributaries, the main river erapty- I ing into the sea centuries ago at this point. The bank caves, and the retreat- ing wives carry the lighter detritus sea- ward, while the metallic portion remains on the beach in thin sheets, which the miner gathers and washes. This gold is from 900 to 950 line, and sells for $19 50 i per ounce. It is estimated that over i$ 1,000, 000 have been taken from this 'source with comparatively small expense. Besides these be;ich deposits there are some fifteen hydraulic mines on the Kiamath and its tributaries which have been or are now successfully worked. The i inhibition against hydraulicking doea not ' apply in this section, hence the non-ces- sation of the industry. INYO. This county has extensive deposits of gold, silver and other minerals, and in the past has produced a large amount of bullion. The names of the Panamint. Darwin and Cerro Gordo camp^ are well known as having at one time been among i the most prominent mining localities on the coast. The remoteness of thes places and their difficulty of access has prevented rapid development, though there are ex- tensive deposits of ore which will repay working. The miners all along the Inyo range for 150 miles north either work in their own claims and sell their small batches of as- sorted ores or work on tribute, either of which secures them living wages. The Lookout or Darwin district adjoins the Panamint district on the northwest and takes its name from the principal town in it, situated on the eastern slope of Lookout mountain. There are three smelters in this district, but they have not been run for several years. The most largely developed and productive mines in the neighborhood of Darwin are the Defiance, Independence, Promontory, Sterling, Pluto, Christmas Gilt and tho Lucky Jim, the last three included in the Mackenzie group, being situated four miles north of the towjn. _JThe nill was*erected on the spot, but, although a tunnel 1200 feet long was run into the hill in hope of striking the ledge from which the bowlder came, nothing re- munerative was developed. Various ttempts have been made to discover tne source of the placer gold, but heretofore >rospecting has met with but litile suc- sess in the county, the greit obstacle oeing the depth of soil covering the rock brmation and tlie dense growth it main- tains, both of which prove a hindrance to the prospector and geological observer, yet some few lodges have ban nn taken up, but little of much value nas been developed. Both the mill and smelter that were put up several years ago the one near the town, the other at Swansea have been idle tor several vears; i the great cost of fuel and tho opportunity | of shipping the ores by railroad causing their destruction. Independence, the county seat of Inyo, is the center of a good many mines, lying in almost every direction around it, some of them being out of the limits of any or- ganized district. Conspicuous among this ; class is the Brown Monster, located six miles south of Independence station, on the Carson and Colorado railroad. The mine is connected with the railroad by a tramway, also the mill, standing on the bank of Owens river. This mill carries thirty stamps and haa a crushing capa- city of forty-five tons of gold ore per day. KEEN. Among the many sources of wealth of which Kern county boasts and which is bringing and has brought hundreds of thrifty emigrants within its borders to live, that furnished by its mineral de- posits has been, perhaps, most neglected, by those who have written most of this section, at ail events, in 1854 gold was first discovered in Kern county by a party of emigrants while camping in a gulch in the Greenhorn mountains. There was immediately a rush of prospectors to this country, and the Kern river excite- ment became as noted as that of Fraser river or Whi'e Pine. In April of the same year Captain Maitby discovered the first quartz vein near what is new called the Hot Spring valley. He erected a quartz mill and operated very successfully for two years. In the meantime the bar* along Kern river were extensively worked for placer gold, with profitable results. In 1855, in a cove nestling at the foot of the Greenhorn mountains, Richard Keys and Jonathan Crandall discovered what is called the Keys mine. It proved a rich strike, the quartz yielding about $300 per ton in gold. It is estimated that some $2,000,000 in profits were extracted from the group of mines. In 1859 Lovely Rogers and Joseph Cald- well found the ; 'Cove" mines near the present site of Kern ville, consisting of the mines now known as the Lady Bell, Jeff Davis and Beauregard, all afterward called the Summer mines, and extensively worked by Senator John P. Jones nnd others. Millions in money were taken out i of these mines. Iti 1862 the rich mines of Havilah were discovered, and for a season there was a snlendid output. What was known as the MoKeadney group of mines yielded thou- sands of tons of quartz paying from $200 to $300 per ton. Tho mines in operation at present in Kern county are as follows: Sinter m"$70 to $100 in gold per ton ; the Mel- villa group of mines and the original Mammoth mino. Along upper Kern river rich specimens of float quartz havu been discovered from time to time, and in that region there is a 'fine field for prospectors. * Thtitpirtof the -Moiare desert which i lies in Kern county has not yet been care- fully prospected, yet thera exists possibil- ity tliere of another Calico district, es- pecially in the vicinity of Red Rock can- yon. In general it may be said that the gold mining interests of Kern county have languished for some years, but there are at present signs of renewed life, and there seem,s to be no reason why this industry should not yield a golden harvest. LAKE. Lake county contains a great rariaty of minerals, gold, siver, copper, borax, sul- phur, asbestos and cinnabar counting among the mineral resources. In Para- dise valley, about five miles from the sul- phur banks, a shaft has been sunk to a depth of sixty feet on a ledge of quartzite. The ore, which is much copper stained, carries considerable pyrites, and assays from $3 to $9 in gold a ton, with a small percentage of silver. Gold-bearing quartz has been observed in tho vicinity of Mount St. Helena, also near the Bradford quick- silver mine, and at a point between An- derson springs and the Geysers. The crop- pings of these quartz veins contain a s nut Li amount of silver. One mile east of Bradford much copper float is to be seen and near Harbin springs a shaft h#s been sunk to a depth of sixty feet in a cuprif- erous vein, but tho ore is of too low a grade to warrant further sinking. LASSEN. Lassen county, bordering on one of the best mining counties of California, being separated from Plumas county by a spur of the Sierra Nevada, hns so fur devel- oped but littlo mineral wealth, a few cliims having been prospected on Dia- mond mountain, near Susanviile, the county seat, that n-ive yielded some gold. Veins of silver and gold ores have also been found on the southwest side of Eagle lake, but mining a3 a regular business has only been prosecuted in the extreme north of the county, sixty miles north of Susan- viile and nine miles from the Modoc county line, in what Is known as the Hay- den Hill Mining District. This hill, named after one of the first locators, who is buried there, is one of the highest points of a spur running out on the East- ern slope of the Sierra Nevada; its alci- tude is given as 7500 feet. The mines were discovered nearly twenty years ago, since which time they'have been more or less continuously worked, yielding to the world's gold supply a little over $1,000,000. wusnmg or che sea, tically inexhautibie. ATEO. .is county, aa far as vn, consists of gold, al quicksilver, lime Of these petroleum are at present alone al account. wheat; there was no fine gold. The gold was worth $18 per ounce. Parties have mined on the creek for five years, and it is stated that over $28,000 worth of gold has been shipped through Wells, Fargo & Co. at Santa Cruz. In early days a bowlder, the size of which was estimated at some sixteen cubic feot, was discovered in Gold Gulch, near Felton, which, when Another rnina which has attracted c siderable attention is the tellurium dep discovered a few years ago some tt miles from Redding in a prulc'h thai tributary to the Sacramento river. 1 mine was discovered by Peter Sche who was led to search for a quartz le because of the rich placors that had b found in the vicinity. The first shot I into thft ledga whan t>. WR^ nnth lode and placer auriferous deposits have been discovered here a^ d.i.Q'erent times and in various placet. A few of these deposits have been worked in a lim- ited way. Copper ore, some of it promis- ing, has been found in Coyote, Potter and Walker valleys. Exudution of petroleum has also been noticed in several parts of the county. At Panta Arenas this sub- stance trickles from a sanJy shale on the seashore. During the oil excitement in California in 18G5 quite u sum of money was expended at this place to obtain a more ample supply fr >m the shale, but without success. Sulphur and salt are met with in quantity, and mineral springs, .hot and cold, issue trom the earth. MERCED. Although Merced is one of the foremost grain, wool and fruit growing counties in the State, it is not entirely destitute of mineral wealth. There was afe one time in the northeastern corner 01 the county a limited extent of plarer diggings, and both quicksilver and antimony are found in the eastern portion of the McLeod mining d. strict, which extends from San Benito into the southwestern corner of Merced county. Quicksilver is both mined and reduced in that district. Gold can be found in the sands of all the streams upon the eastern side of the county, and in some places mining is still carried on where the Merced river leaves the foothills throughout a great portion of the year, usually from August until the miners are driven out by the high water. Both white men and Chinese, frequently to the numoer of about 100, engage in this work, and . it is said they make good wages. There is a bluff on the eastern boundary of the county, about half a mile north from the Merced river, which pays well during the wettest portion of the year, when water can be brought to it. It is owned by private parties, who exact a royalty from the miners, who, when working with rockers, are said to fre- quently make as high as $10 per day. Rich gravel is also said to have been dis- covered in some old water courses in the northeast corner of the county, but lack of water has hitherto prevented work be- ing done thereon. There has also been some gold-washing on the western side of the county on tne rancno ae los Uarrisa- litos. about twenty railea southwest from Los Banos, MODOC. While Modoc may and, no doubt, does contain mineral deposits of many kinds and of much importance, none of ascer- tained value has yet been discovered. Many years ago a number of silver-bear- ing lodes were located in the mountains near Surprise valley, and some prospect- ; ing work done. On one of the locations ia quartz mill was erected, but owing to the remoteness of the place, and, in some measure, to Indian hostilities, the work of development was tardy, and, when the mill was destroyed by lire, it was aban- doned. The amount of bullion obtained from the working was inconsiderable, so the- extent and value of existing deposits are left, as yet, undetermined. The set- tlers in the county have turned their at- tention chiefly to farming and stock-rais- ing; mining is nearly altogether neg- lected. In Lassen county, just over the southern boundary of Modoc, quartz mines are being worked. Modoc' s min- eral wealth is yet lying dormant, await- ing the awakening hour of enterprise. MONO. It is now about eight years since the ' business of mining for the precious metals at Bodie, the principal camp in Mono, be- gan to decline. H iving taken an unpro- pitious turn, this industry tell off year by year, until at last nearly every stamp in the district was hung up; exploratory work greatly abated, and bullion pro- duction almost wholly extinguished; re- sults due to the exhaustion of the pay ore in the more largely producing mines and the failure to iind other deposits of this kind, either in these mines or else- where in the district. For a number of years preceding this break in her fortunes the town of Bodie 1 had been exceedingly prosperous. For this there was a double reason. The out- ; put of bullion had been large, while im- ; mense sums of money, mostly collected 1 by assessments, had been expended in , exploratory work; active prospecting on i 1 not less than thirty different claims, all I equipped with steam noisting works, having been kept up throughout this period. The bullion product of these mines during the time they were in bo- nanza some six or seven years, amounted to nearly $20,000,000. The yield -of the Stindard and the Bodie Consolidated from 1877 to 1884, inclusive, amounted to $10,- 000,000 and $4,000,000 respectively, the bullion of the former consist-ing of 86 per cent of gold, 14 per cent of silver; of the latter, 68 per cent of gold and 32 per cent of silver. From such large products made in this one locality only eight years ago, the total annual output of the bulli has dwindled to less than half a million dollars for the entire county. Considerable worK, however, is being . done in the Blind Spring, Montgomery, i White Peak, Indian and other districts. I This is all on a small scale, but ore aver- aging $150 a ton in silver is found. In the Lahe, Homer and Tioza districts are mines upon which work is being done. here are external gravel deposits which t have been successfully worked in the claims of this kind were taken up ami past and whicn would unquestionably re- much work done upon them from fifteen" pay systematic development. to twenty years ago. As the develop- ments ma.de proved disappointing, opera- ,, . . tions gradually ceased, the most of these The existence of gold and silver in Mon-i claim3 g having afterward been virtually terey county has been known from the! Abandoned. Although work there has earliest settlement of the country. The du r? ng the past year or two been principal locality where gold has been practically resumed, the only mine found is in the Los Burros mining dis-. that ,-- -i * J, Wet in the southern end of the'Santa at present producing bullion is isade, owned by Messrs. Grigsby , a leages or aurnerous & Johnson. This property, which corn- quartz are said to have been .found in the priseg four c i a i m s, each 1500x600 feet, is Cholame valley, also near Cholore peak in , f oca ted on one of the southern spurs of K T V ang< V *. ' Mount St. Helena, near the foot of the The Los Burros district, which covers a grade i ea dmg from the town of Calistoga wide are.i in the southern portion of the * f nto Lake count y. A well-built wagon Santa Lucia .range, , was organized m 1876. - road connec t s the town with Calistoga, Prior to 1887 no mineral veins of import- lying ftbout two and a half mi i e9 to the ance had been discovered, the prospectors sout ^ Two veln3 have been developed principally confining their attention to quicksilver and placer workings. Al though several discovered, here, one running nearly north and . -- . south, the other lying east of this rein, quicksilver cbums were having a trend more to the wesf. ttle was done toward Gk>ki-bearing quartz veins crop out at their development. Placer mining was manv place9 on Tviount St. Helena. Al- carried on intermitting for several thou - gl f a good deal of prospecting has years. At one time over 100 Chinese were been done on these veins, nothing of engaged in go d washing in the vicinity:. lar 6 yalue haa ever beerx developed, of jolon, it being supposed that the land in that neighborhood was Government: NEVADA. territory. It proved, however, to belong Nevada is one of the imperial mining to the Milpitas rant, and the owners i counties of California, contesting with, compelled the Chinamen to discontinue Amador the honor of being the largest their work. Gold washing was afterward bullion-producing county in the State. carried on further west in the ravines and The annual output of gold,' amounting gulches of the Santa Lucia r^nge. The} now to nearly $3,000,000 for each county, gold was principally coarse gold nuggets, would have been much larger but for the some of the value of $5 being occasionally) suppression of hydraulic mining. The found. bullion product of Nevada has suffered In 1887 W. D. Cruikshank was prospect- ^ the largest curtailment from this cause, ing in Alder creek, and discovered a. Every form of gold mining elsewhere pur- "blindlead" from two to four inches wide,^ sued is represented in this county, grav containing free gold. He commenced washing by the hydraulic process aloi sinking upon it, and the ledge widened out^ excepted; this, after reacmnK here i as he went down. He then crushed about twenty pounds in a hand mortar, and washed out $18 worth of gold. He con- tinued sinking, and put up a horse ar- rastra. This he used for about four" months, during which time he realized' sufficient to erect a three-stamp mill and a two- horse-power engine. Ho ran this mill from November, 1887, to the first of June, 1888, when a failure of the water supply, caused by draining the upper workings of the mine, compelled a re- moval of the mill, and a consequent tem- porary suspension of milling operations. Further developments of Mr. Cruikanank's mine, which is called the Last Chance, have brought to light five distinct leads, each showing well defined quartz veins, three of which have been found of suffi- cient importance to work. KAFA. While Napa is distinguished as A fruit, grain and vine-growing county, it pos* sesves also a variety of mineral products, of which gold, silver, mercury, iron, chromium and manganese are the prin- cipal. The silver-bearing veins in this county greatest expansion, having been prohi ited by the courts. In Nevada county, Ca!., gold quartz mining had its origin, the business having begun at Grass Valley as early as 1850, in which year the first quartz mill in the " State was erected. In Nevada, also, auriferous gravel washing by the hydraulic method was invented and first practiced, the process having att- erward in this county seen its most ex- tensive .'.pplication. Here are found the longest and most expensive water ditches and the most capacious reservoirs, con- structed in this or, perhaps, in any other country. The record made by some of the quartz mines of this county is yery remarkable, both as regards large, long- continued and steady production. The ores here are for the most part of good grade and free milling, carrying usually not over 2 per cent of sulphurets. The concentrates yield on an average about $100 per ton. The ore is chiefly gold- bear- ing quartz, while the veins are not apt to be larse, ranging generally from two to three feet in thickness. In this district the usual vicissitudes are mostly confined" to the lower slopes of ' have u accompanied quartz mining A \fr,r>r Rf Tioio ~h o !..* ^o~ number of mines have yielded largely in Mount St. Helena, where a great many n iro1 , 1 * treasure. There have also been many failures, but they were owing more tq the Vi.,oe the cessation 01 nydra"hc want of capital or unskilliulness in man- several attempts hava b^er. made ageruent, as is shown by the fact that , tiic bottom gravel by drifting, oat in most mines that failed under one management cases it was iound to be of too low graae - to pay for the handling by the drifting process. ORANGE. have yielded profitably under another by the use of improved and better methods. It may bo stated that there has never been a time since quartz mining began inij Orange county is well supplied with the Grass Valley district, lorty years ago, : valuable minerals. There are some ap- but that one or more quartz mines have(. parently extensive silver deposits in the been worked at a profit, while a like state- s anta Ana range, and both gold and silver ment cannot be made for any other mm- <-in some other portions. Whac is known ing district on the Pacific coast From as the Pilligrin or Alma "dig<*in"s" are the best obtainable data it , is estimated O n one of the branches of the Santiago that the quartz mines i of Grass .Valley creek; they crop out on one side of the have produced oVer $100,000,00< in gold I mountain, the upper portion composed of bullion. This is sufficient to indicate the .surface pockets and chimneys, with indi- value and permanence of the quartz lodei cations of a fissure vein below. The ele- ct 1 tho district and its mining prospects ;vation here is about 2300 feet. Several for the future. "tunnels have been excavated and much Quartz mining has not been so ex- )goo( a ore has been extracted. On the op- teusiyely conducted in the Nevada City 'posite side of Santiago canyon is an eleva- district as at Grass Valley, but the busi- tion called " Carbonate hill," which seems ness has been important there, and is also to contain much valuable mineral It is growing at Willow Valley, an adjoining approached from the southwest along district, and the future ol the industry in. Weakly canyon, and has an elevation of that locality is one of abundant promise. ( 2600 feet above sea level. Tha most valu- The ores of these districts are more heav- able mineral of this " hill" is lead car- ily mineralized than those of Grass Val- bonate. W. 8. Morrow, who has taken ley, the ores- of the latter yielding more tip several claims, h-is made openings readily to the free-milling process. The 1 which expose the ledge for some 31)00 feet concentrates ot all the ores of the districts) and it is said to run*high in silver. The narn.fcd are generally of high grade. ! banging wall is quart/ite, and the foot Taken altogether the quartz mines have wall is granite. The dip is eastwardly produced largely in gold, but it may be which is true of nil the gold and silver said that such raining is as yet only in its infancy here, and thera is an inviting field for the intelligent use of capital and labor to enter, with the prospect of bearing rocks of the Santa Ana range. PLACEB. Placer has from the first been noted for abundant recompense. th . e varied character and the extent of her Nevada county has"Vithin its borders "'ng operations and her large bullion an extensive system of ancient rivers. Production, the latter having at one time The immense deposits of auriferous grav- (amounted to several million dollars per els of tta ieniarv covor the greater part nnura - ( lf late years the output of gold the ridges between the Boar a:ul South Yuba rivers, extending east Irotu Rough I and Ready, Grass Valley and Little YorJc has open greatly diminished through the Stoppage of hydraulic mining, formerly prosecuted here on a large scale. Mean UHVJ, O-l/VCkU. V 1 VJ Jl CIO 3 U.Jt^- C4l.1V*. JJl WAV- A \J I M - . .. , . , to Omega; also on tho ridge between the whlle however, drift gravel mining has V-Hddle and South Yuba rivers from bee somewhat increased. This branch TSnurUville, extending east to Snow . OI J he business is now largely carned^on Point, is the most extensive ana richest} j the couiuy, the Forest Hill divide being deposit of auriferous gravel in the llnitedj th * Blt . e of .. lts S^fl* e ^ tensll : e operations. States, if not in the world. These im-[, Mmln S fr gold has been the leading m- mense auriferous deposits are covered inff^? 7 an ? B 9 urce f w , ealth of the , c nty places with volcanic capping. }" ^ be Pt since the discovery of gold in to the anti-debris lifigation thou-i 1S4Q ftnH W1 " -^--^ 1 " - ^ ^ iiuv/j-u-cuiio i-iii^atLuu navju.* f ,' i ".. san.is of men were employed working the of the principal industries and sources of wealtn ' the future he a^ow placers auriferous deposits by hydraulic process. ; e aow pacers Millions of dollars of capital were also inJ W , er . e f 1 * ah *?? f tondln K. f rom the .lower vested in the construction of canal,, pipe P la . ms almost to ih ? summit of the Sierra, lines, and long sluice tunnels for working "V? we f e amon ^ \ he richest in the State. the depbsitb by hydraulic process. , Quartz mining has also been carried on The auriferous gr-vels in Nevad . county, if worked bv .hvdraulic process with all the water available, would, at the lowest calculation, yield $5,000,000 , Jo a greater or less extent since the erec- *J n of the Croesus mill-one of the first tamp mills in the btate-on the Croesus Baltimore ravine, near Auburn, $6,000,000 per year and could not be ex-i As the shallow placers and river bars hnust'ed in a century. ! Were exhausted miners turned their atten- The hydraulic mines throughout th^ tion to drift and hydraulic mining in the county are all closed by injunction; th/deep auriferous gravels of the ancient niajority of the water ditches and canal] river channels on the hills; and whenever are going to ruin, and the little towns avH the beds of the ancient rivers were access- villages dependent on the -mining indua ible for working by shaf's arid tunnels trv are all about deserted and going t they were workea by the drifting process r uin, I and yielded large profits. 1 : 1 Hydraulic mining began in 1854 and was carried on successfully at Yankee Jim's, Forest Hill, Bath, Michigan Blutt, Iowa Hill, Wisconsin Hill, Gold Run, Dutch Flat and other places throughout the county, and as an industry iixcreasod in importance and flourished until the debris litigation resulted in stopping, by placed on hydraulic mining, on the other the mixti.;: up of stock gambling with the inaiuur !;' ;:t of quartz mines, which has been quuw prevalent in some parts of the count}". It is stated that the Joss to Plurnaa county through depreciation ol mining property and diminished gold production amounted to about $400,000 tier annum, and as Plnmaa rnnntv has n J.1J I U.KJ.I. H. \JJLi. Cfr4JL UUV AA T W A t* U 1A^ AilUlCa lil t t-l O " , , ,. t _ rt ^ -, county. Since hydraulic mining ceased, .population of about 7000 1 inhabitants that in 1886, miners and capitalists have turned InOK113 a ios f . f cver * 500 P er ca P lta tor th their attention to the development and en ;. lre Population. working of quartz mines and the opening .Amon*? the prominent quartz mines of of the deep, lava-capped auriferous gravel * hls . co ETvncEis perous and permanent iilyer mining in- rockers and ground own T h i f^ 1 Jf e north of the town of Daggett, on the At- ?l f Wae " f th9 lntic and Pacific railroad. Notwith- standing the want of fuel and timber and SAN BEKITO. the scarcity of water, the ease with which This countv has never been known as a the ores here can be mined and milled in- mineral section, yet there are large de- sures a reduction of the cost of working posits of various kinds some of which in-the near future, or whenever large and have been profitably worked. Auriferoua well-equipped mills shall be erected, placer workings have from time to time] freight and xvages reduced and adjacent been found and good iloat rock discovered] mines consolidated. At the present time in the hills to the north and northwest of ore is milled at a cost not exceeding $4 per Panoche, but the locality is too far from ton. A considerable number ot "chlorid- wnter to be available for placer mining ers" find profitable employment in the during the greater portion of the year, numerous mines within a radius of five Several years ago a party of Frenchmen miles from the town. These cannot afford commenced packing the dirt in sacks on to handle ore carrying much lees than their shoulders to the nearest creeic, a forty ounces to the ton, having usually to distance of about two miles, but they pay a tribute of one-fifth, in addition to could only make from 50 to 75 cents per tne expense of sacking, freighting and day, and abandoned the enterprise. It is milling; as a consequence large quantities also claimed that a ledge of rock has been of comparatively high grade ore are left struck in the same district that assays in the mines or da the dumps, to bo worked high both in gold and silver. at some future time. The depression in The McLeod district is the principal the silver market has exercised a bad effect mineral producing section of the county, upon the Calico mines and many good SAN BSBNARDIWO. properties are now closed down. Mining in one form or another has been pursued in this county from an early day. At first the business 'consisted of placer operations, carried on in its southwestern part, chiefly in Bear and Holcomb val- leys, and along some of the creeks and gulches stilt further west. Later on some quartz mining was undertaken in this sec- tion of the county; which were not, how- ever, attended with much success. After the discovery of the Comstock lode, the attention of the mining public having been strongly directed to silver, the whole northern part ot Sin Bernardino was ex- plored for that metal, and with sucn en- couraging prospects that a number of mining districts were organized and many Sun Bernardino contains the following mining districts, nearly all located in the desert portion of the county: The Gold and Silver, Morongo, Brier, Holcorab Valley, Borax Lake, Ruby Mountain, Twenty-nine Palms, Ibex, Borrows, Moron go, Solo, New York, Exchequer, Grapevine, Temescal, Ord, Black Hawk, Trojan, Silver Mountain, Lava Bed, AU vord, Calico, Clark and Scanlon. The copper, lead, zinc, asbestos, iron and other minerals are al?o found in this county. On Lytle creek, thirteen miles north- westerly from Colton, auriferous gravel is found. From the mouth of the canyon northerly, five miles, to Pratts, there is more or less of it, and considerable work was once done here. The available places, however, re nearly exhausted and work has been discontinued for a Ions time. At T?xas Point some $80,000 is reported to have been taken out by hydraulic process. in 1868, ~ a ' little later. Owing ~ to I AboVQ this point the ravine spreads out in their remoteness, the cost of trnnsporta- fla ' s ' coverod b >' la . r S e granite bowlders, tion, and otherwise adverse conditions 5 Crossing the ravine near Glenn's ranch, mining made so little headway in the.se I fc wnshl P 2 north range 6 west, section districts that they came, in the course of a 22 .- . a . vem ot ^old-bearing rock occurs, lodes taken up in that region of country. The districts so formed consisted of the State Range, Washington. Argus. Tele- i , scope, Armagosa, Potosi and the Ei. Do- ' as bee " rado the Ivanpah district, in the same region, having been formed a districts that they came, in the course of a few years, to be about deserted. Since the construction of a railroad across the Mojave desert, rendering the mines more accessible and greatly reducing the cost ot transportation, mining operations have undergone some reviral in these districts, with the prospect of becoming still more ao'ive in the early future. Meantime the Calico country, much more accessible and every way more ad- vantageously situated, having been dis- covered and opened up, promises to plant in the very center of this county a which gave a good horn-spoon prospect, showing free gold; but no work has been j done on it other ihan sinking a five-foot shaft. On the headwaters of the San Gabriel river, close to the line on the Los Angeles side, and westerly from the point above mentioned, ten miles from its source southerly, and thirty miles westerly from Glenn's ranch, on the western slope of the San Gabriel and Lytle creek ranges, lies the San Gabriel gold mino. A shaft twenty ieet in depth has been sunk, ex- posing a vein twelve feet wide, and a quartz mill is being buiu on the property. On the northern slope of the San An- tonio Peak, at an elevation of 8UO feet, a dead river channel of auriferous gravel was discovered in the summer of 1882. In many respects this gravel resembles that of the pliocene beds so extensively worked in the middle and northern counties of California. SAN DIEGO. San Diego county, besides a variety of other useful minerals and metals, pos- sesses a considerable wealth of gold and silver, chiefly the former, her auriferous resources consisting of both vein and placer deposits, the latter not extensive. Salt is hiso produced in this county. Gold-bearing quartz lodes were discov- ered here as early us 1869, the site of these first discoveries being in the Cayurnaca mountains, a high ranee distant some sixty miles from the coast. The Julian, the Banner and several other districts were afterwards organized here, many claims taken up and much work done, tiu> still continuing to be the prin- cipal quartz locality of the county. From statistics prepared by Chester Gunn of San Diego it appears that the gold yield from theao districts, from their discovery in 1869 np to 1830, was over $2,500,000. The surface rock being rich, it was a, good camp for poor men. That this neighborhood has not yet been prop- erly explored is shown by the fact that in the early part of 1890, in a little valley rive miles southeasterly from the town of Julian (at an altitude of 4700 feet), seven locations had been made on small, rich veins of auriferous quartz, tne croppings carrying free gold to such an extent that it seems almost impossiole that for nearly twenty years it should have escaped the eye of the prospector. The loading mine of San Diego county is undoubtedly the Stonewall, which is situated in Julian district. The yield of this mine has been very large, and it is still believed to be a good property. Speaking generally of the history and prospects of gold mining in Ban Diego county it may be said that while a good de 1 of prospecting and surface scratching has been done at various localities, yet the tot d aggregate amount of intelligent and systematic mining which has ever yet been dono wituin the lirnita of the county is extremely small. This has been due to a variety of causes: First, most of the mines are situated at considerable distances from any points which have hitherto been very easily ac- cessible to travelers, and very little has baen known about them outside of the county itself. Second, there has existed from the beginning a widespread but un- reasonable and unfounded prejudice against the county, which has rendered it almost impossible to induce capitalists to invest any money in mines that are lo- -*;* c there. Thus, mos hava in tne past Deen owned and worked by men who were comparatively poor and had not the requisite means to properly develop them, wnich accordingly they failed to do. Other mines have shutdown for other causes, which were not the fault of the mines themselves, such as unskill- ful and incompetent, management (which will ruin any mine); costly litigation, which always arises to a greater or leas ex- tent wherever rich mines are found, etc. Yet many of these mines have yielded large sums in the past, and some of them are to-day running and doing well. BAN FRANCISCO. The county of San Francisco is to be numbered among the gold-bearing locali- ties. Located in the western part of the county is a gold-producing beach, which, commencing at the outlet of Laguna de in Merced, extends thence south along the seashore lor a distance of about two miles. Nearly all the gold here occurs in strata of masnetic iron ore, the so-called black s:uid, there being very little in the ordi- nary sand of which the beach is mainly composed. Tho gold found consists of minute particles, much of it being of al- most atomic fineness. A piece as large as the head of a pin has never probably been washed out here. JLike all auriferous beaches, and most other placers, this is a secondary deposit, the original sources of this gold having been the quartz lodes that formerly existed in the basin that has its drainage into the laguna. Some have assigned for this gold another and more distant origin, advancing the theory that it was by ocean currents brought down from the north and here thrown up and left by the surf. This, however, was before the country adjacent had been examined and its numerous character established. Gold- bearing quartz veins and their at- tendant metainorphic rocks are found not only in the basin of the Laguna Merced, but throughout the entire San Francisco peninsula, and eren along the Santa Cruz Dranch of the Coast range, all the way down to the bay of Monterey. A quartz mill was put up in these mountains many years ago, and for a time run with some success. A nugget of gold weighing sev- eral ounces was picked up in that vicinity at an early day. Careful prospecting along all the ravines and arroyos through- out this region reveals frequently a speck of free gold, with many grains of the characteristic black sand. SAN JOAQUIN. While San Joaquin is not and never has been a mining county, yet it, does not follow that there is no gold there. On the contrary it is certain that tho precious metal does exist in the gravel of the screams which pass through the county, all of which have their sources in the rich- est placer mining region of the early days. Some Jittle mining has been done on these streams within the iimita of the nty, and it may well be that in the .i~ure this may become a source of con- siderable wealth. SAN LTTIS OBISPO. Gold, silver, lead, copper, quicksilver, 1 chromite, gypsum, onyx, salt, lime, coal and petroleum hare been found in the mountains of this county. It is a matter of history- that gold was shipped from San Luis Obispo and neighboring counties prior to its discovery by Marshall in 1818. The explorers of the Pacific railroad re- ported gold wast of Salinas in 1854, though its existence in the S*n Jose mountains had long been known. Gold has been and is still washed from sands in the bed of the Sim Marcos creek, about four miles northwest of Paso Robles, dur- ing the wet months of the year, yielding, it is said, as high aa from $3 to $4 a nun a day. Placer claims have also been worked thirtv miles southeast of Temple- ton since 1870-71, ground sluicing and pan- ning, when water has boen plentiful, hav- ing yielded from $2 to $4 a diy. The placer mines of the La Panzi dis- j trict are the best known and are probably i of the moat importance. They are sitii- 1 ate i at the southe (Stern foot of the Sau Jose range, which rises as a formidable mountain joining the Santa Lucia, and over $100,000 in gold has been taken out. During 1878 there was quite a rush to these parts and prosneciing was carried o;i in nearly all the gulches leading from the Sin Josa range to the San Juaii river. The chief interest was centered in the De la Guerra gulch, where the most mining was done, even as late as 1882; also upon the Narajo creek, which is a stream of constantly flowing water. Some of these placers have yielded as hiarh as $4 per day. The gold was coarse, pieces worth 50 cents or 80 cents being of frequent oc- currence. Haystack canvon also has run- ning water and eold. Near the head of this canyon are falls of twenty feet, where the water descends into a basin twenty feet across and ten or twelve ieet deep, j These streams re xch the channel of the, San Juan during very wet weather. Of late years these mines have not been j actively worked, chiefly on account of the scarcity of water. In the southern por- tion of the county gold has also been found in sands on the seashore in con- siderable quantity. They are reported as yielding from $1 50 to $2 per day to the miner, and, as the gold dust appears to be renewed by the washing of the sea, the deposits are practically inoxhautible. SAN MATEO. The minerals of this county, as far as investigation is shown, consists ses. Of those gold and silver, petroleum, in the form of bituminous rock, lime and building stonos are all that can be counted as known sources of actual mineral we ilth. Placer mining is carried on along vari- ous creeks in this county when water is abundmt and generally yields fur wages to those engaged in it. The sluice and rocker have been f.iiniliar sights both on Wardell creek and at Gold Gulch, near Felton, and on Maior creek, on the ranch of J. L. Thurber.* At the latter place three men within thirteen days took out thrteen ounces of gold with sluices and plain riffles, no quicksilver being used. The gold was coarse and, rough, some . pieces being attached to rose-colored i crystalline quartz. The largest pieces ij ranged in value from 25 cents to $10, the majority being the size of a srruin of wheat; there was no fine gold. The gold } was worth $18 per ounce! Parties have rained on the creek for five years, and it ( is stated that over $28,000 worth of gold -j has been shipped through Wells, Fargo & 'j Co. at Santa Cruz. In early days ji bowlder, the size of which was estimated i t some sixteen cubic feat, was discovered j Gulch, near Felton, which, when milled, yielded ome $33,000. A small mill was erected on the spot, but, although a tunnel 1200 feet long was run into the hill in hope of striking the ledge from which the bowlder came, nothing re- munerative was developed. Various attempts have been made to discover trie source of the placer gold, but heretofore prospecting has met with but little suc- cess in the county, tho great obstacle being the depth of soil covering the rock formation and the dense growth it main- tains, both of which prove a hindrance to the prospector and geological observer, yet some few iedgas have been unearthed. Considerable attention has been paid to the auriferous black sand which occurs in the ancient raised baaches of Santa Cruz, upon which abortive experiments have heretofore been made; also the auriferous sands upon the seashore, which in slack times have yielded small wages for man- ual labor since the early settlement of California. SHASTA. This is one of the counties that ranked among the largest gold-producers in the early history of placer mining, and it had many extensive deposits of gold and sil- ver ore, as well as other minerals. Some little placer mining is still occasionally done, but the bulk of mining now carried on is the development of the qutrtz de- posits. Old Diggings district has several notable mines, including tho Texas and Georgia, which haa produced ore that paid $240 to $290 to tha ton in gold and $10 in silver. The Utah and California averages $150 to the ton, and a large amount of work has been done on it. The Lower Springs district, a few miles northwest of Redding, has half a dozen good veins which show rich ore. In early days the ravines and gulches in the mountain through which this vein crosses were exceedingly ncn in "placer," mainly below the point of outcrop of this ledge. During the past year several pieces or nuggets w?re picked up, having been washed down by the winter's rain. The owners of the properties will not permit any mining, as the level lands adjoining are under cultivation vineyard and or- chard. One of the best known mines in Shasta county is the Washington, located at French Gulch. This mine was located thirty-nine years ago. The first stamp mill erected in the county, containing six stamps, was built on this claim. Tho mine has produced betweon $500,000 and $600,000 since, but is not at present a pay- ing proposition. The owners are pros- pecting the property for the purpose of opening out new ore bodies. It has an el- evat'on of 2000 feet above sea level and is two and one-half miles west from the town of French Gulch. The Nia :ara mine, at French Gulch, is another notable property which has been worked for a long time and has paid largely. In nearly all those portions of tne county i I where placer mining was ever followed the quartz miner is at work, and many promising ledges havo been discovered. These ledges are not confined to any one part of Shasta, but are met with over a lare part of the county. One of the most noteworthy deposits of mineral in the county, and in fact in the world, is the Iron Mountain, fourteen miles northwest of Redding. There is a good road to this mine leading through Shasta and then into the mountains, over a narrow and steep grade, aad a visit to the remarkable deposit IB well worth undertaking. The Iron Mount- ain mine has a twenty-stamp mill con- stantly at work, and large shipments of silver are regularly made. There is nothing peculiar about the mill, the ore being roasted and worked by what is known as the pan process. The mine itself, however, is i curiosity. There is a solid mountain of ore rising some 1200 feet a iove the gulch in wiiich the mill is located, and extending for miles in either direction. No shafts or tunnels are needed in working the mine, but the ore is simplv quarrie I from the face of the mountain and sent to the mill through about the year 1850 in the Sau Joaquin river and its tributaries, and a mining population of about ISOOaprung up in that vicinity. Many men made small fortunes, while the degree of success of others was less. One of the claims there paid iis proprietor $117,000. There were also sev- eral Chinese companies engasred in min- ing who faied very well. At Fine Gold creek alone thero were at one time in the early fifties 500 people mining. The pla- cers were worked for all they wore worth until the winter of 1807-68, when the heavy floods swept everything away, dis- couraging the miners, the greater number of Whom sought more promising aud newer fields. The advent of the agriculturist auout this time and the exhaustion of the old placers also contributed to bring about the cessation of placer mining. There are still some very good' claims there, but they have never been worked on account of the difficulty of turning the water. Some quartz mining was done early in the fifties. The quartz mining belt ia from eight to ten miles in width, running parallel with the Sierra Nevada, its edge being about twenty- live rniles from Fresno. The various mining districts chutes. Wnen first discovered the ore are Hildreth, Auberry, Mount Raymond, was supposed to be a deposit of iron, and Fresno Flats, Grub Gulch, Coarse Gold, so indeed is about 75 per cent of it. But ( Fine Gold, North Fork and the Minarets, assays showed that there was a large pro- Many line prospects have been made, portion of silver, together with a little - which will no doubt prove valuable prop- gold and copper. Consequently it was decided to wori the ore for the precious metal and let the rest go, and this is now being done. Underneath the iron and silver com- bination, however, are immense deposits ernes when developed. When experi- enced mining men become interested and invest capital t'he scarcity of which up to the present has prevented the full de- velopment of the mine* the results will be most gratifying. The ores extracted of sulphurets, which run from $30 to $150 have in many cases assayed very highly, in silver, and which are largely of such a as much as $500 and in some cases even that the ore can be shoveled out $1000. nature tnat tue ore can be shoveled out i like so m ich loose sand. Prospect tun- ! nels have been run ia these sulphuret ae- ' posits, and no limit to their extent has been found. The mine, had it been dis- covered on the Coma took or in any other noted mining region, would be one ot the wonders of the worli and would produce a second Was hoe excitement. But it is Of course, this is much above the average, but the ore is of a high grade generally. The capital invested in the mines in this county amounts to fully $350,000, while the number of men em- ployed is about 500. Though many of the mines have been worked quite steadily, tne operations, except in a few instances, have not been on a verv extensive scale. the property of a few men who are con- HUMBOLDT. tented with working along in a quiet way, Humboldt county possesses some valu- and, while there are unquestionably milJ- able gold mines notable being those at ions in it, it is not tor sale, and the y . lult ig known as Qold Bluff w here there stock gamblers have had DO hand m it. are extensive black sand deposits. These Tue capacity of the mill is to be doubled d/eposi , s created much excitement some shortly, and indeed , tnere is ore enough thirty-five or thirty-six vears a-o. They in sight to kep the largest mill that coula exleud lrom Oregon eight miles in a be put up profitably running for an in- 8outner i y direction. Tne whole line of definite period. the beach was worked for the gold the Another mine which has attracted ( n- sand contained. This deposit of black siderable attention is the tellurium deposit iftnd C0ntalu9 traces of platinum, osmium discovered a few years ago some three _ iridium too m i nute to have any com . miles from Redding m a pulch that is raercia i va j ue but with sufficient gold to tributary to the Sacramento river. Thu make the DBS i nes3 oi gathering it iucra- mine was discovered, by Peter Scherer^ tive Several parties engaged in this Who was led to senrch for a quartz ledgi nuriferousj narvest have "retireti with u because of the rich placers that had beerU ompetency> From the date of discovery found in the vicinity. The first shot pui^ the prese nt writing these beaches have been annually worked, success depending, time occupy a prominent pi ice among the gold-bearing sections of the State. SISKIYOU. All kinds of gold mining known in. California are successfully prosecuted in Siskiyou county quartz, placer, drift and river. A great deal of hydraulickins is also done, as the inhibition agiinst that industry doea not apply here. On the Kiamath river, as also on its nviin tribu- taries the Shasta river, Scott river and Salmon river the main bullion -producing sections of the county are found. The greater proportion of the mineral wealth is obtained at present from the gravel benches, bars and ancient river channels, not that the county is lacking in vein de- posits, but her mountains are so ragged precipitous that transportation of The gold deposits nere consist mainly 01 aurilerous sands on the ocean beach, and some placers of limited extent along the confluents of Russian river. In exca- vating near Tyrone, on the lino of the North Pncific Riilroad, some small stringers of silver-bearing ore, associated with rnagnesian shales, have been cut. Argentiferous indications are reported elsewhere in the county. One and a half miiea east ot the same locality is situated the Sonoma copper mine. A little gold is also said to have been found almost everywhere in the guiche* among the hills tor a considerable dis- tance both north and south ot Cloverdale, oh both sides of the Russian river valley; and it is s;;id that at a few localities con- placer mining was once done, aim precupuous uia t ir.mspuruu.on 01 , large machinery as required to develop although it never paid much more than qu.rtz mines is difficult. As the debris, ordinary wages. from the hydraulic mines is dumped into' STANISLAUS. the canyons and streams tributary to the Stanislaus county cannot at the present Kiamath river, ^bich is torrential and day boast of any large store of mineral discharges directly into the sea without! wealth. Formerly ft good deal of gold harming any large spaces o arable land dust was taken from the bars along the along its course, no danv.ga is done to the Stanislaus and Tuolurane rivers, in the farmers, and no objection is made to thig northeastern part of the county, but these method of working. L bars have become so much depleted that The mining districts in this county ure they afford now employment to only a the Oottonwood, Yrek;t, Humtnig, D?ad- small number of men, and there being in w *od, Oro Fino, Caliban's Ranch, Scott the county, so far as known, no other de- River, Oak Bar, Seiad Valley, Coitagel posits of "the precious metals, the output Grove, Liberty, South Fork of Salmon and of bullion has of late years amounted to Forks of the Salmon. comparatively little. Triere are a number of good quartz Some placer mining is still being car- mines in the county which have paid wellj ried on upon the Stanislaus river, near and there is any amount of opportunity! Knight's Ferry, in the alluvial deposits lor the investment of capital. *' which skirt Table mountain upon the The following claimi are in operation , southwest, principally by Chinese. Sav- whenever conditions are fitting, narticu- eral parties are also working on Goat larly the supply of water, on which this, island during such times as they can ob- interest is entirely dependent; Hydraulic' tain water from Little John creek. On cl lims, forty-seven; wing darns, twenty- the Tuolumne some work is being done two; drift claims, twenty- thre^; sluicing by the La Grange Ditch and Hydraulic claims, seven ; employing 942 operatives. Mining Company. This company, about This is an underestimate of the actual twenty ye;irs ago, purchased the title to number of men employed in the mines of: all the gold-bearing lands between La Siskiyou county. A larga number of Grange and Patricksville, including men are engaged in prospecting and open-. French Hill, ing claims who have not been taken imo SUTTEB. account. j n the early history of this county The quartz interest of the county is yet p O \a was found in the ravines of the in an embryo slate. Comparatively little Marysville or Sutler buttes, and several attention is paid to it, but it is beginning thousand dollars' worth oi' dust was to assert itself, however. There now six- wa shed out. The ledge from which tuia teen mills in operation, dropping 120 d u9 t came does not appear to have been stamps. As in the case of gravel, the discovered, output of gold from the various mills is extremely difficult to arrive at. The TEHAMA. Little mining is being done in this number of men employed is about one hundred and twenty or one man to a stamp. This would "swell the number di- rectiy engaged in mining in this county to 1062. SONOMA. Although Sonoma is among the fore- most vine and grain-growing counties of) the State, its mineral wealth is by no posi^ of chrome iron have been uevel- means inconsiderable, both the royal and O ped. Gold has been found in some of aeveral of the more common metals being the streams that have their rise in the counted among this class of its Toqrnr<-.a ' - ' ~~<*- county at present. In former days some river mining was carried on in the upper reaches of the Sacramento river, which runs through the county, but that has pretty well ceased, and the only kind done to speak Of is near the western boundary of the county, in the Coast Range mountains, where some large de- Sierra JSevad* mountains, but it is m;;u, Were made to worlc thoge m i noa< but soon ; years since enougn mining nas oeen done. aDlin( j oned to amount to anything. On Rtittlsshake Peak is a slate forma- TRINITY. tion in which is embedded great quanti- From the very earliest history of Call- ties of potables of mica slate, hornblende fornia Trinity county has been 'known to !ate, quurtz and granite; and when this be rich in deposits of gold, both placer ruck is decomposed, placer gold is found and quartz. As early as 1845 M.-ijor Red- in the gulches, showing it to bo among ding visited this section, and he must the oldest of the gravel deposits, have discovered evidences of the existence High in the Sierra near Mount Bruner, of gold, ior when Marshall made his dis-, possibly in Inyo county, are a number of covery at Coloma in 1848, Redding at once veins owned by Messrs. D .llidel and Soto, set out for the Trinity region. Crossing which produce very rich specimens of ore the mountains at the head of Cotton wood bearing gold, silver and copper. These creek, he came upon the Trinity river at have been partly opened and some excel- a point where the creek now named Red- lent ore taken out, but the inaccessibility ding empties into the Trinity. QuotiagrOf the region has prevented their develop- irom the Major: 'ment. I prospected for two days end ound he bar*: On White river D. W. Grover of Santa rich in gold; returned to my home on Cotton- Cruz owns the Mammoth mine, on which wood, and iu ten days fitted out an expedition he has erected a five-stamp mill. Speci- for mming purposes; crossed the mountain ^eng of the ore 8DOW free gola< The re- where the travel passed two vears since iroin ..,,i f _ f tha .-!,,,,, haa n/*t H*n i n \A Shasta to Weaver. My party consisted of threeWJ of J?^ ? 1 ?? ?> as n ^ n f> T^t white men, oue Delaware, one Walla Walla, Messrs. H. U., K. J. and U. D. .Barton one Chinook, and about sixty Indians from th^and J. S. Butts have located a long seriea Sacr.-imento valley. With this force I worked ( of claims ot gold-bearing rock in the vicin- the bar bearing my name. I had with me I20^ity of Rattlesnake creekl head of cattle, with an abundant supply of other provisions. After six weeks' work, parties came in from Oregon, who at once pro- Tuolumno is one of the leading mining tested against my Indian labor. I then left counties, and doubtless always will be. It the stream and returned to my home, where I j s crossed by the mother lode in the west- - in the enjoyment of the ern part) and nume rous rich quartz de- ding came prospectors f^'llf ^'i' ravines and gulches, extracting the gold! 1 * from the gravel and .and. by the rocker, ^in^ SSta ^is about ^onty torn and sluice Tne evidence ot these g ranch c ^ rpied on to | ny exte nt, tnough early workings can be seen along the - Bomethi ng j a still dono in tne primitive course of almost every streamlet, creek, ^ ki ^ , acer depO8its . This county gulch and ravine tributary to the Trinity. ^ th ? mm & i&iQ vici p llit y of Sonora-that The wealth of rnniiy county in its j t wilhin aradiu j of 8ev eral miles gravels, the ancient channel and the hieh _j ^ t ' 6d f the t number of benches of present waterways. Quartz ockets u o| u tha f hay been taken vem.s carrying cold are being prospected u Bald M S untnin , and in the vicinity irKea in amerent sections, utuers ' * *, T7^ n . n .. n ->i nA xva rn.nri,t**A < i jnd wored m different sections. Others ih Bonanzai minef have prod uced a that hnve been opened and worked for t number of pockets, varying in several years have yielded and are yield- alue from a fow hund p red doilara to ^ any ing handsome returns to the owners. thousands, than any other mining eection There are seventy-four hydraulic mines in the wor i d . '.Jackass Hill," about four in this county, and whenever the re is suf- Uei nortnwMt in an air line from Sonora, ficient water a large amount of gold is ex- is a j go a noted pocket distriot . T he chief tracted - of ail the noted reins of this character is TULARE. undoubtedly the Bonanza. In the neigh- Of the streams that drain the western borhood of $2,000,000 have be'en taken slope of the mouniains in Tulare county f rora this mine, and the judgment of ex- only two of any size have failed to yield pemnced miners in thia branch oi mining placer gold. These streams are the Ka- { s that ail "signs" indicate further suc- weah and the Tule rivers. North of the l cesBea i n it in the near future. The fissure White river there is scarcely any evidence t $ 8 twelve feet in width, and contains three of early prospecting to be met with. But -veins of quartz; the foot wail yein is about on the head waters of the middle fork oft j O ur inches in width, the hanging wall the Kaweah is Miners! King district, vein about the same width, and the middle sixty miles northeast of Visulia by road, V ein averages thirteen inches, the discovery of which created a great ex- There are a great many pocket mines citement nearly twenty years ago. There, feeing worked oa Bald mountain, the was no placer gold reported, but there; principal ones being the Ford, the Aus- were many mineral-bearing veins claimed trian, the Wilson, the Garrett, and the to be rich in gold, silver, lead and zinc in gugarman. Ail have had varying results, veins ot limestone. About 1875-76 efforts* Quartz claims are being worked in many _;_ . __ r:8 of TocinM 1 >--e opportunities in this lino are cxtn . VENTURA. Besides other minerals Ventura county contains deposits of gold which are of no mall importance. Host of these are found in the Peru district, which is sev- eral miles in extent, the most important portion lying in Ventura county. Gold Was discovered here long before the gold exciiement of 1849. Professor Whitney Bays it was somewhere in this vicinity that gold was first obtained in California in considerable quantity, and that was as early as 1841. M. Duflot de Mofras says that the locality was in the mountains six leagues from San Fernando and fifteen leagues from Los Angeles where gold was first discovered. Bancroft make/a men- tion of the fact of this locality having been worked more or. less during the first half of the present century. It is evident that tho yield of gold and silver at this locality has amounted to a large sum in the ag- gregate. The principal lode in the Piru district is called the Frnser mine. During the time it was worked, a period of eight years, until October 81, 1879, because of litiga- tion arising from disputed ownership, it is believed to have yielded about $1,000,000 in gold. The difficulty is now said to be on the eve of settlement, and it will be worked by improved methods and on a larger scale than heretofore. YOLO. Placer mining has been carried on in a small way along the foot of the Coast Range in Yolo county, and quartz, that by assay showed a small amount of gold and silver, is said to have been discovered tarther pieted. In the Smartsville mines the gravel channel runs north, nearly parallel with the present Yuba river. Tfie bedrock is Very uneven; it is for the most part a trap rock. The lowest part of the channel 8 ?u 0t J e / y wide and seer as to be u fissure in the bedrock, possibly the top of a quartz vom. The bowlders on the bottom are extremely large; the gravel is a blackish blue cement, with occasional layers be- tween of soft gray sandstone. A number f 0 population had gathered, arastras and theu stamp mills w v ere put up in numbers, and some ot the great Comstock lode began to yield its millions At first much of the ore was hauled to California for reduction in the quartz mill* of that State, but this soon proved too ex GOLD AND SILVER FOUND ABUNDANCE. Hostile Indians Preventing the De opment of Mine* for a Centnr] More liewards Awaiting nterp It is over a century and a half since first authentic historical account given of the discovery of precioua m in the region now known as Arizona a true tradition from the tirst adven the Spanish conquerors into Mexicc signed to this locality the existenc gold and silver mines of fabulous ness, but it was not until 1736 that thing definite was discovered and g to the world. In that year a very silver deposit known as Boles de I was found at Arizona, and the Je who controlled that region are sal have opened some immensely rich m But while this section was know possess valuable deposits of gold an ver, its remoteness and the fact tb was largely overrun with tribes of < and bloodthirsty Indians prevented systematic working or exploration over a hundred years. It was not until after the G"^ treaty, which gave Arizona and 3 Mexico to the United States, that j- mines of Arizona commenced to be veloped, and evan then the Indians so troublesome that the miners lite took their lives in their hands. In 1855 and 1856 the silver mlnei Tubac were worked by Americans, as many deposits in the mountains bo ing the Santa Cruz valley. Gold pi were found a year or two later or lower Gila and afterward on the Color which attracted many prospectors, par larly to the northwestern part of the "Many quartz deposits were also fo and it soon became known that An was blessed with an abundance of the cious metals, but the fear of the Apr kept the miners from undertaking thing like systematic development, for vears prospectors were obliged about their work with a pick in one and a gun in the other. In 1874, however, the Apaches conquered and driven from a large pi the territory, and at once an era of opment set in, though handicapped of transportation facilities and by resu : n -**'. :3STJGS IN THE TJNTTEr) '.*. the annual average when such a difference appears between the outputs of the two decades. To bring the fieures to the latest date we add the product of silver for 1891, w'tich i< found in the startling figures of $56,000,000, and brings up the #rand total to the vast sum of $575,- 000,000. The change which has taken place in the product of this metal is certainly as extraordinary as th it which followed the California discov- ery of gold. The output rose from one and three-tenths millions in the year 1870 to thmv-two millions in 1880, and fifty- six millions in 1891, without important breaks in the steady progression. The fiscal year closed Jane 30, 1891, was ^ startling in" its product in the United States. That of gold dropped to a low average point thirty-one millions; while the silver product leaped over 50 per cent over the largest issue in the twenty-one years stated namely, from thirty-eight millions in 1888 to fifty-six millions in 1891 (in precise figures, 1889, $37,874,260; in 1891, $56,295,195). Being so wholly absorbed in searching after and gathering gold, the inhabitants of California paid no attention whatever to silver mining the first decade of the mining era. There were, to lie sure, tra- ditions among the native Californians of silver ores having been found in the country prior to its occupation by Ameri- cans, Alisal, in Monterey county, being the site of one of these reputed silver fields. As these Alisal ores have since been shown to be poor and scanty, it may fairly be presumed that no argentiferous deposits of any great value were ever met with in California prior to the transfer to the United States and not tor about four- teen years thereafter. That our pioneer miners, with so little to encourage them, were not much inclined to hunt after sil- ver so long as the more royal metal con- tinued tolerably plentiful, may wall be supposed. Not, therefore, until the dis- covery ot the great Cornstock lode, with its great promiae of silver, was the atten- tion of our people strongly directed to the business of seeking alter and mining for that metal, and evn after the occurrence of that event most of the explora- tions carried on and the mining opera- tions engaged in were for several years conducted outside the limits of this State. It w;is in the summer of 1881 that Nevada prospectors for silver, who were working aouth of the Comstock lode, made their way over the line into California. The country first explored by them consisted ot the territory at present embraced in Alpine and Mono counties, thmi Panamint districts. The value of the bullion taam out of these several counties amounts probably to a total of $15,000,000, most of which was the product of the Cerro Gc.^do mines. For some years little has been done here, though of late there has been -a slight revival, and withjbetter prices for ijiiver a large develop- ment would certainly -occur. The liiatory of silv -r mining in Alpine county, where the business h >s been car- ried on since 1861 is 'altogether unfortu- nate, the product of bullion having ap- parently been in the ir verse ratio of the, labor and capital expended on the mines. No portion of the trans- Sierra California is so favorably situated us regards access and facilities for cheap mining and ore reduction as Alpine county. A good level wagon road con- nects the mining districts with Carson City, fifty miles distant. All supplies for ij these mines, machinery included, could " therefore be obtained during this time at ,'. comparatively low ratos. The mining districts of Alpine abound with wood ana ; water, a considerable portion of them being i covered with large forests, while a num- j her of large streams flow centrally through i them, affording much w. ter. The moun- tains in which the mineral-bearing veins occur are for the moat part very steep, making it possible to open up these veins to a great depth by means of compara- tively siiort tunnels." The Director of the Mint spoke thus concerning these mine.?: 'The mining interests of Alpine county still remain, to a great extent, neglected by capitalists', although the showing it of CO 70] ties for reaching thorn are the most favor- able. The climita cannot be excelled. A ,'?reat abundance of wood and water, all , these facilities for working our mines Cheaply and profitably, see:n rather to deter rninincr men frora coming here, and instead, seek investments in more inac- cessible and disadvantageous regions." The most important silver mines in this State are locate ! in San Bernardino county, in what is known as the Calico region. Although silver was known to exist in this region many years ago, it was not un- til 1881 chat a systematic effort was made to work the deposits. In nu place hereto- fore discovered have tha precious metals been found under conditions so favorable for extraction. The mineral extends about live miles to the east and west and three or four to the north of the central ore bodies. The pay matter in most instances starts at the surface, and i'n tha shape of gr sy or greenish chlorides of silver, in vast irregular bodies of decomposed ore at the surface, having a depth of twenty to forty feet, and continuing in those mines most developed in well-defined pipes or chimneys of considerable width to the bottom of the sump, notably in 1 the Silver King, which has reached a I depth ot, aver 60D feet, with one wall per- ' foctly developed, and a width of 100 ie?t. i The dolomites of this region are very profitable producers of chlorides and bromides of silver, which are abundantly found, necessitating the addition of pans and wastes to the ordinary stamp mill, and rendering concentration somewhat difficult. The formation includes chlo- ritic schist, highly decomposed, stained by peroxide of iron, in some cases apparently the result of infil- tration, and others evidently from the de- composition of sulphuret of iron. Much red jasper interUminated with crystal- line mater is found, particularly on "Wall street." Large quantities of mineralized porphyry giving fine results from pan tests are found in tho decomposed strata, running in every direction, from one- quarter of an inch to many feet in width, and yielding $15 to $1.00 per ton, often run- ning enormously high. So friable is the ore that a sin^la blast will often detach many tons. The surface is quite rolling ana everywhere cut by ravines. The ore is often rained by open cu s after the fashion .of quarries, a? in the Bismarck, Oriental and others of tha east group, and can easily be crushed in the hands. Grav- ity tramways materially reduce the cost o i extraction. Basides the Calico mines silver is also found at raanv other places in the desert region of San Bernardino county, some of the deposits having beon worked success- fully aa far back as 1861. At present, however, very little work is being done in these mines, the low price of silver and unfavorable legislation preventing cap - talists from taking much interest in their development. In a recently published in- terview a prominent mining expert spoke | thus in regard to the Calico mines: "The rapid decline in the price of silver is hav- ' ing a direct and disastrous effect on one ( A f ,- P nnci Pal industries of Southern Cahforni., that of silver mining. For years past Calico mining district has been the foremost producer of the white metal in California, but the great depreciation m silver has resulted in the closing of the greatest silver producer in the State ihe^ Wrtterloo mine. This bonanza was discovered several years ago and was developed by the Waterloo company to such an extent as to earn the re mi ation of being the reat- eat silver mine in California. Forvears two mills, one of fifteen and one of sixty stamps, had been continuously at work crushing the ores of the great Waterloo properties, ^ver 200 tons every twentv- lour hours were mined and shipped from the vast ore bodies o.nd crushed in the company's mills at Daggett. These oper- ations gave employment to upward of 150 m?n. The ores, though very free, were low grade, and in the large amount of material handled laid the secret of profit and success. The low price of silver, however, has resulted in tne closing down o( mines and miila, and to-day Calico and Dageett, both of which towns were recovering from the ravages of lire, re stagnant and almost deserted. The miners have left for other and more pros- perous camps, and those vrho remain are looking forward to a brighter day or are seeking means to migrate to othe'r parts. It ha* been a great, blow to the silver 'min- ing industry of tho State, and every one interested in mining looks forward anxiously to a rise in tne price of silver. Of the other mines* of Calico, those of the Silver King Company are working, and a large number of miners are "chlo- riding" the richer pockets, for which the Calico district has always been famous. Should the price of silver again go above 90 cents, doubtless the mines now lying idle will resume operations. Not only is tha effect of low-priced sil- ver ielt in Calico, but in every other sil- ver mining district in the btate. A great many men are leaving for Southern Ne- vada, or have scattered out over the desert on prospecting trips, and there is little on prospecting trips, and there is little doubt that some of these men, forced by nt-cessity to abandon what they considered permanent positions, will find other mines, and the final result may be more satisfactory than any had hoped for. Oiie of the most remarkable silver de- posits on the coast is located near the town of Shasta, in the county of that name. It is known as the Iron Mountain and has been worked successfully for sev- eral years. The mine has a twenty-stamp mill constantly at work, and large ship- nonts of sliver ore are regularly made. There 13 nothing peculiar about tho mill, the ore being roasted and workeJ by what s known as the pan process. The mine I self, however, is a curiosity. There is a solid mountain of ore rising some 1200 I feet above the gulch in which the mill is located and extending for miles in either direction. No shafts or tunnels are needed in working the mine, but the ore is simply quarried from the face of the mountain / and sent to the mill through chutes. When first discovered this ore was sup- posed to ba a deposit of iron, and so in- deed it is, about 75 per cent of it. But assays showed that there was a large pro- portion of gold and copper. Consequently it w ts decided to work the ore lor the ' precious metal and let the rest go, and this is now being done. Underneath the iron and silver combi- nation, however, are immense deposits of sulphurets, which run from $30* to $150 in silver, and which are largely of sucn a nature that the ore can be shoveled out like so much loose sand. Prospect tun- I nels have been run in these sulphuret de- posits, and no limit to their extent has been found. The mine, had it been dis- covered on the Cqmstock or in any other noted mining region, would be one of the wonders ol the world, and would produce a second Washoe excitement. Silver is found in small quantities in other parts ot the State, but not suffi- ciently to rep \y its working. The total output of the silver mines of the State up to tha present time has not reached $50.000.000, which shows how small a figure the industry cuts, though with proper encouragement it could be made one of the leading sources of wealth. THE TIN MINES. California Has the Only Produotlre Ones in the Country. Although tin has been known to the world from the earliest times and its value has been fully demonstrated in the arts and sciences, it is one of the rarest of metals so far as deposits that will pay for the working are concerned. The Pncani- cians, Greeks, Egyptians and Hebrews made extensive use of tin, and the most ancient writers make frequent reference to the metal. The tin mines of Cornwall have been worked for hundreds of years and there are also deposits in Dover and West Somerset. Tin is found in Alten- burg, Saxony; at Nantes, Limoges,, Mor- bihan and Loire Inferieure, in France; in Southern Asia and in Siberia; in Sweden, Spain, in the Mahy country, in Madams- car, Australia, Peru and Cliina. It is also found in Greenland and in Mexico. In the Unite i States the metal has been found in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York. New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and California. Outside of the California tin mines those of which tne most has been said are at Hartley Pe tk, Dakota. These have been before the public for some time, but the actual results of the development work done do not appear to have been of an encouraging character. The working of several hundred tons of ore developed only about one-naif per cent of metallic tin, which is less than the cost of work- ing. The first American pig tin to be put on the market in any quantity ws the prod- uct of the mines at Temescal, in S:-m Ber- nardino county, Cal. These mines are found in a region which resembles gaolog- ically in a most marked degree the best tin regions of England. The tin granite formation in wnich the mineral is found has a known length ot twelve miles and a width of four miles. Within this area oc- cur over sixty lodes heavily charged with ( tin oxide or cassiterite in a remarkably ' pure form. All the indications point to the fact that these ar.e pure true fissure veins, while shafts and tunnels that h tve been sunk demonstrate the fact that they extend to an unknown depth. . The history of this tin mine is full of interest. Many years ago, so many that the memory of man nor the written rec- ords convey no idea of their number, tne Indians who then thickly populated the southern portion of this State found on a hillside in wh it is now the southwestern portion of 8m Bernardino county, about forty miles east of Los Angeles, a deposit of jet black mineral, which crumbled on being exposed to the atmosphere and could readily be reduced to powder. In some manner they ascertained, or fancied tnat they had done so, that this mineral had certain medicinal properties, and it grained wide repute on this account. So the hill came to be called in the native tongue Cajalco, or Medicine hill, and thither c-rue the Serranos and Coahuil- las and Dieguitos and Chimehuevas, and even the f ir-away Yumas, to get store of the wonderful mineral and carry it away with them to their rancherias in the mountain^ and on J.he desert. Very early in the American occupancy of the State the attention of wnite pros- pectors, ever on the alert lor mineral "signs," was drawn to the strange black deposit on Cajalco. But it puzzled them. It was like nothing they had ever seen. They tested it in the crude methods com- mon in those times, but could make nothing of it, and finally gave up ths effort in disgust. But one day a prospector of more than usual knowledge examined the myste- rious mineral, and after several experi- ments discovered that it was tin ore, the first, too, that had ever been discovered in this country. No sooner was the an- nouncement made than the hills around Cajalco were overrun with prospectors and numerous locations were made. Upward of sixty outcroppings of veins varying from a toot to thircy foet in th'ckness were found, and two shafts were sunk on a couple of the more promising ledges. Tliis was a year or two before the war, and while the gold excitement on this coast was at its highest. At once the news of the discovery spread far and wide, and the San Francisco papers contained j long accounts of the wonderful tin mines, I ~T which it was freely predicted were "worth millions." Great excitement was created, and when some small bars of tin were re- ceived in San Francisco there was a groat popular outburst, and a second Fraser river excitement seemed imminent. Unfortunately, however, at the very outset a dispute arose as to the title of the land upon which the mines were located, and the dispute continued for over thirty years, involving tedious and expensive litigation. This came to an end at last, however, and in anticipation of the final settlement of title preparations were made to com- mence operations on a largo scale. Some- thing over a -year ago systematic develop- ment of the'ledges was undertaken. A branch of the S'nta Fe road had been built to South Riverside, a town seven miles distant, which made access to the mines comparatively easy. The work of development was in th^ hands of a com- pany whose officers reside in England, but which has heavy stockholders in this country. An American w;is appointed to the superintendency, and under his man- agement extensive improvements were made. Roads were gra led, buildings were erected, an immense dam to supply water power was commence 1, orchards and gar- dens were planted. A small live-stamp mill for experimental purposes was erected and two shafts which had been sunk by the discoverers were cleaned out and elaborate hoisting works erected. On April 25, 1891, the first pig tin was turned out, nnd in the next two months twelve tons in all of pure tin were pro- duced by the test mill. This mill, it should be understood, was not intended for any but experimental purposes, and was erected solely in order that a thor- ough test might be made before settling on the site tor the permanent and exten- sive works. In July the officers of the company be- came dissatisfied with the slow progress made, and an expert tin miner from Corn- wall WAS out in charge of the works. Prior to this change, however, work had been well under way in the erection of another mill with a capacity of torty tons daily. This was quickly completed and in con- nection with six concetrators is now turn- ing our, from twenty to thirty tons of pig tm monthly. The machinery for another mill of equal capacity is now on the ground and will be put up just as soon as the work can bo done, when the produc- tion will be doubled. There are 150 men constantly employed, who are paid tMo best wages and receive the best treatment as to quarters, food, etc. So far over 100 distinct veins of tin ore have been found at Cajalco and vicinity, and the ors shows ifssays of six 10 sixty per cent, averaging so far ten per cent and showing better the farther down the shafts are sunk. Is is pronounced by many dis- interested experts who have visited the mines to be the richest ore in the world. Owing to the formation of the country the ledges are easily worked, both by shaft and tunnel. The ledges all have a slight incline, and those that are being worked widen and become richer as they are worked deeper. There is practically no limit to the amount of ore that can be produced. The only question is that of reduction facilities, and these are being increased as rapidly as possible. At present crude petroleum is being used as fuel and is found to answer ad- mirably. Tests made of the refuse left in the dust chamber of the furnace alter smelting show not a trace ot tin same- thing that does not occur where coal is used. Including the price paid for th mines and the amount so far expended in their development, . over $2.000,000 have been expended, and the payroll amounts to $70DO or $8000 monthly, a goodly share of which is put into circulation at once in th*> neighboring towns. Recently extensive improvements have been undertaken, more stamps are being erected and the output of the mines is to be largely increased. COFPER. Extensive Deposits in Many Portions of the State. Copper is one of the most widely diffused metals on the coast, and is found in many localities from one end of the State to the other. The first copper mines that were worked were discovered at Copperopolis, Calaveras county, on July 4, 1861, by W. K. Reed. This discovery was the cause of gre it ex- citement, and one of the most famous "rushes" in the history of mining in Cali- fornia resulted. Copper claims were located on what was supposed to be the extension of this . ledge for a distance of fifteen miles. A large town was built up and for a time there was the greatest ac- tivity. But the deposits did not repay the anticipations that had been formed, most of the mines were abandoned and for years little or no hing was done. VVithin the p..ist few years, however, the (two principal mines, the Union and the 'Keystone, have been reopened, and'with favorable results. The ore is shipped East for treatment, and good results are said to have been realized. The Campo Seco mine, near the village 'of that name in Calaveras county, has ! been worked successfully for many years. The ore is very rich and is so accessible ithat it costs less than $L a ton to extract. jit averages 8 per cent or' metallic copper. ,The mode ot working is by toasting in ; piles of 100 to 1000 tons. About a cord of I wood is used for each hundred tons. The roasting is kept up for about lour months, alter which the ore is passed through a , rock breaker, again roasted, this time in j furnaces, and then put into the leaching | vats, where the metallic copper is precipi- | tated upon pieces of iron. A notable copper mine is the Newton, , . ;iy your 3 worked vigorously was closed down lor a, long period. It was subsequently reopened and is now said to be paying well. The ore is roasted in heaps in the open air for about six months, some 2000 tons bsing but into each pile. These are so arranged that there is a good draught through them, and only a small amount of wood is needed to keep the roasting in prog- res . After the ore has been suffi-t ciently roasted the surface of the pile is sprayed with water so long as any copper solution is formed. Sluices ten feet wide and one foot deep drain the water from the piles, and in these scrap iron is placed, upon which the cop- per precipitates and is held in the boxes. The amount of copper that results s first dried and then shipped to S.m Francisco for treatment. Four piles of ore of 200 tons each are kept in operation all the time, and fresh iron has to be put in the sluices every twenty- four hours. There are large deposits of copper in San Bernardino county, and some of them have been worked, bus not to any great extent, because of their distance from transportation and other facilities, ! being located mostly on the desert in the , northern part of the county. Copper is also found in Alpine, Colusa,,, Monterey, Contra Costa, Ventura, Inyo, L Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, Mono, San-, Ben i to, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Shasta and other portions of the State. COAL,. The Mount Diablo Field Deposits in Ta- rious Localities. It Is over thirty years since coal was first discovered in California, the locality being what are known as the Mount Dia- ! [ bio fields. Since then deposits of thia mineral have been found in many parts of the State, and considerable work has been done in exploiting them. Truth compels the statement, however, that n none of the coal yet found is of the best 'type of luel, though most of it fills the demand where wood is scarce and other coal high-priced. The Mount Diablo coal fields are situ- 1 ated in Contra Costa county, on the north- ern and northwestern slope of the mount- tain of that name, and extend for a dis- tance of twelve miles along its base. The s '1 productive portion of the fields, however, is but a small part of the entire field, the )sN remainder being so broken and full of faults as to make profitable working diffi- ( cult if not impossible. The openings of the leading mines and the dwellings of the workers are concen- trated at two villages about a mile apart, known as Nortonviile and Somersville. Thsse tire located in the bottoms ot deep canyons which open out on the San Joa- quin plain and which afford easy grades lor the short lines of railroad that connect the mines with the shipping points on the San Jo^quin river, a short distance above its junction with the Sacramento. The coal beds which have been profita- bly worked to a gre.iter or less extent are three in number and are known as the Clark vein, the Little vein and the Black Diamond vein, and they lie in the order named as regards stratification. The total thickness of the entire strata is 859 feet. Trie Clark vein is the only one which has been worked continuously through its whole ex:ent or controlled by the com- pany owning it. The coal bed varies m thickness irom eighteen or twenty inches to four and a half feet or -a trifle more. The average of the entire vein is thirty- two or thirty-three inches. This vein is generally free from slate or dirt of any kind, and makes good, clean coal. The Little vein is tne name given to two contiguous beds of coal, one of which is some fourteen inches thick and the other six inches. In some places these veins reach a thickness of sixteen to twenty-four inches of good coal, and many thousands of tons have been taken out. The Black Diamond vein varies in thick- ness in different localities from six or eight to eighteen or twenty feet. But the greater portion of this thickness consists of interstratilied clay slate and " bone " the last word being a miner's term to designate a very impure, slaty and worth- less coal, which forms a weak roof and a bad floor, requiring much timbering and gradually swelling so badly on exposure to the air as to crush the timbers, and necessitate frequent cutting down of the bottoms of the shoots and the gangway floors. The workable coal, wherever it extends in the Black Diamond vein, liea nearly in the middle of the mass Jorming the thick bed just described, and has bone and shale both above and below it. It generally attains its maximum thickness at those localities where the whole bed reaches its maximum development, or, in other words, where the workable coal is thickest, there, also, the "bone" and elate are thickest, both above and beneath it; and vice vers.-i. where the total tickness of the bed is least, there the workable coal thins out or even disappears entirely, and the whole bed becomes worthless. The coal itself, however, in this bed, wherever thick enough to bo worked with profit, is gener- ally clean and free from interstratified sla'te or "bone," and there have been con- siderable areas in the Black Diamond vein which have yielded rather better, because harder, coal than most of that produced by the Clark veLi. Throughout the whole length of the up per Black Diamond gangway, except for a little distance in the extreme western por- tion of the mine, the coal was good, and its thickness averaged about forty-four inches, though varying at different points from thirty-six to iiity-iour. feet of o**l. but how ration of this it Will Tiiroughoat the Mount Diablo coal .pay to mine can only be determined bv mines the beds are frequently more or less further exploration. disturbed by faults and dislocations. The third tunnel, said to have been 446 Within the two and a half miles of profit- .feet long, is on what is believed to be the able working, some seven or eight of these-'same as the "Liverruore Bed," on which a faults are of considerable magnitude, in-^slope was sunk some years ago to a depth volving throws of from ten to fifteen feet of nearly 400 feet on the northeast quarter to 150 ieet or more, and immediately out- -of section 27, about a mile and a quarter side of thus two miles and a half, both on -farther west. The strike and dip of this the east and on the west, there are d is- bed are very nearly parallel with those of turbances of still greater magnitude. But the "Eureka Bed.'* The total thickness of besides these larger faults, the smaller dis-[r the carbonaceous outcrop is six to seven turuances scattered throughout the mines 'feet, the lower two and one- half feet of and involving well marked dislocations, s^bich, as now exposed, is clean, good or throws, of from five or six feet down to coal. But the present openings are very as many inches or less, are extremely shallow and it is not improbable that in numerous. These disturbances are gen- going deeper the good coal may bo found er.tlly most sharply denned, and may be[ to be somewhat tnicker. m.igt easily studied in the Clark vein. Several other beds of coal have been Many of the smaller ones are entirely j< found in this same locality, and in 1800 local in character, and extend but very work was commenced upon a lengthy short distances; and it is oniy a very few 1 tunnel which wus expected to strike what ot the largest on.63 which appear to ex- tend through the whole mass of strata be- 1 tween theCiark and Black Diamond veins with sufficient uniiorrnity in character is known as the Summit bed, but for ome reason the project was abandoned after a large amount of money had been expended. It is the belief of experts, nd direction to render it possible to rcc- however, that there are millions of tons of : ognize with certainty the same fault in good coal in this locality, which could be both the veins. mined and delivered at tide water at an average of not to exceed $2 50 a ton. Coal has been known to exist at various localities in Humboldt county for over twenty years. The abundance of wood throughout the county has. however, pre- vented any development of the coal veins. The magnificent redwood forests have as yet been scarcely touched, and outside of the redwood belt there is no lack of oak The cost of putting the Mount Diablo * coal upon the market has averaged $5 75 , a ton, although it is clnimed th c tor some ' time past coal has been produced here andn sold at a profit for considerably less. The production ot these mines reached 1 i;s maximum in 1874, the total output for that year having been 215,332 tons. " Since s then the production of coal has fallen off materially, though large quantities are>ir nnd ^^^V" 11 " 1 * still turned out, which are extensively L od - Wit refuse wood from the mills used in the manufacturing establishments, iat about * l a . cor< *. * ^arelca, ana of Stockton and elsewhere. g lven awa 7 * bar * fc lewhere to dis- What is probably a continuation of the ; n po * of **. and cord wood at $ Mount Diablo held is lound near Liver- ed by very few. As return freights for more, Alarneda county, where considered thfl lumber Te " els a " RlwR y in de ?^ n **^J I bed, which here dips 55 to 6U dearees to l cost of considerable time and labor, rather the north than pay the enormous freight charges on This bed is not well exoosed herf> af tha J ' tbe imported coal. The advent of a rail- nresent time VPL LrflK>?** road, either from the Sacramento valley from i he existing exposures Those best 'been found in Humboldt connty mojr b acquainted with B these old wori, tt5 Se r-' vJ iS en ? io " ed h8 cl ' E " " th, .ed contain. - ,,T.. from the Jolly Giant mill; on the Upper Mattole, on Thomas Rudolph's plaoe; on the main Eel river, two miles below Alder point, on William Wood's place; on Jacoby creok; on i^arribee creek; across the Eel river from Eagle prairie, in the bluff; on the Van Dusn, three or four miles above Bridgeville; on the Van Dusen, opposite the Cooper place; on the south fork of Eel river, one mile north of Garberville; on Bear creek, one mile east of Garberville; on Panther gulch end on Buckmountain gulch, tributaries of the east branch of the south fork of Eel river; on the east branch of the south fork of Eel river, on the Ray ranch, and on the Hoopa Indian reservation. The deposits found upon Eel river have had more or less work done upon them at one time and another, and great thincs are expected of them whenever suitable 'railway facilities shall have been sup- plied. In lone valley, at the western edge of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada*, in Amador county, there is a coal bed which has attracted some attention. This coal is also of very recent origin ; quite probably, indeed, not older than some of the auriferous gravels themselves. The bed lies nearly horizontal, and ranges at different points from five or six to twelve or fifteen feet in thickness. It is o?erlaid and underlaid by a very soft clay rock, and its depth beneath the surface of the ground is small, being sometimes not more than thirty or forty feet. The mate- rial itself is strictly a lignite, still showing a good deal of the woody texture. It is not black nor lustrous, but of a dull earthy brown color, very spit and friable, and makes a large quantity of ash. Never- theless it burns very freely with a bright flame, and the ashes do not form any troublesome clinker. It has been em- ployed for years as fuel for a flouring mill at lone, the distance to haul it being about three-quarters of a mile. At the village of Lincoln, in the Sacra- mento valley, in the southwestern part of Placer county, there is also a coal de- posit, of which great expectations have from time to time been entertained. At American canyon, in thu south- western part of Solano county, there are for some distance in the bluff along the ri^nt bank of the canyon heavy but irregular croppings of black carbonaceous shale, containing streak? from one inch to ten inches in thickness of coal. Most of these croppings, however, are not in place, as there has been more or less land- sliding nearly all the way along the steep face of the bluff. The attempt has been made once or twice to organize a company to mine here for coal. But there has never yet been sufficient work done to prove what lies in the solid hill back of the croppings. The locality would also be rather an ex- pensive one to prospect satisfactorily, and the surface indications are not, on the ' !.' whole, particularly promising. \Vith reference, however, to transportation and proximity to market, the situation is a very favorable one if ever a good mine b found here. In Orange county, at a locality about twelve or thirteen miles easterly from the | town of Anaheim, in the mountains or the south side of the Santa Ana river not over a mile from the river, and at an' alti- tude of some 1400 or 1500 feet from its bed T there ara exposed in the precipitous mountain side some ten or twelve thin b seams of impure coal distributed ihrough r something like 100 feet" in thickness of <6halesand sandstones, no single coal seam I being over about one foot thick. Some very promising deposits of coal have been found in Fresno county and consideraole development has been done Four miles northwest of the town of Coal- inga is located the mine of the Sin -Joaquin Valley Coal Company. The mine is opened by a series of tunnels. The tunnel through which work is now being [prosecuted is 1050 feet in length and is a crosscut until the main vein is reached. E In it the formation is regular in its strata of sandstones, clays and clay shales. [ beverai small veins are encountered be- fere the main vein is reached, they ail be- jing parallel with it. The mam vein courses north 20 degrees west, and pitches east at an an pie of 30 decrees, and has an average width of four feet. The stratum immediately on the hanging wall of the mam coal vein is a compact r k " 8iiver in Onlifornia when the New Almaden been as follows: the present time has has by far the largest supply. The total production for the census year 1889-90 for the entire country was some 52,000 tons (since largely increased), and of this Oali- fornia produced 48,000 tons. There is a constantly increasing demand for asphal- tum, as new uses are being found for it and production in California has been greatly stimulated. Much of the asphal- tum produced here is of far greater puritv and higher grade than that obtained in the island of Trinidad, which is and has for years been the principal source of the world's supply. Although the greatest use for asphaltum is in the manufacture of street paving, it is by no means confined to that field. Lar^e quantities are consumed in making floors for warehouses, cellars, wineries, breweries, etc. It renders the floors ub- sotutely water light and is riot affected by in the jj acid s or gases. For lining dams, levees _ i t; f n rl raQ*rvs\*i T* a +K{ s*~..i- * - L .!.-- San YSAK. 1850. 1851. 1852.' 1853. 1854. 1855 ' 1856.; 1857. 1858. ' 1859.' I860. 1861." 1862 " 1863. : ; 1864. . . 1865. , 1366. .' . 1 1867 1803.'" 1869." 1870.'.'. i 1871 j 1872... I 1873.. 1874 1875 ' Flasks. 7,723 Averg Price. 45 I ."<> -p-jy *D 27,77!)! 66 92 OA t \(\( cr r* *, * Approximate Valuation. 20,OOC 22,284 3 0,00 1 33.000 30,000 28,204 31,000 13.00C 10,000 35,000 42,000 40,531 47,489 1877 1878. 1879 1880. I 1881. I 1882 1883.'! 1884.. 1885 . 1888.. 1887.. 1888.. 1889.. 46,550 47,000 47,728 33,811 30,077 31,685 31,621 27,642 58 32 55 45 55 43 53 55 51 65 49 72 47 82 63 12 53 55 42 10 36 35 42 07 45 90 $768,000 00 1,859,000 00 1,106.500 00 } 1,235,500 00 1,665,500 00 I 1,768,000 00 1,549,500 00 T 1,402,000 00 " 1,482,500 00 , 820,500 00 535,500 00 1,473,500 00 ^ 1,52(5.500 00 1,705,000 00 I 1,761,500 00 50,250 75,074 79,396 63,880 73 684 59,926 60,851 52,732 46,725 31,913 32,073 29,981 33,760 33,250 26,464 45 90J2,433;o6o 66 51 6 J i -2,403,000 00 4o 90|2,157.0OO 00 45 90(2,191,000 00 45 90|l,552,000 00 57 3 63 1 65 97 80 32 105 17 84 1; 44 00 38 JsC 32 9i 29 Kg 31 00 29 80 28 25 27 25 30 50 30 25 35 50 42 25 42 50 45 00 1,725,500 00 1,999,500 00 2,086,000 00 2,2*26,500 00 2,919,000 00 2,721,000 00 3,303,000 00 9,041,000 00 i 2,101,500 00 i ^,199.500 00 M 1,860,000 00 1,810,000 00 1,500,000 00 1,275,000 00 975,000 00 .,000,000 00 970,000 00 ,425,000 00 ,415,000 00 ,190,500 On P ASPHALTUM. Deposits That Promise to Be Sources | of 'Wealth. Under the general name of asphaltum (, are grouped a number of bituminous products, including gilsonite, elaterite, ; rimtite, wurtzilite, albertite, grahamite, asphaltum, maltha, brea and bituminous rock. Small deposits of these minerals J-e found in Utah and Kentucky, but is the center of production and i and reservoirs a thin coat of asp'hnltum put on in a melted st.tte presents a per- manent water-tight surface, preventing loss by seepage even when backed by only an earth embankment. Ai a coat- ing for piling, wharf timbers, ground ends of telegraph poles, etc., it gives almost absolute protection against not only the action of air and water, but also the de- structive work of insects and barnacles. It is used as a cement for seawalls and other marine architecture, where its water- proof character makes it especially valu- able as a binding material. It is claimed to make wood conduits almost, if not quite ad durable as iron, and any iron or other metal work, such as anchors, etc.. coated with it will not rust or be affected by sea water. It ia also used as a roofing material, and, being practically a non- conductor of electricity, serves a useful purpose as an insulator for electrical wires. Varnish is manufactured from re- fined asphaltum or gilsonite by simply heating with spirits of turpentine. The increased demand for asphaltum during the past twenty years is shown by the quantities imported and entered for consumption in the United States daring that time. Quantity. YEARS ENDBD (Snort tons.) Value. 1867 $6,268 1868 185 5,632 1869 203 10,559 1870 488 13,072 1871 1,301 14,760 1872 1,474 35,533 1873. 2,314 38,298 1874 1,183 17,710 1875 1,171 26.006 1876 807 23,818 1877 4,532 36,550 1878.... 5,476 35,932 1879 8,084 39,035 1880 11,830 87,889 1881 12,883 95,410 1882 15,015 102.698 1883 33,116 149,999 1884 36,078 145,571 1885 18,407 88,037 1886 32,565 108,528 1887 30,808 95,735 1888 36,494 84,045 1889 61,952 138,163 The centers of asphaltum production in California are Santa Barbara, Ventura Los Angeles and Keru counties, while large quantities of bituminous rock are also obtained in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Luis Obispo. This latter product is used extensively in street pavements in San Francisco and other cities. Tests made of the crude as well as re- fined California asphaltum show that It is superior to the imported, and the table published herewith shows that there is a large field in this country for the use of the products of the California deposits. An idea of the remarkable features of the asphaltum deposits of this coast can be formed Irom the following description of the Kern county fields: "Lying at the very feet of the Coast range, but a little above the valley, yet scarcely within the embrace of the f'obt- hiUs, there is a belt of country in Kern county that at first sight attracts little at- tention. There are mounds and knolls by means of which the place lies higher than the valley proper jind yet seerus to have no connection with the mountain system which rises sharply behind it. "Close investigation shows that these mounds have been built up irora the val- ley at a time not very f.tr back geologi- cally, and by a very peculiar process. The mounds are composed of alternate layers of asphaltum and debris or waah from the mountains. It is evident that at times this asphaltum boiled up and overflowed the banKs oi' the spring, and then during a period ol quiet, or by some sudden storm, debris from the h.ils was deposited, and so on. At one time tais region must have been upon a level with the adjacent valley lands, bm these mounds of asphaltum have started around the feeding spring and gradually built up to their present dimensions, in a way akin to the formation of geyser cresta in the valley of the Yellowstone. "This formative process is not yet en- tirely extinct, and one marked and ex- ceedingly interesting example can even now be seen in what are known as the Buena Vista asphaltum fields. Hera there are two wells which may properly be called asphaltum 'geysers, situated about 200 feet nparr, but evidently having underground connection, for they pulsate alternately. One has a mouth a'bout five feet in diameter and the other is about three feet across. One is always quiet when the other is in ebullition 'and the action is like this: Natural grs in forcing its way from down below, will swell the top layer of liquid asphalt until it puffs up like a balloon and finally breaks. After a puff of gas like this from one spring, the surface quiets down and im- mediately the surface of the other well, 200 feet away, commences to inflate and finally breaks, when the same perform- ance is commenced again at the other end of the line. And so the process goes on, alternating constantly, and from the over- flow of asphaltum by th is rneane, both springs are gradually enlarging the mounds around them. In this region there are several other anbbling springs of much smaller dimen- sions, and so far as observed, each acts ndependently. "In the Sunset fields, the mounds all ppear to have been formed and are now ^.jToflxVrclened asphalt of varying degrees of thickness, below which, how- ever in every well thus far sunk, there is found liquid" asphaitum, apparently un- limited in supply." Wells have been sunk in a number of places and a peculiar heavy black oil ob- tained in large quantities. Experiment has shown that this oil is about 90 per cent pure asphaltum and n commence- ment has been made in refining this for market, which promises to become an important and profitable industry. PETROLEUM. California the Third Oll-Prodnolnj State In the Union. While California is the third petroleum producing State in the Union, ranking next to Pennsylvania and New York, still the amount produced here falls far short of the yield of either of those States. I Nevertheless, the Golden State makes a - fair showing, and one that affords promise of a development that it is not impossible } may in time put it at the head of the list. The existence of petroleum on this coast has been known for over thirty years. The memorable oil excite- ment of the early sixties in Pennsylvania had its reflex in California, and compa- nies were organized by the score for the development of the oil measures svhich C were discovered along; the coast all the way from S in Diego to Eureka. A vast amount I of money was invested in machinery and development work, but the absence of railroad facilities was too heavy a handi- I cap r.nd the excitement speedily died out II without the realization of the expected fortunes that had been so fondly antici- pated. After this first flurry and disappoint- 3' ment came a lull, and then ten or a dozen years later enterprising men again stepped ' in, and many of the difficulties in the way of success naving been removed opera- tions were resumed with the result al- ready related in giving California the III third place among the petroleum pro- ducing States of the Union. The oil measures are confined to the """ Coast range and its outlying branches, r and petroleum has been found in the -^1 counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Sau Ber- nardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Kern, ^San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Fresno, San Bsnito, Santa Clara, San Mateo. Alameda, JO 9DUHUIOJ ; Xq dn ^{inq oq.\v S9UII} DIOJQl Xq 3i^ si dn ppq ;u9iudinb9 fsazud ^r ;usa, Humholdt, Shasta and Mendocino. e principal center of production is in the south, the wells of Ventura and Lra ; Angeles counties turning out a constantly j I increasing quantity of oil. At Puente, some thirty milos east ot Los Angeles, a^e extensive oil deposits, whose development, however, only dates back to 1882. There sre sixteen wells and i hey produce about 3000 barrels monthly. , Most of it is used for fuel and lubricating purposes. These deposits continue into Orange county, where a couple of wells have been sunk near Fullerton which yield small quantities of oil, utilized' for rael. Oil in small amounts is found in other parts of Los Angeles county than the localities mentioned. , The district which yields the largest ' amount of oil at present is in Ventura county and is a continuation of the N*w- hall deposits. There are three large com- panies operating here, and there are wells in Torrey csmyon, the Ojai valley and Sepe, Santa Paula, Adams, Wheeler and Aiiso canyons. The wella already in ex- istence supply some 800 barrels daily, and new ones are constantly being sunk. There is an extensive system of pipe lines in this territory and a large refinery at Santa Paula. Besides the large companies in operation there fire many small wells owned by private parties, and their prod- uct is all sold to the large concerns. The crude oil is worth about $1 60 at the well, which is a much larger price than is com- manded in the oil regions of the East. Active preparations have been made for the systematic development of the oil deposit in the southern part of Humboldt couaty, aud the probability is that a large amount of petroleum will be produced here. At present the annual production of the entire State is some 700,000 barrels, but this is capable of almost indefinite ex- tension. Th? most recent addition to the pe- troleum discoveries of the State ia in Kern county. Under date of May llth a dispatch from Bukersfield gave "the fol- lowing news: " A rich strike of oil in the Sunset field-* is an addition to the resources of Kern county that will add millions to its own- ers. The town of B^kersfield is in a state of excitement over the rich oil in this county. The oil regions of this conn ty for the past year have been persistently" and steadily developed. Rich men who hud faith in the presence of oil employed ex- perienced talent to develop their property. Well after well has been put down in tho Sunset district, each one, until the last discovery, yielding a heavy, black oil, carrying liquid asphalt, and from discov- eries already made a profitable industry will be built up. The Southern Pacific Company has already decided to construct a branch line to the fields. "The company operating in that re- gion, being convinced that what is called 'green oil' could be found, has been per- sistently hunting for 11. Upon striking black oil thev would remove the derrick and boring apparatus to another place and try again. The last and successful opera- tion was begun in an entirely new locality a mile distant from former operations, in which they were successful. At a depth of 470 feet green oil entirely free from liquid asphaltum was encountered with a heavy flow of water. The well was put down nearly a hundred feet in this oil- bearing stratum and as soon as the water can be shut off the exact amount of the find can be determined. Other wells are being put down. "The grand fact of the strike is the qual- ity of the oil. It is of a dark-green color, of about eighteen degrees gravity, and the teats which have already been made prove it to be the very best of the natural lubri- cating oils, equal in quality and value to the most famed product of West Virginia. An expert who ha* been testing it during the past week publicly stated to-day that it is a moat remarkable oil, not excelled for lubricating and iuel qualities in any locality. The present, as well as the pros- pective industries of Kern county, have now cheap fuel at their doors, while the market for lubricating oil of such a quality as this recent strike is as wide as the world." ^ NEVADA. THX CENTER OF AMERICAN SIX.- TICK PRODUCTION. Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Ex- tracted From Her Mountains The Deposits by No Means Exhausted Abundance of Low-Grade Ore. The history of mining in Nevada is al- most coequal with that of California, gold and silver having both been discovered in that State, then a part of the Territory of Utah, in 1849. In July of that year good placers were found in the ravines tributary to Carson valley, while many of the emi- grants who passed through this section in that year en route for the California dig- gings found gold in different localities, but paid little attention thereto, as they expected to find far richer diggings on it e other sid- of the Sierra Nevada. Several years passed before any par- ticular attention was paid to the Nevada mines, and it was not until the discovery of the famous Comstock lode that the mining history of Nevada actually began. Some little gold mining had been done at Gold canyon during the first few years after the breaking out of the mining ex- citement in California, but no one sus- pected tho existence of silver. In 1853 two brothers named Grosch visited Gold ; canyon and there found ore, which they said they believed to be silver. These men endeavorad to raise capital with which to work this ore, but died before being able to do so. In 1857 gold placem were discoverei in Six-mile canyon, a short distance below the site of Virginia City, and among those who took up claims well toward the head of that canyon ware two men named Fen- nimore 'and Comstock. The first was better known as "Old Virginia," and from these two individuals came the names which were destined to have a world- wide reputation. While searching for Kold these miners were frequently both- J ered by the presence ot pieces of some other heavy metallic substance of whose nature they were unaware, and it was not until some one more curious than his fellows took a sample of this motal to Placerville, in California, and had it as- sayod that the fact was disclosed that it was enormously rich silver ore. As soon as tnis became known, w hich was in the summer ol 1859, the famous Washoe rush commenced, and in the space of a monih or two a town of up- wards of 40UO population had gathered, arastras and then stamp mills were put up in numbers, and some ot the great j Comstock lode began to yield its millions. At first much of the ore was hauled to California for reduction in the quartz mills of that State, but this soon proved too ex- pensive, and soon steam mills were in operation all alone: tho lode. Much of the ore at first extracted yielded at the rate of $2000 per ton, and aa these results became known the country fairly went wild. At first a large propor- j tion ot the precious metal in ttie oro was i lost in the tailings owing to faulty methods of reduction, and it is known that millions of dollars went down the Carson river in those days. Efforts have been made to recover a portion of this wealth, and in some cases handsome profits have beeu realized. As the working of the mines progressed to lower depths the handling of the water that was found in abundance became so serious a difficulty tnat it threatened to stop all work below a certain level. To obviate this the Sutro tunnel was planned and excavated at a cost of over $2,000,000, by which the lower levels of the Comstock were drained and their continuation made possible. The great richness of the mines when first opened caused a vaat amount ol liti- gation, rival claimants by the' score springing up for e.^ch mine, and millions } of dollars were thus wasted. A season of depression followed, but in 1873 tha la- ' mous ''Big Bonanza" was struck and then ensued the famous stock-gambling period which has passed into history. While it lasted fortunes were made and lost in a , day, the entire coast was demoralized and ^ millions on millions of dollars were loat and won. The aggregate yield of the Comstock I lode down to the present time has been about $320,000,000. In the same period assessments aggregating over $65,000,000 have been levied, and dividends of $118,- 000,000 wera paid, thus giving a balance to the good of only about $160,000,000, the balance having been expended in costs of operation. The discovery of the Comstock stimu- lated prospecting in other portions of the State, and many other silver and gold de- posits were found. Among the notable loc '.lities where important discoveries were made were the Reese river district, from the mines of which over $20,000,000 was taken. The Cortes district was another that caused great excitement, as the largest ledge in the State was found here, meas- uring some 400 fejet in width by 18,000 or more in length. In so en years the mines on this ledge yielded $20,000,000, but now little or nothing is being done. In the southern part of the State the Pioche district was the scene of another rush in 1869-70. Hore was located the famous Raymond ii3 {JUtMltJtl the Flagstaff, which has also yielded in , the millions; the Horn Silver and many others. ! Good mines are now being worked in all parts of the Territory, while discoveries