I-NRLF 
 
 B M Eb7 Mfl? 
 
Division. 
 Range 
 
 Shelf. 
 
 Received 
 
 187 
 
REJPORTS 
 
 \ 
 UPON 
 
 THE MINERAL RESOURCES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 BY 
 
 SPECIAL COMMISSIONERS J, HOSSUJROWNE AND JAMES 
 W. TAYLOR, 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 
 
 1 867. 
 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, January 29, 1867. 
 
 Resolved, That there be printed for the use of the Treasury Department one thousand copies of the Report 
 of J. Ross Browne upon the Mineral Resources of the States and Territories west of the Rocky mountains. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, February 12, 1867. 
 
 Resolved, That ten thousand copies of the Report of J. Rosa Browne on the Mineral Resources. <fec., in 
 addition to those already ordered, be printed for the use of the members of this House ; and that a copy of the 
 rules prepared at the General Land Office to aid in the disposal of the mineral lands, under law, approved 
 February 26, 1866, for that purpose, be added to each copy of such report ; and that one thousand copies of the 
 *ame be printed for the use of the Treasury Department. 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, February 25, 1867. 
 
 Resolved, That the same number of copies of the "Letter of the Secretary of the Treasury of February 
 13, 1867, with the Report of the Special Commissioner for the Collection of Mining Statistics east of the Rocky 
 mountains," be ordered to be printed as were of the "Report of J. Ross Browne on the Mineral Resources," 
 &.C.; and that the same be bound together for the use of the House. 
 
 Attest: EDW'D McPHERSON, Clerk. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, February 6, 1867. 
 
 Resolved, That ten thousand copies of the Report of J. Ross Browne to the Treasury Department on tha 
 Statistics of Mines and Mining be printed and bound for the use ofthe Senate, with a title-page and index. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, February 27, 1867. 
 
 Resolved, That ten thousand copies of the letter of trie Secretary of the Treasury of February thirteenth, 
 eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, transmitting 1 to the House of Representatives a Report by James W. Taylor 
 upon Gold and Silver Mines and Mining east of the Rocky mountains, be printed for the use of the Senate, 
 and that one thousand of said extra copies be placed at the disposal of the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Attest: J. W. FORNEY, Secretary. 
 
LETTER 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, 
 
 TRANSMITTING 
 
 A report upon the mineral resources of the States and Territories west of the 
 
 Rocky Mountains. 
 
 JANUARY 8, 1867. Referred to the Committee on Mines and Mining and ordered to be 
 
 printed. * 
 
 TREASURY DEPARTMENT, January 8, 1867. 
 
 SIR : I have the honor to transmit a preliminary report upon the mineral re- 
 sources of the States and Territories west of the Rocky mountains by Mr. J. 
 Ross Browne, who was appointed special commissioner under a provision of the 
 appropriation act of July 28, 1866, authorizing the collection by the Secretary 
 of the Treasury of " reliable statistical information concerning the gold and sil- 
 ver mines of the western States and Territories." 
 
 An introductory communication from Mr. Browne is also enclosed, which will 
 indicate the scope of the report, with some suggestions in regard to the future 
 prosecution of the inquiry into the situation and prospects of gold and silver 
 mining in the United States. 
 
 The commissioner has evidently availed himself of the best experience of the 
 State of California, especially in the department of geological and mineralogical 
 observation ; and the present compilation of its results cannot fail to be a wel- 
 come contribution to the public information. 
 
 If Congress shall make the necessary appropriation for this object, it is the 
 purpose of the Secretary to secure a similar body of scientific and statistical in- 
 formation in regard to the mining districts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Mon- 
 tana. A report upon the production of gold and silver in those Territories, and 
 in the Vermillion and Alleghany districts of the United States, by Mr. James 
 W. Taylor, will be forwarded from this department to the House of Representa- 
 tives at an early day. 
 
 I am, very truly, your obedient servant, 
 
 H. McCULLOCH, 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Hon. SCHUYLER COLFAX, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 
RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS. 
 
 TREASURY DEPARTMENT, August 2, 1866. 
 
 SIR : In entering upon your duties as special commissioner to collect mining 
 statistics in the States and Territories west of the Rocky mountains, it is im- 
 portant that you should clearly understand the objects designed to be accom- 
 plished by this department and by Congress. 
 
 The absence of reliable statistics in any department of the government on the 
 subject of mines and mining in our new mineral regions, and the inconvenience 
 resulting from it, induced Congress at its last session to appropriate the sum of 
 ten thousand dollars for the collection of information of all kinds tending to 
 show the extent and character of our mineral resources in the far west. 
 
 The special points of inquiry to which your attention will necessarily be 
 directed are so varied, and embrace so large a scope of country, that it will 
 scarcely be practicable for you to report upon them in full by the next session 
 of Congress. 
 
 I entertain the hope, however, that you will be enabled by that time to 
 collect sufficient data to furnish, in the form of a preliminary report, the basis of 
 a plan of operations by which we can in future procure information of a more 
 detailed and comprehensive character. 
 
 The success of your visit to the mineral regions, in carrying out the objects 
 contemplated, must depend in a great measure upon the judicious exercise of 
 your own judgment, and upon your long practical acquaintance with the coun- 
 try, your thorough experience of mining operations, and your knowledge of the 
 best and most^conomical means of procuring reliable information. 
 The department will not, therefore, undertake to give you detailed instruc- 
 tions upon every point that may arise in the course of your investigations. It 
 desires ta impress upon you in general terms a few important considerations for 
 your guidance, leaving the rest to your own judgment and sense of duty. 
 
 1. All statistics should be obtained from such sources as can be relied upon. 
 Their value will depend upon their accuracy and authenticity. All statements 
 not based upon actual data should be free from prejudice or exaggeration. 
 
 2. In your preliminary report, a brief historical review of the origin of gold 
 and silver mining on the Pacific coast would be interesting in connection with a 
 statement of the present condition of the country, as tending to show the pro- 
 gress of settlement and civilization. 
 
 3. The geological formation of the great mineral belts and the general char- 
 acteristics of the placer diggings and quartz ledges should be given in a |pncise 
 form. 
 
 4. The different systems of mining in operation since 1848, showing the 
 machinery used, the various processes of reducing the ores, the percentage of 
 waste, and the net profits. * 
 
 5. The population engaged in mining, exclusively and in part; the capital 
 and labor employed ; the value of improvements ; the number of mills and 
 steam-engines in operation ; the yield of the mines worked ; the average ~of 
 dividends and average of losses, in all the operations of mining. 
 
 6. The proportion of agricultural and mineral lands in each district ; the 
 quantity of wood land ; facilities for obtaining fuel ; number and extent of streamy 
 and water privileges. 
 
 7. Salt beds, deposits of soda and borax, and all other valuable mineral 
 deposits. 
 
 8. The altitude, character of the climate, mode and cost of living ; cost of 
 all kinds of material ; cost of labor, &c. 
 
 9. The population of the various mining towns ; the number of banks and 
 banking institutions in them;, the modes of assaying, melting, and refining 
 
 the charges upon the same for transportation and insurance 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 5 
 
 10. Facilities in the way of communication; postal and telegraphic lines; 
 stage routes in operation ; cost of travel ; probable benefits likely to result from 
 the construction of the Pacific railroad and its proposed branches. 
 
 11. The necessity for assay offices and public depositories; what financial 
 facilities may tend to develop the country and enhance its products. 
 
 12. Copies of all local mining laws and customs now regulating the holding 
 and working of claims. 
 
 13. The number of ledges opened and the number claimed; the character of 
 the soil and its adaptation to the support of a large population. 
 
 Upon all these points it is very desirable that we should possess reliable 
 information. Whatever tends to develop the vast resources of our new States 
 and Territories must add to the wealth*of the whole country. 
 
 I am extremely solicitous that the information collected should be ample and 
 authentic. 
 
 Trusting that you may be enabled to make such a report as will be of great 
 public utility, and at the same time promote the interests of the miners to whose 
 industry and energy. so much is due, 
 
 I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 H. McCULLOCH, 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 J. Ross BBOWNE, Esq , 
 
 Washington, D. G. 
 
LETTEE 
 
 FROM 
 
 J. ROSS BROWNE, 
 
 SPECIAL COMMISSIONER FOR THE COLLECTION OF MINING STATISTICS, 
 
 / 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, 
 
 Not-ember 24, 1866. 
 
 SIR : I had the honor to send you by last steamer a preliminary report on the 
 mineral resources of the States and Territories west of the Rocky mountains. 
 
 Congress, at its last session, appropriated ten thousand dollars " to enable the 
 Secretary of the Treasury to collect reliable statistical information concerning 
 the gold and silver mines of the western States and Territories," &c. Under a 
 letter of appointment, dated August 2, 1866, and in accordance with detailed 
 instructions of same date, I entered upon the discharge of the duties assigned 
 to me, immediately upon my arrival at San Francisco, September 3, ultimo. 
 
 The views of the department as to the impracticability of reporting in detail 
 by the next session of Congress were fully realized when I came to consider 
 the magnitude of the subject and the immense scope of country over which the 
 inquiry extended. 
 
 You were pleased to express the hope, however, that I would be enabled to 
 collect by the meeting of Congress " sufficient data to furnish, in the form of a 
 preliminary report, the basis of a plan of operations " by which information of 
 a more detailed and comprehensive character could be procured in future. 
 
 To obtain any geological or statistical data whatever, within the brief space 
 of two months, precluded the possibility of a personal visit to the mineral re- 
 gions prior to the transmission of my report. The experience of Mr. William 
 Ashburner and Mr. A. Remond, members of the State geological survey, sat- 
 isfied me that it would be utterly impracticable to examine the mines of a single 
 district, much less of all the States arid Territories west of the Rocky mountains, 
 within that time. Mr. Ashburner spent eight months in procuring data for 
 a single table, showing the operations of the principal quartz mills in Mari- 
 posa, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador, Eldorado, Plumas, Sierra, and Nevada 
 counties. Mr. Remond spent three months in visiting the principal mines and 
 mills in that part of Mariposa and Tuolumne counties lying between the Mer- 
 ced and Stanislaus rivers, and three months more in preparing tables showing 
 the results of his observations. 
 
 Under these circumstances, and in view of the fact that I had already visited 
 nearly every mining district within the range of nay instructions, and was fa- 
 miliar with the topography of the country and the general condition of the 
 mining interest, I deemed it best to avail myself of such reliable sources of 
 information as were immediately accessible. San Francisco being the central 
 point of trade and commerce for the Pacific coast, afforded facilities in the way 
 of statistical data and scientific aid which could not be obtained elsewhere. 
 From this point nearly all the capital radiates, here the records of all mining 
 enterprises are kept, and here centre the products of the mines. 
 
8 . EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The report to which your attention is respectfully invited embodies the re- 
 sults of many years of careful and laborious research. It is compiled from origi- 
 nal data furnished by the most intelligent statisticians and experts known on 
 this coast, as well as from notes made by myself during the past three years. 
 "" In many respects this report is imperfect. No reliable system has hitherto 
 existed for the collection of mining statistics, such as the governments of Eu- 
 rope have long since deemed it expedient to establish. The existing system in 
 the British colonies of Australia and North America, though not adapted to our 
 mineral regions, or to the habits and customs of our people, is both thorough 
 and comprehensive. Surveyors and registrars are appointed for each district, 
 and all mining operations are carried on under their inspection. Monthly and 
 quarterly reports are made by them, under the direction of a supervising officer, 
 whose duty it is to collect and arrange all the data thus furnished for publica- 
 tion. These reports show the actual condition of every branch of mining in- 
 dustry from month to month and quarter to quarter, so that at the expiration of 
 the year a complete history is given of the progress of development and the 
 profits and losses of mining. A permanent system like this, established upon a 
 somewhat different basis, is greatly needed in our country. 
 
 One of the difficulties already experienced in the collection of mining statistics 
 on this coast is the disinclination of parties interested to expose the secrets of 
 their business. Either the business is not remunerative and they desire to en- 
 courage further investments by false representations, or by withholding the truth ; 
 or, if unusually successful, they may consider it to their interest, in view of fur- 
 ther purchases, arrangements, or contracts, to avoid giving publicity to the facts. 
 I am inclined to believe, however, that the advantages of fair and truthful state- 
 ments, in the encouragement of immigration, the reduction of the cost of labor, 
 the promotion of confidence in mining enterprises, and the establishment of a 
 more uniform system of laws, will soon become apparent. Indeed, the difficulty 
 to which I refer is not so general, even now, as might be supposed. I have found 
 mining companies, doing a steady and reliable business, nearly always disposed 
 to furnish the desired information. The cases of refusal are exceptional, and 
 there is usually a cause for it, well understood by persons familiar with mining 
 enterprises. 
 
 Another difficulty, which, however, will not exist to so great an extent here- 
 after, has been the conflicting character of statements made by different parties. 
 In many instances where the sources of information are equally reliable, but 
 where conflicting influences prevail, it is almost impossible, after the lapse of 
 any great length of time, to get at the exact truth. Even facts, seen from dif- 
 ferent stand-points, appear differently to the most conscientious persons. In 
 cases of this kind, where the proofs on either side are not positive, I have pre- 
 ferred sometimes at the expense of prolixity to give the different statements, 
 especially where there is a general concurrence of testimony as to the main facts. 
 Thus, it will be seen that the amount of bullion produced on the Pacific coast 
 is variously estimated by the best informed and most intelligent men. Mr. Ash- 
 burner's estimates are somewhat lower than those usually accepted by the public, 
 but I believe they are well-considered. Gold and silver are so generally blended 
 together under the head of " bullion," that none of the express companies or 
 bankers have hitherto kept separate records of the products of each. It would 
 be very difficult to obtain correct returns on this point, unless the numerous 
 assay offices and the authorities at the branch mint could furnish details of the 
 quantity obtained by parting, or by estimating the bullion passing through their 
 establishments the two metals are so universally alloyed with each other. 
 
 Mr. Swain, superintendent of the branch mint at San Francisco, a gentleman 
 possessing both the means and the disposition to inform himself on this subject, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 9 
 
 estimates the product of gold and silver for Oregon, California, Nevada, and 
 Washington Territory, as follows : 
 
 In 18G1 $43, 391, 000 
 
 In 1862 49, 370, 000 
 
 In 1863 52, 500, 000 
 
 In 1864 ^ 63, 450, 000 
 
 In 1865 : ; 70, 000,000 
 
 Well-informed parties estimate the product for 1866 as follo.ws : 
 
 California $25, 000, 000 
 
 Montana 18, 000, 000 
 
 Idaho 17, 000, 000 
 
 Colorado 17, 000, 000 
 
 Nevada 16, 000, 000 
 
 Oregon 8, 000, 000 
 
 Other sources 5, 000, 000 
 
 Total 106, 000, 000 
 
 Great differences of opinion, however, exist as to the accuracy of this esti- 
 mate. To some it appears exaggerated, while others pronounce it far below 
 the actual yield. The imperfect returns received for the last nine months would 
 seem to warrant the conclusion that it is not an unreasonable estimate. For in- 
 stance, the product of Oregon is assumed to be $8,000,000. Statistical tables, 
 supposed to be worthy of credit, show a probable yield for that State of 
 $20,000,000. In 1865 the generally accepted estimate for Oregon was $19, 000,000, 
 though that was probably above the actual product. There is good ground for 
 believing that the result this year will be considerably above that of the last 
 year. The same may be said of the Territories of Idaho and Montana. 
 
 In like manner, the capital in circulation in California, and necessary for the 
 transaction of business within the limits of the State, is vari^u^ly estimated at 
 from $25,000,000 to $50,000,000. It is believed that $10,000,000 is annually 
 shipped up to the mines to defray the current expenses of mining ; but there is 
 no record of the return of this amount in the form of a circulating medium. 
 
 Assuming the estimate of the product of bullion, as above given, to be ap- 
 proximately correct, it will be seen that the States and Territories on the Pacific 
 slope produce annually upwards of $100,000,000 of the precious metals, a 
 quantity more than four times as great as the total product of the world less 
 than thirty years ago. The improved processes for the extraction of these 
 metals from their ores, made within the past two years, and the constantly in- 
 creasing area over which gold and silver mines are being developed, furnish 
 strong guarantees that there will be no abatement in the product for years to 
 come, provided government places no impediments in the way by impolitic 
 legislation. The recent financial panic in Europe afforded an illustration of the 
 importance of encouraging this branch of industry. Within sixty days during 
 that panic there was exported from San'Francisco the enormous sum of $ 12,000,000 
 in gold and silver, without which, it is well known, the commercial interests of 
 the United States would have suffered in sympathy with those of our best 
 customers in England. The shipments of specie from San Francisco to New 
 York during the first eight months of 1866 amounted to $27,729,010. 
 
 There is a more striking form in which the importance of the gold and silver 
 mines of the Pacific coast on the national welfare may be illustrated. 
 
 The product of these metals for the present year exceeds in amount all the 
 gold and silver in the national treasury, and in all the banks in all the States. 
 
10 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 t 
 
 The report of the Secretary of the Treasury shows that the bul- 
 lion in that department on the 1st of August 'last was $61, 000, 000 
 
 The banks at New York, at same date, report having 5, 000, 000 
 
 The banks at Boston and Philadelphia report GOO, 000 
 
 The last quarterly report of all the national banks in the United 
 
 States, outside of the above cities, reports 1, 600, 000 
 
 State banks outside of those cities estimated at 1, 500, 000 
 
 Total. . , 69, 700, 000 
 
 The approximate estimate already given of the gold and silver product of 
 the Pacific States and Territories for 1866 shows a total of $106,000,000, or 
 nearly double the combined bullion of the government and all the banks in the 
 country. 
 
 For convenience of reference the report transmitted to you is divided into 
 sections and clauses, of which the following is a brief summary : 
 
 Section 1 contains a historical sketch of the discovery of gold and silver in 
 the territory of the United States west of the Rocky mountains ; the excitement 
 consequent upon the development of rich placer diggings in California ; the 
 crude means adopted in the early stages of gold mining on the Pacific coast ; 
 the introduction of improved processes, and the extraordinary results that fol- 
 lowed in the sudden increase of commerce and the extension of the area of 
 civilization. In this section a sketch is also given of the discovery of the 
 Comstock lode and the development of the silver mining interest east of the 
 Sierra Nevada mountains. 
 
 Section 2 refers chiefly to the geological features of California, and the prom- 
 inent characteristics of the principal lodes in the great mineral belt. The pres- 
 ent production of the gold mines is given from actual data derived from inves- 
 tigations made by Professor Ashburner, of the State geological survey, and a 
 comparison is made between the products of California and Australia. Detailed 
 descriptions are given of a few leading mines in Grass valley and Mariposa, 
 showing the expenses and profits of gold mining as a permanent business. 
 
 Section 3 give^minute details and statistics of the gold and silver mining in- 
 terests on the Pacific coast ; the improved processes and results ; the exports of 
 treasure from San Francisco, with the amount received from the mines ; cost of 
 extracting the ore and reducing it ; the average yield ; the machinery in use ; 
 capital and labor employed, and cost of working. 
 
 Section 4 gives a historical and topographical sketch of Nevada ; the prom- 
 inent characteristics of the principal silver mines ; the alkali lakes, salt-beds, 
 wood and water privileges, and general products. Carefully prepared statistics 
 are given in this section, showing the expenses of silver mining, the various pro- 
 cesses of crushing and amalgamating the ores, the number of mills in actual 
 operation, the profits and losses, with a general review of the condition of the 
 mining interest. It also contains brief sketches of Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Wash- 
 ington Territory, Montana and Arizona, with such reliable data, showing the con- 
 dition and prospects of the mines, as could be obtained. 
 
 Section 5 is devoted to the copper mines of the Pacific coast. In this paper 
 a history of the discovery of every notable copper lode is given ; the extent of 
 the veins; the quality of the ore; the process of reduction; the costs of 
 machinery and working ; the yield, and the profits and losses. Special atten- 
 tion is called to the great national importance of this interest. 
 
 Section 6 contains a report on the quicksilver mines of California, with sta- 
 tistics of production. 
 
 Section 7 gives the history of the discovery of borax in California ; tlie pro- 
 cess of working the borax deposits ; their extent and value ; some account of 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 11 
 
 the sulphur deposits ; and reports on the tin mines of Temescal, and the coal 
 and iron resources of the Pacific coast. 
 
 Section 8. Mining regions, population, altitude, &c. 
 
 Section 9. An annonated catalogue of the minerals found west of the Rocky 
 mountains. 
 
 Section 10. Mining titles ; the laws and customs of foreign governments ; the 
 crown right, and peculiar doctrines held under that right ; the recent legislation 
 of our own government ; recommendations of the Secretary of the Treasury ; 
 passage of a law for the sale of mineral lands, and general approval of the pol- 
 icy adopted. 
 
 Section 11. Local customs; difficulties arising therefrom; the necessity of some 
 uniform system ; importance of congressional legislation for the systematic 
 working of the mines, and the establishment of a permanent .policy for the de- 
 velopment of the great mineral resources of the country. 
 
 Section 12. A list of the most important works published in reference to the 
 geology, mineralogy, and metallurgy of the Pacific coast. 
 
 Section 13. Population of the mining regions ; agricultural resources ; table of 
 distances, &c. 
 
 From the above synopsis it will be seen that an earnest attempt, at least, has 
 been made to meet the wishes of the department as expressed in the letter of 
 instructions hereto appended. Want of time for a more systematic arrangement 
 has been the only serious obstacle to move satisfactory results. 
 
 One of the most important subjects considered in the report is the discrep- 
 ances existing between the local rules and customs upon which a material part 
 of the late mineral land law is based and the statutes of the States and Terri- 
 tories. The policy of granting titles to the miners in fee-simple has met with such 
 universal approval, and the time has been so short since the law went into oper- 
 ation, that I have serious doubts as to the expediency of an immediate change. 
 Attention has been called to some of the difficulties arising from the loose inter- 
 pretations given to local rules and customs, and in many cases the entire im- 
 practicability of determining what they are or ascertaining where they are to 
 be found. Some provision requiring official records to be kept might, perhaps, 
 have a beneficial effect. Reasons doubtless exist for the differences in the size 
 of the claims in different districts. The rules which would apply to the Reese 
 River district, where the ledges are extremely narrow and close to each other, 
 would scarcely be applicable to districts in which the ledges are of great width 
 and far apart. Still, without descending to details in a general law, some regard 
 should be had to uniformity ; and especially some fixed principle should be 
 adopted as to the local laws which shall govern in all conflicting cases. The 
 policy of giving every advantage to the practical miner over the mere specu- 
 lator will at once be conceded. This, I think, can only be carried into effect 
 by national legislation. A general law, based somewhat upon the principles 
 incorporated in the mining law of Mexico, but more liberal in its provisions, 
 will probably be required before long. The holding of claims without working ; 
 the seizure of mining property for debt; the abandonment of claims; the de- 
 struction of timber ; the monopoly of salt-beds ; these are subjects worthy of 
 serious consideration. 
 
 In the preparation of a preliminary report I have been compelled to depend 
 chiefly upon the labors of other and abler hands. To Mr. Hittell, author of a 
 very excellent work on the resources of California, Professor Whitney, Mr. 
 Ashburner, and Mr. Gabb, of the State geological survey, Professor Blake, au- 
 thor of various standard works on the geology and mineral resources of Cali- 
 fornia, Baron^Von Richthofen, the distinguished German savant, Mr. Degroot, an 
 experienced statistician and topographer, Mr. Bennett, a mining expert, tho- 
 roughly familiar with the mineral regions, to Dr. Blachley, of Nevada, and 
 others, I am indebted for nearly all that is really valuable in the report. 
 
12 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 It is my intention to visit the various mineral districts of the Pacific slope 
 during the coming spring and summer. Personal examination of the mines, 
 increased experience, and sufficient time for the careful preparation of the ma- 
 terial collected, will enable me, I trust, to present for your consideration, before 
 the next meeting of Congress, a report better worthy of your approval than that 
 just submitted. Reliable statistics and valuable information, showing the re- 
 sources and products of our new States and Territories, c'annot fail to result 
 beneficially to the country and the government. Nothing can tend in a greater 
 degree to encourage immigration and the investment of capital. 
 
 The question arises, how can the object be best accomplished in the future ? 
 A statistical bureau for the Pacific coast has been recommended. 
 
 It is manifest to my mind that the work cannot be properly done by bureau 
 organization. Information derived from interested parties by means of blanks 
 and circulars, sent out over the mining regions, would be very imperfect and 
 for the most part unreliable. 
 
 The plan that appears to me most feasible would be 
 
 ~~lst. To authorize the appointment in each State and Territory of an able and 
 experienced geologist, familiar with all the operations of mining. 
 
 2d Annual reports to be made by each officer so appointed and assigned to 
 duty, under official instructions, to the supervising commissioner at San Francisco. 
 
 3d. The commissioner to make a visit every year to each mining district, for 
 the purpose of personal inspection of the mines, and conference with his assist- 
 ants ; after which he would be prepared to make his annual report to the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury. 
 
 Proper measures, of course, would be taken to secure the official returns of 
 assessors, surveyors, tax collectors, and other local State or territorial officers. 
 
 The expense would be comparatively trifling, inasmuch as the services of pro- 
 fessional experts could be had without requiring their entire time. A small 
 compensation to each would be an object of some importance. 
 
 An appropriation of $25,000 would probably be sufficient to inaugurate such 
 a system, though a much larger amount could be advantageously expended. 
 
 In the hope that these suggestions, hastily made and informally stated, may 
 at least furnish some ground for action, I have the honor to be, very respectfully, 
 your obedient servant, 
 
 J. ROSS BROWNE, 
 
 Special Commissioner. 
 
 Hon. H. McCuLLOCH, 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 13 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GOLD AND SILVER MINING ON THE PACIFIC 
 
 SLOPE. 
 
 1. First mention of gold. 2. Gold found before 1848. 3. Marshall's discovery. 4. The 
 gold discovery in print. 5. Excitement abroad. 6. Pan washing. 7. The rocker. 
 8. Mining ditches. 9. Miners' " rushes." 10. Gold Lake and Gold Bluff. 11. The 
 "torn." 12. The sluice. 13. Placer leads traced to quartz. 14. A gold-dredging 
 machine. 15. Decrease of wages. 1C. Growth of the quartz interest. 17. Failures 
 in quartz. 18. Improvement in quartz minmg. 19. The hydraulic process. 20. Hill 
 mining. 21. Decline of river mining. 22. " Rushes" to Australia. 23. The Kern 
 river excitement. 24. Ancient rivers. 25. The Tuolumne table mountain. 26. The 
 Fraser fever. 27. Discovery of Comstock lode. 28. The Washoe excitement. 29. The 
 barrel and yard process. 30. The pan process. 3 1 . Growth of the Washoe excitement. 
 32. Virginia City. 33. The silver panic. 34. Litigation about the Comstock ledge. 
 35. The many-lode theory. 36. Expenses increasing with depth. 37. Some charac- 
 teristics of Esmeralda, Humboldt, and Reese rivers. 38. Sutro tunnel project and 39. 
 Baron Richthofen's report. 40. Columbia basin and Cariboo mines. 
 
 1. FIRST MENTION OF GOLD. 
 
 The first mention of gold in California is made in Hakluyt's account of the 
 voyage of Sir Francis Drake, who spent five weeks in June and July, 1579, in 
 a bay near latitude 38 ; whether Drake's bay or San Francisco bay is a matter 
 of dispute. It certainly was one of the two, and of neither can we now say 
 with truth, as Hakluyt said seriously, ''There is no part of the earth here to be 
 taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold or silver." This 
 statement, taken literally, is untrue, and it was probably made without any foun- 
 dation, merely for the purpose of embellishing the story and magnifying the 
 importance of Drake and of the country which he claimed to have added to the 
 possessions of the English crown. 
 
 If any " reasonable quantity" of gold or silver had been obtained by the Eng- 
 lish adventurers, we should probably have had some account of their expedi- 
 tions into the interior, of the manner and place in which the precious metals 
 were obtained, and of the specimens which were brought home, but of these 
 things there, is no mention. 
 
 Neither gold nor silver exists " in reasonable quantity" near the ocean about 
 latitude 38, and the inference is that Drake's discovery of gold in California 
 
 was a matter of fiction more than of fact. 
 
 
 
 2. GOLD FOUND BEFORE 1848. 
 
 Some small deposits of placer gold were found by Mexicans near the Colo- 
 rado river at various times from 1775 to 1828, and in the latter year a similar 
 discovery was made at San Isidro, in what is now San Diego county, and in 
 1802 a mineral vein, supposed to contain silver, at Olizal, in the district of Mon- 
 terey, attracted some attention, but no profitable mining was done at either of 
 these places. 
 
 Forbes, who wrote the history of California in 1835, said " No, minerals of 
 particular importance have yet been found in Upper California, nor any ores of 
 metals." 
 
 It was in 1838, sixty-nine years after the arrival of the Franciscan friars, 
 and the establishment of the first mission, that the placers of San Francisquito, 
 
14 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 forty-five miles northwest from Los Angeles, was discovered. The deposit of 
 gold was neither extensive nor rich, but it was worked steadily for twenty years. 
 In 1841 the exploring expedition of Commodore Wilkes visited the coast, and 
 its mineralogist, James D, Dana, made a trip overland from the Columbia river, 
 by way of Willamette and Sacramento valleys to San Francisco bay, and 
 in the following year he published a .book on mineralogy, and mentioned in it 
 that gold was found in the Sacramento valley, and that rocks similar to those 
 of the auriferous formations were observed in southern Oregon. Dana did not 
 regard his discovery as of any practical value, and if he said anything about it 
 in California no one paid any attention to it. Nevertheless, many persons had 
 an idea that the country was rich in minerals, and on the 4th of May, 1846, 
 Thomas O. Larkin, then United States consul in Monterey, a gentleman usually 
 careful to keep his statements within the limits of truth, said in an official letter 
 to James Buchanan, then Secretary of State : " There is no doubt but that gold, 
 silver, quicksilver, copper, lead, sulphur, and coal mines are to be found all over 
 California, and it is equally doubtful whether, under their present owners, they* 
 will ever be worked." 
 
 The implication here is that if the country were only transferred to the Amer- 
 ican flag, these mines, of whose existence he knew nothing save by surmise, or 
 by the assertion of incompetent persons, would soon be opened and worked. In 
 sixty-six days after that letter was written, the stars and stripes were hoisted 
 in Monterey, and now California is working mines of all the minerals mentioned 
 by Larkin save lead, which also might be produced if it would pay, since there 
 is no lack of its ores. 
 
 3. MARSHALL'S DISCOVERY. 
 
 The discovery of the rich gold fields of the Sacramento basin is an American 
 achievement, accomplished under the American dominion, by a native of the 
 United States, and made of world-wide importance by American enterprise and 
 industry, favored by the liberal policy of American law. 
 
 It was on the 19th day of January, 1848, ten days before the treaty of Gua- 
 dalupe Hidalgo was signed, and three months before the ratified copies were ex- 
 changed, that James W. Marshall, while engaged in digging a race for a saw- 
 mill at Coloma, about thirty-five miles eastward from Sutler's Fort, found some 
 pieces of yellow metal, which he and the half dozen men working with him at 
 the mill supposed to be gold. He felt confident that he had made a discovery 
 of great importance, but he knew nothing of either chemistry or gold mining, so 
 he could not prove the nature of the metal or tell how to obtain it in paying 
 quantities. Every morning he went down to the race to look for the bits of the 
 metal; but the other men at the mill thought Marshall was very wild in his 
 ideas, and they continued their labors in building the mill, and in sowing wheat, 
 and planting vegetables. The swift current of the mill-race washed away a 
 considerable body of earthy matter, leaving the coarse particles of gold behind, 
 so Marshall's collection of specimens continued to accumulate, and his associ- 
 ates began to think there might be something in his gold mine after all. About 
 the middle of February, a Mr. Bennett, one of the party employed at the mill, 
 went to San Francisco for the purpose of learning whether this metal was pre- 
 cious, and there he was introduced to Isaac Humphrey, who had washed for 
 gold in Georgia. The experienced miner saw at a glance that he had the true 
 stuff before him, and after a few inquiries he was satisfied that the diggings 
 must be rich. He made immediate preparation to go to the mill, and tried to 
 persuade some of his friends to go with him, but they thought it would be only 
 a Waste of time and money, so he went with Bennett for his sole companion. 
 
 He arrived at Coloma on the 7th of March, and found the work at the mill 
 going on as if no gold existed in the neighborhood. The next day he took a 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 15 
 
 pan and spade and washed some of the dirt from the bottom of the mill race in 
 places where Marshall had found his specimens, and in a few hours Humphrey 
 declared that these mines were far richer than any in Georgia. 
 
 He now made a rocker and went to work washing gold industriously, and 
 every day yielded him an ounce or two of metal. The men at the mill made 
 rockers for themselves, and all were soon busy in search of the yellow metal. 
 
 Everything else was abandoned ; the rumor of the discovery spread slowly. 
 In the middle of March, Pearson B. Reading, the owner of a large ranch at the 
 head of the Sacremento valley, happened to visit Sutter's Fort, and hearing of 
 the mining at Coloma, he went thither to see it. He said that if similarity of 
 formation could be taken as proof, there must be gold mines near his ranch, so 
 after observing the method of washing, he posted off, and in a few weeks he was 
 at work on the bars of Clear creek, nearly two hundred miles northwestward 
 from Coloma. A few days after Reading had left, John Bid well, now represent- 
 ative of the northern district of the State in the lower house of Congress, came 
 to Coloma, and the result of his visit was that in less than a month he had a 
 party of Indians from his ranch washing gold on the bars of Feather river, 
 seventy-five miles northwestward from Coloma. Thus the mines were opened 
 at far distant points. 
 
 4. THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN PRINT. 
 
 The first printed notice of the discovery was given in the California news- 
 paper published in San Francisco, on the 15th of March, as follows : 
 
 " In the newly made race-way of the saw-mill recently erected by Captain 
 Sutter on the American Fork, gold has been found in considerable quantities. 
 One person brought thirty dollars to New Helvetia, gathered there in a short 
 time." 
 
 On the 29th of May the same paper, announcing that its publication would 
 be suspended, says : 
 
 " The whole country, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the sea- 
 shore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds with the sordid cry of gold ! 
 sold ! gold ! while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and every- 
 thing neglected but the manufacture of picks and shovels, and the means of 
 transportation to the spot where one man obtained one hundred and twenty-eight 
 dollars' worth of the real stuff in one day's washing ; and the average for all 
 concerned is twenty dollars per diem." 
 
 The towns and farms were deserted, or left to the care of women and children, 
 while rancheros, wood-choppers, mechanics, vaqueros, and soldiers and sailors 
 who had deserted or obtained leave of absence, devoted all their energies to 
 washing the auriferous gravel of. the Sacramento basin. Never satisfied, how- 
 ever much they might be making, they were continually looking for new placers 
 which might yield them twice or thrice as much as they had made before. Thus 
 the area of their labors gradually extended, and at the end of 1848 miners were 
 at work in every large stream on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, from 
 the Feather to the Tuolumne river, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, 
 and also at Reading's diggings, in the northwestern corner of the Sacramento 
 valley. 
 
 5. EXCITEMENT ABROAD. 
 
 The first rumors of the gold discovery were received in the Atlantic States 
 and in foreign countries with incredulity and ridicule ; but soon the receipts of the 
 precious metal in large quantities, and the enthusiastic letters of army officers 
 and of men in good repute, changed the current of feeling, and an excitement 
 almost unparalleled ensued. Oregon, the Hawaiian islands, and Sonora sent 
 their thousands to share in the auriferous harvest of the first year ; and in the 
 
16 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 following spring all the adventurous young Americans east of the Rocky mount- 
 ains wanted to go to the new Eldorado, where, as they imagined, everybody 
 was rich, and gold could he dug by the shovelful from the bed of every stream. 
 
 Before 1850 the population of California had risen from 15,000, as it was in 
 1847, to 100,000, and the average increase annually for five or six years was 
 50,000. 
 
 As the number of mines increased, so did the gold production and the extent 
 and variety of the gold fields. 
 
 In 1849 the placers of Trinity and Mariposa were opened, and in the follow- 
 ing years those of Klamath and Scott's valleys. During the last sixteen years 
 no rich and extensive gold fields have been discovered, though many little 
 placers have been found, and some very valuable deposits, previously unknown, 
 have been brought to light in districts which had been worked previous to 1851. 
 
 6. PAN WASHING. 
 
 In the first two years the miners depended mainly for their profits on the pan 
 and the rocker. The placer miner's pan is made of sheet iron, or tinned iron, 
 with a flat bottom about a foot in diameter, and sides six inches high, inclining 
 outwards at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. 
 
 We frequently see and hear the phrase " golden sands," as if the gold were 
 contained in loose sand ; but usually it is found in a tough clay, which envelops 
 gravel and large boulders as well as sand. This clay must be thoroughly dis- 
 solved ; so the miner fills his pan with it, goes to the bank of the river, squats 
 down there, puts his pan underwater and shakes it horizontally, so as to get the 
 mass thoroughly soaked ; then he picks out the larger stones with one hand 
 and mashes up the lAgest and toughest lumps of clay, and again shakes his 
 pan ; and when all the dirt appears to be dissolved so that the gold can be car- 
 ried to the bottom by its weight, he tilts up the pan a little to -let the thin mud 
 and light sand run out ; and thus he works until he has washed out all except 
 the metal which remains at the bottom. 
 
 7. THE ROCKER. 
 
 The rocker, which was introduced into the California mines at their discovery, 
 is made somewhat like a child's cradle. On the upper end is a riddle, made 
 with a bottom of sheet-iron punched with holes. This riddle is filled with pay- 
 dirt, and a man rocks the machine* with one hand while with a dipper he pours 
 water into the riddle with the other. With the help of the agitation, the liquid 
 dissolves the clay and carries it down with the gold into the floor of the rocker, 
 where the metal is caught by traverse riffles or cleets, while the mud, water, and 
 sand run off at the lower end of the rocker, which is left open. The riddle can 
 be taken off so that the larger stones can be conveniently thrown off. 
 
 In places where there was not water enough for washing, and where the gold 
 was coarse, the miners sometimes scratched the metal from the crevbes in the 
 rocks with their knives ; but the pan and rocker were their main reliance for 
 three or four years. 
 
 In many places the rich spots were soon exhausted, and there was a rapid 
 decrease in the profits of the miners. It was necessary that they should devise 
 new and more expeditious methods of working, so that they could wash more 
 in a day, and thus derive as much profit as they had obtained by washing a 
 little dirt. 
 
 8. MINING DITCHES. 
 
 The chief want of the placer miner is an abundant and convenient supply of 
 water, and the first noteworthy attempt to convey the needful element in an 
 artificial channel was made at Coyote Hill, in Nevada county, in March, 1850. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 17 
 
 This ditch was about two miles long, and, proving a decided success, was imi- 
 tated in many other places, until, in the course of eight years, six thousand 
 miles of mining canals had been made, supplying all the principal placer dis- 
 tricts with water, and furnishing the means for obtaining the greater portion of the 
 gold yield of the State. Many of the ditches were marvels of engineering skill. 
 
 The problem was to get the largest amount of water at the greatest altitude 
 above the auriferous ground, and at the least immediate expense, as money was 
 worth from three to ten per cent, per month interest. As the pay-dirt might be 
 exhausted within a couple of years, and as the anticipated .profits would in a 
 short time be sufficient to pay for an entirely new ditch, durability was a point 
 of minor importance. There was no imperial treasury to supply the funds for 
 a durable aqueduct in every township, nor could the impatient miners wait a 
 decennium tor the completion of gigantic structures in stone and mortar. The 
 high value of their time and the scarcity of their money made it necessary 
 that the cheapest and most expeditious expedients for obtaining water should 
 be adopted. Where the surface of the ground furnished the proper grade, a 
 ditch was dug in the earth ; and where it did not, flumes were built of wood 
 and sustained in the air by frame- work that rose sometimes to a height of three 
 hundred feet in crossing deep ravines, and extending for miles at an elevation 
 of a hundred or two hundred feet. 
 
 All the devices known to mechanics for conveying water from hill-top to 
 hill-top were adopted. Aqueducts of wood and pipes of iron were suspended 
 upon cables of wire, or sustained on bridging of wood ; and inverted siphons 
 carried water up the sides of one hill by the heavier pressure from the higher 
 side of another. 
 
 The ditches were usually the property of companies, of which there were at 
 one time four hundred in the State, owning a total length of six thousand miles 
 of canals and flumes. 
 
 The largest of these, called the Eureka, in Nevada county, has two hundred 
 and five miles of ditches, constructed at a cost of $900,000 ; and their receipts 
 at one time from the sale of water were $6,000 per day. Unfortunately these 
 mining canals, though more numerous, more extensive, and bolder in design 
 than the aqueducts of Rome, were less durable, and some of them have been 
 abandoned and allowed to go to ruin, so that scarcely a trace of their existence 
 remains, save in the heaps of gravel from which the clay and loam were washed 
 in the search for gold. 
 
 As the placers in many districts were gradually exhausted, the demand for 
 water and the profits of the ditch companies decreased ; and the more expensive 
 flumes, when blown down by severe storms, carried away by floods, or destroyed 
 by the decay of the wood, were not repaired. 
 
 9. MINERS' "RUSHES." 
 
 The year 1850 was marked by the first of a multitude of "rushes" or sud- 
 den migrations in search of imaginary rich diggings. 
 
 The miners, although generally men of rare intelligence as compared with 
 the laborers in other countries, had vague ideas of the geological distribution of 
 gold, and the marvellous amounts dug out by them, sometimes ascending to thou- 
 sands of dollars per day to the laborer, excited their fancy so much that they 
 could scarcely have formed a sound judgment if they had possessed the inform- 
 ation necessary for its basis. Many believed that there must be some volcanic 
 source from which the gold had been thrown up and scattered over the hills, 
 and they thought that if they could only find that place, they would have 
 nothing to do but to shovel up the precious metal and load their mules with it. 
 More than once, long trains of pack animals were sent out in the confident ex- 
 pectation that they would get loads of gold within a few days. 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 2 
 
18 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 No story was too extravagant to command credence. Men who ha5 neve 
 earned more than a dollar a day before they came to California were dissatisfied 
 when they were here clearing twenty dollars, and they were always ready to start 
 off on some expedition in search of distant diggings reputed to be rich. Although 
 the miners of to-day have better ideas of the auriferous deposits than they had 
 sixteen years ago, and no longer expect to dig up the pure gold by the shovel- 
 ful, they are now, as they have been since the discovery of the mines, always 
 prepared for migration to any new field of excitement. 
 
 10. GOLD LAKE AND GOLD BLUFF. 
 
 In the spring of 1850 a story was circulated that gold was lying in heaps on 
 the bank of Gold lake, a small body of water eastward of where Downieville 
 now is. Thousands of men left good claims to join this rush, but after weeks 
 or months they returned much poorer than they started. The next year wit- 
 nessed a rush to Gold Bluff, on the ocean shore about latitude 41. 
 
 The sea beating against a high auriferous hill had left a wide beach contain- 
 ing much gold, which was mixed with sand that was very rich in spots, but was 
 shifted about under the influence of a heavy surf. A gentleman of much intel- 
 ligence, secretary of a mining company which claimed a portion of the beach, 
 examined the place and seriously wrote to his associates that each one would 
 receive at least $43,000,000 if the sand proved to be only one-tenth as rich as 
 that which he had examined. 
 
 Several other similar statements were made in corrob oration. The mining 
 population were wonderfully excited by these reports, and preparations were 
 made for a large migration to the golden beach ; but more precise information 
 was soon published, and most of the adventurers who had started were disen- 
 chanted before the vessels in which they were to sail could get to sea. 
 
 H. THE "TOM." 
 
 The construction of hundreds of ditches within three or four years after the 
 successful experiment at Coyote Hill gave a great impulse to placer mining, 
 and had much influence to change its character. Before the water had been 
 carried in artificial channels to the tops or high upon the sides of the hills, nearly 
 all the miners spent their summers in washing the dirt in the bars of the rivers 
 and their winters in working the beds of gullies, which were converted into 
 brooks during the rainy season. In the gullies the supply of pay-dirt was 
 usually small, and the claims were exhausted in the course of a few weeks. 
 
 On the bars the water was below the level of the pay-dirt, and had to be 
 dipped or pumped up by hand. 
 
 These circumstances were favorable to the use of the rocker ; but the ditch 
 brought the water to places where the dirt was far more abundant and could be 
 obtained with more facility, though it was poorer in quality, and, therefore, the 
 washing of a larger quantity would be necessary to yield an equal profit. 
 
 New modes of working and new implements must be introduced to accom- 
 plish the greater amount of work, and the torn and the sluice came rapidly into 
 use. The torn had been employed for years in the placers of Georgia, and some 
 Georgians had their sluices in Nevada county in the latter part of 1849, and in 
 February of the following year a party at Gold Run, in that county, finding 
 that the bed of the ravine did not give them enough fall, made a long board 
 trough on the hill-side leading down to their torn, and the pay-dirt from the claim 
 was thrown up to a board platform, and from that thrown up to the head of the 
 trough, and the water carried the dirt down to the torn. 
 
 I am indebted for information on this point to B. P. Avery, esq. 
 
 The purpose of this trough was mainly to save the labor of carrying the dirt 
 by hand from the claim to the torn ; but the trough having been once built, its 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 19 
 
 value in washing gold was soon apparent. It was, however, the ditch that 
 gave opportunities for the general introduction of the torn and sluice, and in 
 most districts they were unheard of until late in 1850 or 1851. 
 
 The torn is a trough about twelve feet long, eight inches deep, fifteen inches 
 wide at the head and thirty at the foot. 
 
 A riddle of sheet iron punched with holes half an inch in diameter forms the 
 bottom of the tonvat the lower end, so placed that all the water and their mud 
 shall fall down through the holes of the riddle and none pass over the sides or 
 end. The water falls from the riddle into a flat box with transverse elects or 
 riffles, 'and these are to catch the gold. 
 
 A stream of water runs constantly through the torn, into the head of which 
 the pay-dirt is thrown by several men, while one throws out the stones too large 
 to pass through the riddle, and, throws back to the head of the torn the lumps 
 of clay whicl* reach the foot without being dissolved. 
 
 12. THE SLUICE. 
 
 The torn was a great improvement on the rocker, but it was soon superseded 
 by a still greater, the sluice, which is a board trough, from a hundred to a 
 thousand feet long, with transverse elects at the lower end to catch the gold. 
 With a descent of one foot in twenty the water rushes through it like a 
 torrent, bearing down large stones and tearing the lumps of clay to pieces. 
 The miners, of whom a dozen or a score may work at one sluice, have little 
 to do save to throw in the dirt and take out the gold. 
 
 Occasionally it may be necessary to throw out some stones, or to shovel the 
 dirt along to prevent the sluice from choking, but these attentions cost relatively 
 very little time. The sluice is the best device heretofore used for washing 
 gold, and is supposed to be unsurpassable. It has been used here more exten- 
 sively than elsewhere, although it has been introduced by men who have been 
 in pur own mines, into Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia, Transylvania, 
 and many other countries. 
 
 The sluice, though an original invention here, had been previously invented 
 in Brazil ; but it was never brought to much excellence there nor used exten- 
 sively, and no such implement was known in 1849 in the industry of gold 
 mining. 
 
 At first the sluices were made short, and afterwards lengthened, until some 
 were a mile long, the length being greater as the gold was finer; that is, if the 
 surface of the earth in the direction of the sluice was favorable. There were 
 many little variations in the form of the sluice, to suit different circumstances. 
 
 The ground sluice is a mere ditch on a hill side or slope, and the miners dig 
 up the bottom and dig down the banks, while the water carries away the clay 
 and leaves the gold ; out the dirt at the bottom of the ground sluice must after- 
 wards be washed in a board sluice. 
 
 The ground sluice has been used to grade roads and to carry away snow 
 from the streets of mining towns, as well as to wash gold. 
 
 In claims where many large stones were found in the pay-dirt, and had to be 
 carried by the water through the board sluice, or where the sluice was to be 
 used for a long period, they were paved with stones, because any wooden bottom 
 was rapidly worn out. Sometimes the bed of a stream into which many sluices 
 emptied was converted into a "tail sluice," which yielded a large revenue, with 
 no labor save that of occasionally "cleaning up" or washing out the metal from 
 the sand deposited in the crevices between the stones. 
 
 13. PLACER LEADS TRACED TO QUARTZ 
 
 The placer gold had originally been confined in rocky veins which were 
 disintegrated by the action of chemical or mechanical forces,, and the lighter 
 
20 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 material was swept away by the water, while the heavier remained near its 
 primeval position. 
 
 The gold found in the bars of large streams far from the mountain*, after 
 having been carried a long distance, is in small smooth particles, as though it 
 had been ground fine and polished by long attrition. 
 
 In small gullies in the mountains the gold is usually coarse and rough, as if 
 it had suffered little change after being freed from the quartz by which it was 
 once surrounded. 
 
 In hundreds of instances the abundance of gold in a gully has been traced 
 unmistakably to an auriferous quartz lode in the hill-side above it, and the 
 placer miners, following streaks of loose gold, have been brought to the rocky 
 source from which it came. 
 
 In this manner the Allisen mine and the Comstock lode, not to mention other 
 less celebrated mines or veins, were found. Such discoveries were made in 
 1850, and in the following year capitalists in New York and London, anxious 
 to get their share of the marvellous wealth of the Sierra Nevada, formed com- 
 panies to work the quartz mines at Grass valley and at Mariposa. 
 
 Millions of dollars were invested in machinery, and superintendents, witb the 
 wildest irieas, were sent to erect mills and to take charge of the precious metals.. 
 All these ventures proved complete failures. In most instances the machinery 
 was utterly useless, and the superintendents utterly incompetent. 
 
 The castings for the mills lay about the wharves of San Francisco for many 
 years, objects of curiosity for experienced miners, and of ridicule for the general 
 public. 
 
 In one mill the metal was to be caught in a course sieve, and in another the 
 quartz was to be crushed by a rolling ball. The mismanagement was so gross 
 and the losses so severe that foreign capitalists became very shy of California 
 quartz mines, and the development of that branch of industry was much 
 retarded. 
 
 14. A GOLD-DREDGING MACHINE. 
 
 It was not, however, in quartz mining alone that ridiculous blunders were 
 made. Large sums of money were expended in the eastern States by men 
 who had never seen a placer mine, and had no correct idea of the nature of the 
 gold deposits, in making machinery *to take gold more expeditiously from the 
 river beds and bars than could be done by hand. One enterprising New York 
 company sent a dredging machine to dig the metal from the bottom of the 
 Yuba river, never questioning whether that stream was deep enough in the 
 summer to float such a machine, or whether the tough clay and gravel in its 
 bed could be dug up by a dredger, and entirely ignorant of the fact that the 
 gold is mostly in the crevices of the bed-rock, where the spoon and knife of the 
 skilful and attentive miner would be necessary for cleaning out the richest 
 pockets. 
 
 15. DECREASE OF WAGES. 
 
 With the introduction of the sluice, the ditch, and the hydraulic process, it 
 became customary to hire laborers. The pan and the rocker required every 
 man to be his own master. 
 
 In 1849 each miner worked for himself, or the exceptions were so few that 
 thev were almost unknown. 
 
 The method of working made it impossible for the employer to guard against 
 the dishonesty of the servant, who could always make more in his own claim 
 .than any one could afford to give him. Men become servants usually because 
 they have no capital, and cannot get into profitable employment without it ; 
 but there was no lack of profitable employment for the miner in 1849, nor did 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 21 
 
 he need any capital, even if he had it. But the sluice brought deep diggings, with 
 large masses of pay-dirt, into demand, and the claims were held at high prices, 
 so that their possession was in itself a capital. 
 
 There had been an abundance of rocker claims in 1849 ; but there were not 
 enough good sluice claims three .years later to supply one-third of the miners. 
 The erection of a long sluice, the cutting of drains, often necessary to carry off 
 the tailings, arid the purchase of water from the ditch company,.required capital, 
 and the manner of cleaning up rendered it possible for the owner of a sluice to 
 prevent his servants from stealing any considerable portion of his gold before 
 it came to his possession. Thus it was that the custom of hiring miners for 
 wages became common in the placer diggings. 
 
 In 1852 the wages were $6 or $7 per day; the next year about $5, since 
 which time they have gradually fallen, until now they are from $2 to $3 50 
 per day; the skilful quartz miner commanding the latter sum. 
 
 16. GROWTH OF THE QUARTZ INTEREST. 
 
 The development of the quartz mining interest of the State has been slow 
 and steady, unlike the placer mining, which, rising suddenly to gigantic propor- 
 tions, soon reached its culminating point, and then began to decline rapidly. 
 
 The placers had been discovered by miners who were searching for them, 
 and who spent much time and labor in the search ; but in early years most 
 of the richest auriferous lodes were found by men who were not looking for 
 quartz. 
 
 Hunters, travellers, placer miners and road makers occasionally came, without 
 thinking of it, upon valuable veins, which they immediately claimed, and pro- 
 ceeded to work or sell. 
 
 The first quartz miners in California were Mexicans, who knew how gold- 
 bearing rocks were reduced in their native country. 
 
 They pounded up the quartz in mortars, or, if not rich enough to pay for re- 
 duction in that way, they made an arrastra or little circular stone pavement in 
 the centre of which stood a post. To an arm extending out from this was 
 hitched a mule which dragged round a heavy piece of granite, between which 
 and the pavement, the quartz was pulverized, and, when fine, the gold was 
 caught with quicksilver and separated from the base matter by washing. 
 
 This process required neither capital nor skilled labor, nor delay, nor a num- 
 ber of laborers. The owner of the arrastra could dig out his own rock one 
 day, and reduce it the next. 
 
 As a matter of profit he usually selected only the richest pieces to work in 
 the arrastra, throwing aside those portions that would not yield at the rate of 
 $75 or more per ton. 
 
 With experience in the observation of quartz, and a mode of working in 
 which failure was almost impossible, these Mexicans frequently did very well; 
 
 17. FAILURE IN QUARTZ. 
 
 Their success excited the envy of the Americans, who would purchase e 
 claims at high prices, and tell the Mexicans to see the wonders that would e 
 done by American enterprise. 
 
 The common result was that a large and costly steam-mill was erected ; a 
 multitude of laborers were employed ; they did not know how to select the 
 rich from the poor quartz ; the mill was so large that it could not be kept going 
 at its full capacity without receiving all the poor as well as the rich rock acces- 
 sible in the vein ; the amalgamator did not understand his business ; the rich 
 rock in which the Mexicans had been at work was soon exhausted ; the credi- 
 tors.who had loaned money for the erection of the mill brought suit to foreclose 
 
22 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 their mortgage ; the work stopped ; the title of the property was insecure ; and 
 the people in the neighborhood said quartz mining was a very uncertain busi- 
 ness. And so it is under that system of management ; and that system, leading 
 to failure, was followed in more than a hundred cases. Mills were built in 
 places where only a little pocket of rich quartz had been found, and if the pay- 
 quartz was abundant it was not properly selected ; or, if selected, the amalga- 
 mation was intrusted to a man who knew nothing of the business, and the gold 
 was lost. 
 
 Horace Greeley was near the truth when he said, " I am confident that fully 
 three out of every four quartz mining enterprises have proved failures, or have 
 at best achieved no positive success."* 
 
 And yet in nearly every case prudent and competent management would 
 have secured success, perhaps on only a small scale, because in many instances 
 the quantity of pay-rock was small. But the failure of three-fourths of the 
 quartz mills built in early years did not prevent the continuous increase of 
 mills, and of the yield of gold from quartz. When a miner found a vein yel- 
 low with gold, he could not turn his back on it because his neighbor's mill did 
 not pay. Gradually more caution was used ; competent miners and metallur- 
 gists became numerous, and the veins were carefully examined as to the quan- 
 tity of pay -rock before mills were built. 
 
 As the placers declined the miners were compelled to turn their attention to 
 uartz, and prospecting for quartz became a regular business. 
 
 18. IMPROVEMENT IN QUARTZ MINING. 
 
 In the mode of pulverizing and reducing quartz comparatively few changes 
 have been made. In some mills the same machinery and processes have been 
 used without alteration or addition for ten years. There is, however, a general 
 belief that the business has not been properly studied by any one, and it is 
 certain that there is much difference of opinion in regard to the various im- 
 portant questions involved in the reduction of ores. The practice is not uni- 
 form either in regard to the fineness of pulverization, or the size and speed of 
 the stamps, or the mode of amalgamation. Wood, as a material for the shafts 
 of stamps, has given way to iron ; the square form has been replaced by the 
 cylindrical ; and the stamps, instead of falling with a simple downward motion, 
 now come down with a twist. The mortar into which the stamps fall is now 
 always of iron, and the stamps stand in a straight line instead of forming a 
 circle, as they did in some mills years ago. 
 
 Two of the main improvements in gold quartz mining have been in the con- 
 centration and the chlorination of sulphurets. 
 
 19. THE HYDRAULIC PROCESS. 
 
 The sluice, though perfect as a device for washing the dirt, was not the last 
 invention in placer mining. 
 
 The shovel did not furnish earth to the sluice fast enough, and the wages of 
 a dozen workmen must be saved if possible. In 1852, Edward E. Mattison, a 
 native of Connecticut, invented the process of hydraulic mining, in which a 
 stream of water was directed under a heavy pressure against a bank or hill-side 
 containing placer gold, and the earth was torn down by the fluid and carried 
 into the sluice to be washed ; thus the expense of shovelling was entirely saved. 
 
 The man with the rocker might wash one cubic yard of earth in a day ; with 
 the torn he might average two yards ; with the sluice four yards ; and with the 
 hydraulic and sluice together fifty or even a hundred yards. 
 
 * An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco, in the summer of 1 859, by 
 H oace Greeley, page 289. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 23 
 
 The difference is immense. A stream of water rushing through a two-inch 
 pipe, under a pressure of two hundred feet perpendicular, has tremendous force, 
 and the everlasting hills- themselves crumble down before it as if they were but 
 piles of cloud blown away by a breath of wind or dissipated by a glance of 
 the sun. 
 
 And yet even this terrific power has not sufficed*. When the hills have been 
 dried by?months of constant heat and drought, the clay becomes so hard that the 
 hydraulic stream, with all its momentum, does not readily dissolve it, and much 
 of the water runs off nearly clear through the sluice, and thus is wasted for the 
 purposes of washing. 
 
 The sluice could wash more dirt than the hydraulic stream will furnish when 
 the clay is hard and dry. 
 
 To prevent this loss, the miner will often cut a tunnel into the heart of his 
 claim, and by powder blast the clay loose, so that it will give way more readily 
 tofTthe water. There have been instances in which two tons of powder have 
 been used at one blast in a hydraulic claim. 
 
 20. HILL MINING. 
 
 As the introduction of the ditch led to the use of the sluice and hydraulic 
 power, so the introduction of the latter led to a change in the mining ground. 
 
 The miners were now able and they even preferred to attack high hills of 
 gravel, which afforded them an immense mass of auriferous earth, and furnished 
 profitable employment to large streams of water for months or even years. 
 
 Those counties which contained the most extensive districts Suitable for the 
 application of hydraulic power were the most prosperous, while the towns 
 dependent on river mining or on sliallow placers fell into decay, and were 
 partially and in some cases entirely deserted. 
 
 21. DECLINE OF RIVER MINING. 
 
 From 1850 till 1856 river mining occupied a very important place in the 
 industry of the State. The beds of all the streams in the auriferous regions 
 were rich in gold, which could only be obtained by taking the water from its 
 natural course by means of dams and ditches or flumes. The beds being deep, 
 and the banks steep, rocky, and crooked, these enterprises to drain the rivers 
 were very expensive, and they were also very dangerous pecuniarily, since only 
 a brief portion of the year was suitable for the work, and an early rain might 
 come and sweep away dam and flume before an ounce of gold had been obtained. 
 The comb of the Sierra Nevada along nearly its whole length rises almost to 
 the limits of perpetual snow, and the white caps do not disappear, or the rivers 
 reach a low stage until late in the summer, so that three months may be consi- 
 dered as the limit of the period in which a river could be flumed, and the bed 
 emptied of its gold. 
 
 Every perennial stream of much note in the auriferous districts has been 
 flumed at some time in its history, but within the last seven years such enter- 
 prises have become rarities. One of the most costly and most remarkable river 
 flumes in the State was erected in 1857 to drain the Feather river at Oroville. 
 It was three quarters of a mile long and twenty feet wide ; the expenditures of 
 the company during the season were $176,985? and their profits $75,000. 
 They flumed the river again in 1858, and then lost $45,000. 
 
 Since that year no extensive fluming enterprise has been undertaken in any 
 part of the State, and the little work done in the beds of rivers is mostly left 
 to Chinamen, who are content to work for much less pay than white men expect 
 for their labor. 
 
 In some of the diggings the auriferous clay is so hard and tough that the hy- 
 draulic stream and sluice are unable to dissolve it, and mills have been built to 
 
24 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 crush it fine, so that the water in the sluice can get an opportunity to dissolve 
 all the earthy particles, and set free the metal. 
 
 The " cement mills," as they are called, are mostly of late construction. 
 
 The discovery of gold in Australia was made in 1851, by a miner from Cali- 
 fornia, and it proved to be equal in magnitude to thai; in our own State ; and, 
 singular to say, it attracted little attention, and drew from us within two years 
 only about a thousand of our residents, while many thousands were ready to 
 rush to imaginary diggings in other directions. 
 
 22. "RUSHES" TO AUSTRALIA. 
 
 Placer mining was at the height of its prosperity in 1852 and 1853. Wages 
 were high, employment abundant for everybody that wished to hire out, and 
 there was plenty of ground that would pay at least moderately for working 
 with the rocker. 
 
 But the rich spots were few, and the miners who had shared the prosperity 
 of 1849 were longing for the discovery of some new gold field that would again 
 reward them with an ounce a day. 
 
 In the latter part of 1853, and the beginning of 1854, a series of newspaper 
 letters and articles were published, asserting that there were very rich placers 
 on the headwaters of the Amazon, in Peru. 
 
 These articles probably came from the same source, and must have been 
 jraiten with the deliberate purpose of throwing trade into the hands of a few 
 ship-owners and merchants. 
 
 Whatever the design of the writer or writers may have been, the result was 
 that two thousand miners went from California and Australia to Peru, where 
 they found no placers, nor could they learn of any such place as that men- 
 tioned in the articles. 
 
 23. THE KERN RIVER EXCITEMENT. 
 
 The next year was marked by a greater rush to Kern river, in the southern 
 part of the State. Some small placers had been found there, and they served 
 as the basis or the suggestion of a multitude of false letters, asserting that the ba- 
 sin of Kern river was as rich in gold as those of the American and Yuba rivers 
 had been in 1849. These statements were copied into the newspapers, which 
 had no means of verification, and the entire industry of the State was thrown 
 into confusion. Miners abandoned good claims, farm laborers and clerks left 
 their employers, the rate of wages and the cost of mining implements rose in 
 the market, and soon six or eight thousand men were on the road to Kern river, 
 and as many more were ready to start, when the newspapers began to show the 
 folly of such a rush to diggings that had as yet produced no considerable amount 
 of gold. 
 
 The tide of migration was arrested, and soon it turned back, the disappointed 
 adventurers returning with 'the satisfaction of knowing that every river between 
 the Mariposa and the Feather, even after seven years' working, was richer than 
 Kern river had ever been. 
 
 24. ANCIENT RIVERS. 
 
 
 
 It was in October, 1855, that a very remarkable discovery was made near 
 Columbia, in Tuolumne county. 
 
 In various parts of the State, the miners in following up rich deposits of gold 
 had come upon what appeared to be the channel of ancient rivers, which had 
 been filled up and covered over with beds of clay and gravel in some places a 
 thousand feet deep. 
 
 The high banks, the bars, the bends, the rapids, the deep places, the tribu- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 25 
 
 tary gullies and brooks, the water-worn gravel, the remains of fresh-water mol- 
 lusks, the flat stones pointing down stream, the heaps of giavel formed by ed- 
 dies, the drift-wood, and the deposit of coarse gold in the centre and deep places 
 of the channel unmistakable evidences of a stream that had existed for cen- 
 turies were all distinctly recognizable. 
 
 In these ancient rivers the gold was distributed in the same manner as in 
 those of the present geological era, but in greater abundance and ^usually in 
 larger particles, as though it had not been subjected to so much wear. 
 
 The primeval streams were intersected in places by water courses of our own 
 day, and these latter were usually richer just below the points of intersection 
 than at any other places. 
 
 The largest and most noted of the ancient river beds yet discovered in Cali- 
 fornia, called the Blue lead, runs nearly through the middle of Sierra and Ne- 
 vada counties, has a width varying from a hundred to three hundred yards, and 
 has been traced nearly forty miles. 
 
 Its course is at right angles to that of the present streams in the same neigh- 
 borhood. The amount of gold taken from its bed has never been ascertained, 
 but it cannot be less than $25,000,000, and perhaps twice as much. 
 
 35. THE TUOLUMNE TABLE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 The traveller in the mining districts frequently sees " table mountains ;" that 
 is, high rocky elevations, with flat surfaces and steep sides. They are evidently 
 remains of lava floods, from which the earth, by which they were once sur- 
 rounded, has been washed away, leaving 1 the basalt towering above the adja- 
 cent country. 
 
 The most remarkable of these table mountains is in Tuolumne county, through 
 which runs the Stanislaus river, and with the same general course. 
 
 Its length, with its bends, is about thirty-five miles, its height from three hun- 
 dred to one thousand feet above the clay and gravel near it, and its width from 
 a quarter to half a mile. The smoothness of its surface, the gradual inclina- 
 tion to the westward, the basaltic nature of the rock, its proximity to a centre 
 of great volcanic activity, and various other circumstances which cannot be 
 stated here in detail, leave no room for doubt that this table mountain is a solid- 
 ified bed of lava. 
 
 Some miners, sinking a shaft at a place where the lava had been carried 
 away, leaving the sandstone or gravel under it bare, found gold, and some 
 other miners, working along the side of the mountain, found a rich streak of 
 pay-dirt, which ran down in a deep rocky channel obliquely under the moun- 
 tain. They attempted to follow it, but they soon met a body of water, which 
 they could neither avoid nor pump out. This put them on nettles. Further 
 examination showed that there were other little channels running under the 
 mountain and on both sides, and all going deeper as they went further in, and 
 nearly all tending westward, with a course oblique to that of the mountain, and 
 all containing more or less gold. 
 
 There must, then, be an ancient river bed under the mountain. This opinion, 
 advanced by a few men without education, who wished to induce wealthy men to 
 undertake the exploration of the mountain by tunnels, was met by incredulity 
 and ridicule. Nevertheless, the projectors of the scheme had got the idea fixed 
 in their minds, and they were determined to see what the mountain was made 
 of. The storekeepers, in accordance with the general custom of assisting in 
 developing the resources of their own neighborhood, willingly trusted them for 
 provisions, tools, and clothes, while they were cutting a tunnel to reach the bed 
 of the supposed ancient river. 
 
 They commenced their work at some distance from the basalt, and after cut- 
 ting through clay and gravel reached a slate rock, which seemed to have been the an- 
 
26 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 cient bank, and then they came to a bed of gravel of such character that the 
 theory of the primeval river was fully established. But the tunnel was not 
 deep enough. 
 
 It was far above the bed rock, and the water stood, as before, between the 
 miner and the gold. Months of labor had been lost, and it was uncertain whe- 
 ther the next tunnel would strike the right level, nor could it be known whether 
 the bed WQuld be rich enough to pay. Nevertheless, hope and confidence, the 
 chief divinities of the miner, and he is happy in their smiles even when priva- 
 tion is his companion and when experience tells him that no gold fortune is in 
 store, continued to sustain him. 
 
 The Table mountain prospectors, however, had reason and experience, as well 
 as hope and confidence, to cheer them, and the second tunnel was undertaken 
 with the encouragement of many men who had sneered at the first. The right 
 elevation had been struck this time, the bottom of the river bed was reached 
 and was drained by the tunnel, and the gravel was found to be extremely rich. 
 Ten feet square of superficial area yielded $100,000. A pint of gravel not 
 unfrequently contained a pound of gold. The whole mountain was soon 
 claimed. 
 
 The State echoed with the discovery. A stream of lava had filled up the 
 bed of an ancient river for thirty miles, and in the course of- ages the earth and 
 slate that once formed the banks were washed away, leaving the basalt to mark 
 the position of the golden treasure. Other similar deposits were found else- 
 where, and other explorations, as bold in their conception but less successful or 
 less important in their results, were undertaken in nearly every county. 
 
 26. THE FRASER FEVER. 
 
 The years 1856 and 1857 were marked by no peculiar excitement or sudden 
 change. The working of the gullies and river bars and beds was gradually be- 
 coming less profitable and productive, the quartz and ditch interests continued 
 to grow larger, wages kept their downward tendency, and the number of hired 
 laborers increased. 
 
 In 1858 the State received a shock that was felt in every fibre of her political 
 and industrial organization. Rich diggings were found in the spring on a bar 
 of Fraser river, and it was asserted and presumed that there were large tracts of 
 excellent placers in the upper basin of the stream. The presumption was not 
 without its foundation in experience and reason, but after all it was but a pre- 
 sumption. 
 
 The miners, however, were not disposed to listen to any doubts ; they were 
 ready to sacrifice everything in the hope of finding and being the first to enjoy 
 another virgin gold field like that of California. 
 
 In the course of four months, 18,000 men, nearly one-sixth of all the voters 
 in the State went to Fraser river, and many thousands of others were preparing 
 for an early start. The confident belief prevailed that " the good old times " of 
 '49 were to come again. 
 
 Servants threw up their positions , farmers and miners left their valuable prop- 
 erty, wages rose, houses and land fell in value, and many persons believed that 
 California would soon be left without a tenth part of her population. 
 
 All this excitement was made before any gold had been received in San Fran- 
 cisco, and before there was any direct and trustworthy evidence of the existence 
 of paying diggings beyond the limits of a few bars, which could not give occu- 
 pation to more than a hundred men. 
 
 Suddenly, and with no material addition to the evidence, the conviction burst 
 on the people that Fraser river would not pay, and five-sixths of the truant 
 miners had returned before the end of the year. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 27 
 
 * 27. DISCOVERY OF THE COMSTOCK LODE. 
 
 A party of emigrants discovered placer diggings on Gold canon, a little 
 tributary of Carson river, east of the Sierra Nevada, in 1849, and a permanent 
 mining camp was established there in 1852. 
 
 It was observed that the gold contained a large proportion of silver, in some 
 claims nearly one-half in value, but this fact was not without precedent in the 
 placers of California, and was regarded simply as a misfortune for the miner, who 
 did not receive more than $10 or $12 an ounce for his dust, while that obtained 
 on the western slope of the Sierra usually sold for $17 or $18. 
 
 The Gold canon diggings had been worked for seven years, and gave employ- 
 ment to about fifty men, when, in the .spring of 1859, the miners, following up a 
 rich streak of placer gold, came upon a quartz lode in the place now known as 
 Gold Hill. 
 
 A couple of months later, some miners, in following up a placer lead in which 
 the gold was mixed with about an equal weight of silver, came on the lode from 
 which the metal had been washed down.t 
 
 They were working here in a rude way, with no idea of the value of their 
 claim, when James Walsh, an intelligent quartz miner from Grass valley, passed 
 
 * The credit of this discovery has been claimed by so many parties, and the testimony is so 
 conflicting, that I am induced to give at least two of the popular versions. Substantially 
 they agree upon the main points. (See section 4, Resources of Nevada.) 
 
 t S. H. Marlette, surveyor general of Nevada, in his annual report for 1865, gives the fol- 
 lowing history of the discovery of the Comstock lode : 
 
 "In 1852, H. B. and E. A. Grosch or Grosh, sons of A. B. Grosh, a Universalist clergyman 
 of considerable note, aud editor of a Universalist paper at Utica, New York, educated me- 
 tallurgists, came to the then Territory, and the same or the following year engaged in pla- 
 cer mining in Gold canon near the site of Silver City, and continued thereuntil 1857, when, 
 so far as I can learn, they first discovered silver ore, which was found in a quartz vein, 
 probably the one now owned by the Kossuth Gold and Silver Mining Company, on which 
 the Grosh brothers had a location. 
 
 " Shortly after the discovery, in the same year, one of the brothers accidentally wounded 
 himself with a pick, from the effects of which he soon died, and the other brother went to 
 California, where he died early in 1858, which probably prevented the valuable nature of their 
 discovery from becoming known. In the mean time placer mining was carried on to consid- 
 erable extent in various localities, principally in Gold canon. 
 
 ''In 1857, Ipe Kirby and others commenced placer mining in Six Mile canon, about hall 
 a mile below where the Ophir works now are, and worked at intervals with indifferent suc- 
 cess until 1859. On the 22d day of February, 1858, the first quartz claim was located in 
 
 Kossuth claim as upon one branch of the Comstock, which may not be impossible in case 
 we adopt the one lode system, for the lode is about one hundred feet in thickness, and its 
 strike would take it to the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, as explorations prove, as I have 
 been informed, the Virginia croppings to be the outcrop of the western portion of the Com 
 stock. 
 
 " The discovery of rich deposits of silver ore was not made until June, 1859, when Peter 
 O'Reilly and Patrick McLaughlin, while engaged in gold washing on what is now the 
 ground of the Ophir Mining Company, and near the south line of the Mexican Company's 
 claim, uncovered a rich vein of sulphuret of silver in an excavation made for the purpose 
 of collecting water to use in their rockers in washing for gold. This discovery being on ground 
 claimed at the time by Kirby and others, Comstock was employed to purchase their claim, 
 whereby Comstock's name has been given to this great lode, by which those entitled to the 
 credit of its discovery have been defrauded a transaction, to compare small things with 
 great, as discreditable as that by which Arnericus Vespucius bestowed his name upon the 
 western continent, an honor due alone to the great Columbus. 
 
 " From this discovery resulted the marvellous growth of Nevada. Immediately the lode 
 was claimed for miles ; an unparalleled excitement followed, and miners and capitalists 
 came in great numbers to reap a share of the reported wealth. The few hardy prospectors 
 exploring the mountains for hidden wealth soon counted their neighbors by thousands ; 
 soon walked along miles of busy streets, called into existence by the throng of adventurers, 
 and soon the prospectors were ransacking almost every part of the (at present) State of Ne- 
 vada in search of silver lodes." 
 
28 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 their place and examined their mine. His attention was attracted by the dark 
 gray stone which he suspected was silver ore, and as an assay of it he sent a 
 ton and a half of it to San Francisco, where it was sold for $3,000 per ton. 
 He and some friends then bought out four of the five partners, paying $22,000 
 for four-fifths of 1,800 feet, or at the rate of $14 per foot. 
 
 Some shafts sunk on the vein showed that the gray stone, a rich sulphuret of 
 silver, could be obtained in large quantities. The lode was soon claimed as far 
 as it could be traced, and the market value of the shares rose so rapidly that 
 before the end of the year $1,000 a foot had been offered for a portion of the 
 lode. 
 
 28. THE WASHOE EXCITEMENT. 
 
 The excitement about the silver mines spread throughout California in the 
 spring of 1860, and thousands of miners crossed the mountains to work in the 
 newly-discovered mines or to seek for others. 
 
 In every town companies were formed to equip and send out prospectors, and 
 the work was continued on a large scale for three years. Thousands of square 
 miles, never before visited by white men, were explored and examined, and 
 many thousands of metalliferous lodes were found and claimed. 
 
 It was in 1860 that the silver districts of Esmeralda, Bodie, Potosi, Coso, 
 and Humboldt were discovered, besides many others of less note. The chief 
 silver mining town grew up at the Comstock lode, and was soon the home of a 
 large and excited population. Every man owned thousands of feet of argentif- 
 erous lodes, and considered himself either possessed of a fortune or certain 
 of soon acquiring one. 
 
 The confidence in the almost boundless wealth of the country was universal, 
 but many were bothered to convert their ore into ready cash. Men who con- 
 sidered themselves millionaires had sometimes not enough money to pay for a 
 dinner, and in their dress they looked like beggars.* 
 
 * The following extract from a letter written at Virginia, in April, 1 860, gives a vivid pic- 
 ture of the condition of society there at that time : 
 
 "Of a certainty, right here, is Bedlam broke loose. One cannot help thinking, as he 
 passes through the streets, that all the insane geologists extant have been corraled at this 
 place. Most vehement is the excitement. I have never seen men act thus elsewhere. Not 
 even in the earlier stages of the California gold movement were they so delirious about the 
 business of metalliferous discovery. Hundreds and thousands are now here, who, feeling 
 that they may never have another chance to make a speedy fortune, are resolved this shall 
 not pass unimproved. They act with all the concentrated energy of those having the issues 
 of life and death before them. They demean themselves not like rational beings any more. 
 Even the common modes of salutation are changed. Men, on meeting, do not inquire after 
 each other's health, but after their claims. They do not remark about the weather, bad as it 
 is, but about out-croppings, assays, sulphurets, &c. They do not extend their hands in 
 token of friendship on approaching, but pluck from their well filled pockets a bit of rock, 
 and, presenting it, mutually inquire what they think of its looks. During the day they 
 stand apart, talking in couples, pointing mysteriously hither and you : and during the 
 night mutter in their sleep of claims and dips and strikes, showing that their broken 
 thoughts are still occupied with the all-absorbing subject. I shall be able to convey to your 
 readers some idea of the intensity of this mining mania, when I assure them that this por- 
 tion of the American people do not even ask after newspapers, nor engage in the discussion 
 of politics. Little care they whom you choose President ; conventions and elections, wars 
 and rumors of wars, are nothing to them. They have their own world here. Here, bounded 
 by the Sierra and the mountains of Utah, spread over the foot-hills and the deserts, is a 
 theatre beyond which their thoughts are not permitted to roam ; to this their aspirations and 
 aims are all confined. Whatever of energy, ambition, and desire are elsewhere expended on 
 love, war, politics, and religion, are here all devoted to this single pursuit of rinding, buy- 
 ing, selling, and trading in mines of silver and gold. Everybody makes haste to be rich ; 
 and so great is the mental tension in this direction, that it may well be questioned whether, 
 if a sweeping disappointment should overtake them, many will not be reduced to a condition 
 of absolute lunacy. What guarantee this wildly-excited multitude have against the happen- 
 ing of this fearful contingency, I am not fully prepared to say, having, as yet, not been able 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 29 
 
 29. THE BAEREL AND YARD PROCESSES. 
 
 There was much difficulty in extracting the metal even from the richest'ore. 
 There were no mills to crush the rock, no skilful metallurgists to reduce the ore, 
 and no confident opinion in regard to the best means of extraction. The simple 
 processes used for reducing auriferous quartz would not suffice. The gold 
 exists in the metallic form, and so soon as the rock is pulverized can be obtained 
 by washing or amalgamation. But silver is in chemical combination with 
 baser substances, and must be separated from them by chemical influences before 
 the metal will submit to unite with quicksilver, by which it must usually be 
 caught. 
 
 All the silver produced in civilized countries was obtained by two processes, 
 the Frieberg. German barrel, and the Mexican yard or patio. In the German 
 process three hundred pounds of the ore, finely pulverized, are mixed with 
 water to the thickness of cream, and after the addition of some salt, iron pyrites, 
 scraps of iron, and quicksilver are put into a strong barrel, and kept revolving 
 rapidly for fourteen hours, at the end of which time the silver and quicksilver 
 have united, and they can easily be separated from the mud by washing. The 
 barrels are rapidly worn out, the amount of work done is little, and the labor 
 required is much. In the Mexican process the pulverized ore is mixed with 
 water, salt, iron pyrites, and quicksilver, and left out in an open yard for three 
 weeks, the mass being stirred or trodden with mules occasionally. This mode 
 of reducing is very slow, and is unsuited to the cool climate of Nevada, in lati- 
 tude 38, and at an elevation of 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the sea. 
 
 30. THE PAN PROCESS. 
 
 There was a general belief that some mode of amalgamation better than either 
 of these could and would be devised, so while one set of men were engaged in 
 hunting and opening mines, another set were busy in studying a mode for re- 
 ducing the ores. A satisfactory result was not reached for several years, but it 
 came at last in the invention of the pan process, as distinguished from the barrel 
 and yard processes. 
 
 The pan is of cast-iron, about five feet in diameter and eighteen inches deep. 
 
 Five hundred or a thousand pounds of ore are put in with salt, iron pyrites, 
 quicksilver, and enough water to make a thin mud. A muller revolves on the 
 bottom of the pan, and serves to grind the matter, which is not fine enough, and 
 also brings all the particles of the ore into contact with the chemicals and the 
 quicksilver. Besides the motion of the muller, various devices are used to keep 
 up a regular current, so that all portions of the mixture are successively brought 
 to the bottom, and exposed to the action of the quicksilver. In some pans heat 
 is applied. The American process extracts silver from the common sulphuret 
 ore as thoroughly as any other process, with much more rapidity, and with less 
 expense. It is, therefore, in almost universal use in the American silver mines 
 of the Pacific slope, and has been introduced into Mexico, where it will prob- 
 ably in time supersede the yard process. While the metallurgists were work- 
 ing away at their pans, the miners generally were afraid to erect mills lest 
 buildings and machinery might be unsuited to the new modes of working. 
 
 The mills that were built charged $50 and $60 per ton for crushing and 
 
 to give the subject much examination since my return. To attempt eliciting information 
 from those now here, only tends to confuse and complicate what is already incomprehensi- 
 ble. If you talk with one man, he is only concerned lest the argentiferous metal be ren- 
 dered worthless by the superabundance here met with ; while another, with equal opportu- 
 nities, and perhaps better ability for forming a correct judgment, derides the idea of there 
 being any silver apart from the Comstock vein, telling you that the whole thing is an in- 
 verted pyramid, having that truly wonderful lead for a base." 
 
30 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 amalgamating, though the same work was done at Grass Valley, only one hun- 
 dred miles distant, for less than $5 a ton. 
 
 The amalgamation was so conducted that only the free gold was saved. All 
 the silver and much of the gold were lost. Ore that contained $500 to the ton 
 was sent to the mill if it yielded $70 or $80, leaving about $10 profit, and a loss 
 of $400 of silver. 
 
 The value of the ore and the amount of silver lost were precisely understood, 
 but there was no remedy. It was necessary to take some silver from the mines 
 at any sacrifice to keep up the confidence of the shareholders. Although the 
 ore in sight was worth millions, the bullion sent across the mountains from 
 Nevada amounted to only $90,897 in 1860. 
 
 The next year, however, the export rose to $2,275,256 ; in 1862 to $6,247,074, 
 and in 1863 to $12,486,238. This increased rate might well astonish the world, 
 and dazzle people in the vicinity. 
 
 31. GROWTH OF THE WASHOE EXCITEMENT. 
 
 The silver excitement which pervaded California in the spring of 1860 con- 
 tinued to increase steadily for three years. 
 
 Washoe, by which name the mining region near the Oomstock lode was gen- 
 erally known, was the main topic of conversation, and the main basis of specu- 
 lation. Everybody owned shares in some silver mine. High prices were paid 
 to strangers for mines at places of which the purchaser had never heard until a 
 day or two before the purchase. . Men seemed to have discarded all the dic- 
 tates of prudence. Their judgment was overwhelmed by the suddenly acquired 
 . wealth of a few and by the general anxiety of the many to buy any kind of sil- 
 ver shares. People acted as though there were so many rich silver mines that 
 men who had been searching for them would not be so mean as to offer a poor 
 one for sale. Three thousand silver mining companies were incorporated in 
 San Francisco, and 30,000 persons purchased stock in them. The nominal 
 capital was $1,000,000,000, but their actual market value never exceeded 
 $60,000,000, and not one in fifty owned a claim of the least value. And yet 
 the organization of each company cost $100 on an average, and that money had 
 to be paid by somebody. Although the mines were in western Utah, which 
 was organized afterwards into the Territory and then into the State of Nevada, 
 the shares were mostly owned in San Francisco, and that place was the centre 
 of speculation and excitement, of profit and loss. On every side were to be 
 seen men who had made independent fortunes in stocks within a few months. 
 
 The share in the leading mines on the Comstock lode were the preferred 
 security for loans by money lenders and banks. 
 
 The shares, or feet, as they were more commonly called, (for in most of the 
 companies a share represented a lineal foot lengthwise on the vein,) of the Com- 
 stock claims advanced with great rapidity, in some cases as much as $1,000 per 
 month. 
 
 A foot of the Gould and Curry mine, worth $500 on the 1st of March, 1862, 
 was sold for $1,000 in June; for $1,550 in August; for $2,500 in September; 
 for $3,200 in February, 1863; for $3,700 in May; for $4,400 in June, and for 
 $5,600 in July. Other claims advanced with a rapidity less rapid but scarcely 
 less startling. In the middle of 1863, Savage was worth $3,600 per foot ; Cen- 
 tral $2,850; Ophir $2,550; Hale and Norcross $1,850; California $1,5 00 ; Yellow 
 Jacket $1,150; Crown Point $750; Chollar $900, and Potosi $600. 
 
 32. VIRGINIA CITY. 
 
 Virginia City, the centre of the mining industry, rose to be the second town 
 west of the Rocky mountains. It had a population of 15,000, and the assessed 
 value of its taxable property was $11,000,000. The amouut of business done 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 31 
 
 was twice as great as in any other town of equal size in the United States. 
 And well might the town be large and busy. It produced more silver within a 
 year than any other one mining district of equal size ever did. Neither Potosi 
 nor Guanajuato could equal it. The former town yielded $10,000,000 annually 
 for a time, but with that yield supported a population of 160,000. In 
 may be doubted whether any town of 15,000 persons ever before produced an 
 average of $12,000,000 annually, or an average of $800 to the person. Well 
 might excitement run high, and money be flush. 
 
 33. -THE SILVER PANIC. 
 
 But though the silver yield kept up, distrust set in, and prices of stocks 
 commenced to foil in the summer of 1863. The people began to count up how 
 many millions they had paid as assessments on claims that had been worked 
 for years and had never yielded a cent. Experts from other silver mining 
 countries said that no rich and permanent deposits of silver had been opened, 
 save on the Comstock lode, and that the management of the mines there was 
 grossly wasteful. 
 
 It was a notorious fact that many companies had been organized for the pur- 
 pose of swindling the ignorant by selling worthless stock to them. 
 
 Prices declined slowly until the middle of the next year, and then they were 
 attacked by a panic which smote hundreds of the Washoe speculators with 
 terror and bankruptcy. Gould & Curry fell from $5,600 to $900 per foot ; Sav- 
 age, from $3,600 to $750 ; Ophir, from $2,550 to $425 ; California, from $1,500 
 to $21; Hale & Norcross, from $1,850 to $310, and others in like proportion. 
 
 The wild-cat or baseless speculations were swept away. to destruction by the 
 thousand, and never heard of more. 
 
 The dray-men, the hod-carriers, the mechanics, the clerks, the seamstresses, 
 the servant girls, who had cheerfully paid assessments for years, in the confidence 
 that they would soon have a handsome income from their silver mines, were dis- 
 enchanted. 
 
 The name of Washoe, which had once been blessed, was now accursed by 
 the multitude, though still a source of profit to a few. 
 
 People wondered how they could have been so blind. It was found on exami- 
 nation that the most deliberate and most dishonest deception had been system- 
 atically practiced in many cases. Most of the mines had been managed not 
 with the object of taking silver from the ore, but for the purpose of making a 
 profit by the sale and purchase of stocks. 
 
 The officers, or some of them, combined to raise or depress the shares as suited 
 their schemes. It was an easy matter to instruct the miners to take out the 
 richest or the poorest of the ore, and the returns of the mill could be published 
 as a fair indication of the value of all the ore within sight.* 
 
 In the erection of buildings the financial management of the- companies was 
 grossly extravagant. Money was thrown about almost as if it had no value. 
 It was presumed that the rich and extensive deposits found near the surface, 
 instead of being exhausted, would become still richer as the works advanced 
 in depth. The ignorance of metallurgy and lack of experience in silver mining 
 led to many costly mistakes. 
 
 Wages much higher than those of California were paid. 
 
 * We find the following paragraph in the report of S. H. Marlette, the surveyor general 
 of Nevada, for 1865 : 
 
 " When a bulling operation was in progress the superintendent would write glowing let- 
 ters ; rich rock, selected from a large mass of poorer material, would be sent to mill ; debts 
 would be iucurred to be paid in the future, and large dividends would be declared. 
 
 "If a ' bearing' operation was in contemplation, the rich deposits would be avoided; the 
 rock sent to mill would prove to be very poor ; assessments would be levied to pay off the 
 debts of the company ; suits would be commenced against it, and every device that could 
 discourage stockholders would be adopted." 
 
32 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 34. LITIGATION ABOUT THE COMSTOCK MINES. 
 
 The overestimate of the value of the mines was one of the causes of a great 
 litigation, for which opportunities were given by the careless manner in which 
 claim 3 were located, recorded, and transferred in early times. The lawyers 
 -,-_ & c- fees high almost beyond example. Witnesses who found that their 
 testimony was necessary in important suits suddenly had business in the eastern 
 States, or in some other remote place, and could not be persuaded to remain till 
 the trial unless some large sums of money were paid to them. 
 
 Subornation of perjury became a profession in which many engaged. So 
 much money was spent in a law suit that it materially affected business. 
 
 When the trial of the suit between the Ophir and the Burning Moscow was 
 transferred from Virginia City to Aurora, property in certain parts of the latter 
 town rose fifty per cent., so confident were the residents there that the attend- 
 ants at the court would be numerous and flush of money. In several cases more 
 money was spent in litigation than the entire mine is now worth. The surveyor 
 general of the State, in his report for the year 1865, says : 
 
 " I have understood that $1,300,000 have been expended in litigation between 
 the Chollar and Potosi companies, and $1,000,000 more have been expended in the 
 Ophir-Moscow trials. * * * I believe one-fifth of the proceeds of the 
 Comstock would not more than pay the expenses of litigating the title thereto." 
 
 The yield of the Comstock lode, up to the date of that report, had been about 
 $45,000,000 ; so Mr. Marietta's estimate of the amount spent in litigation would 
 be $9,000,000, and four-fifths of this was expended within a period of three years. 
 
 The sum paid as dividends to stockholders in many permanent mines was 
 less than that expended in litigation. 
 
 35. THE MANY-LODE THEORY. 
 
 One of the main sources of the lawsuits was the doubt whether the Comstock 
 lode had at its side a number of branches, or whether it was one of a series of 
 independent and parallel lodes within a distance of two hundred yards. At the 
 surface several seams of ore were perceptible, and the first claimants had taken 
 the seam which was largest and lowest on the hill, and they asserted that the 
 seams above were mere branches. This assertion, however, did not prevent 
 others from claiming the upper seams, and thus arose the suits between the 
 Ophir and the Burning Moscow, that between the Gould & Curry and the North 
 Potosi, and that between the Potosi and the Bajazet, which were all cases of much 
 importance in their day. The people were divided between the one-lode and 
 the many-lode parties, and elections turned more than once on that question. 
 Most of the stock of the one-lode companies was held in San Francisco, while a 
 larger proportion of the stockholders of the many-lode companies were residents of 
 Virginia City, so it was argued that it was the interest of Nevada that the old 
 companies should be defeated. But the latter had the evidence of geology, and 
 what was, perhaps, still more important, the money on their side, and the many- 
 lode theory was at last completely overthrown, but not until after a struggle 
 that cost years of time and millions of money. The Comstock vein has a dip 
 of 45 to the horizon, and while it was in the process of formation large bodies 
 of porphyry split off from the hanging wall, fell down into the vein stone and 
 were there suspended, leaving a seam of quartz above as well as one below. 
 These pieces of hanging wall are usually long, narrow, and deep, but not large 
 enough in any direction to make two lodes out of one. 
 
 36. EXPENSES INCREASING WITH THE DEPTH. 
 
 Another source of disappointment to the mining companies was that as the 
 works advanced in depth expenses increased in an unexpected manner. The 
 immense excavations for the extraction of ore required vast quantities of timber ; 
 as the forests are distant and transportation dear, the mines now pay three-quar- 
 ters of a million dollars annually for timbering alone. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 33 
 
 The water increased, and powerful engines, consuming much wood, were 
 required to pump constantly at an expense of $100 per day to each of half a 
 dozen companies. Foul air made it impossible for the miners to work rapidly 
 in the deep drifts, and ventilation was expensive. These, and a multitude of 
 other considerations, contributed to the panic and kept the general stock market 
 down. 
 
 But such influences could not entirely govern the price of particular stocks. 
 
 Gould & Curry, which was sold for $900 per foot in July, 1864, advanced 
 to 32,000 in April, 1S65, and fell to $600 in October, 1866. Savage was $2,000 
 in April, 1865, and $1,100 m October, 1866. Of stocks, which were not no- 
 ticed in the stock boards in the summer of 1864,Yellow Jacket rose in April, 
 1865, to $2,590 per foot, and was sold in October, 1866, for $700; Belcher, 
 worth $1,650 in April, 1865, was offered for $95 in October, 1866. Alpha, 
 worth $2,100 in April, 1865, was worth only $50 in October, 1866, and Crown 
 Point fell from $1,225 in April, 1865, to $900 in October, 1866. A fall of fifty 
 per cent, or a rise of two hundred per cent, in the market value of a large mine 
 within the space of six months has occurred in more than two score cases within 
 the last five years, and it is easily understood that in such events fortunes are 
 made and lost with great rapidity. 
 
 37. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF ESMEEALDA, HUMBOLDT, AND REESE 
 
 RIVERS. 
 
 The stocks in all the other districts of Neva.la were affected, and, it might 
 almost be said, governed by the influence of those of Virginia City. While 
 shares in the Comstock lode were high, so were those in mines elsewhere. At 
 Esmeralda large masses of rich ore were found in the Wide West and Real 
 Del Monte mines, and the price of their stocks rose to $400 per foot ; but there, 
 too, litigation, bad management, and the speedy exhaustion of the rich deposits 
 near the surface were followed by a general collapse. 
 
 Esmeralda district, which yielded $500,000 annually for a couple of years, 
 seemed to have been worked out, and all the explorations undertaken since 
 1864 have failed to show anything to compare with the ore opened in 1861 and 
 1862. 
 
 Several other districts in the vicinity, however, were found, and these promised 
 to more than surpass Esmeralda in its best days. Humboldt had a history 
 somewhat like E^-meralda. 
 
 A large body of rich ore in the Slieba mines brought the price of that stock 
 up to $400 per foot, but they contained antimony, and could not be reduced with- 
 out roasting, and the expenses of reduction, and litigation and the exhaustion 
 of the rich body of ore, soon left the company insolvent; and since then the 
 Humboldt district has been under a cloud, although many of the veins will un- 
 doubtedly prove profitable in time. 
 
 The Ueese River mines, discovered in June, 1862, include a number of dis- 
 tricts, in which a great variety of veins and ores are found. The development 
 has been slow, yet it is the opinion of intelligent m >n who have examined the 
 lodes that several of them will take a high place in the production of silver 
 after a few years. 
 
 The last of the silver districts of Nevada in the order of discovery is Pahran- 
 agat, in the southeastern corner of the State, which first attracted attention in 
 the beginning of 1866. No bullion has yet been extracted there, but some fine 
 ore has been found, and the quantity appears to be considerable. 
 
 33. SUTRO TUNNEL PROJECT. 
 
 In 1865 it became evident that if the mining in the Comstock mines were to 
 be continued for many years, it would be profitable, and even necessary, to have 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 3 
 
34 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 a tunnel to drain tlie vein to a depth of 2,000 feet. Of the continuation of the 
 mining there could be no reason to doubt. 
 
 The lode has the main geological characteristics which mark the greatest 
 silver-bearing veins of Spanish America. It is a fissure vein that extends across 
 several different formations, and at (he richest place it separates two different 
 kinds of " country" rock. It is of great length and great width. . The general 
 thickness and dip remain about the same, so far as they have been examined. The 
 walls are distinctly marked. The inclination is about 45 to the horizon. 
 There are large seams of clay-like substances along ih sides, as though the 
 sides had rubbed and ground part of the vein-stone to powder. Bodies of por- 
 phyry, many of them large iiud others small, are found in the vein-stone, looking 
 as though they had cracked off the upper or hanging wall and fallen down. 
 
 The vein-stone, so far as traced, is about the same in all places, though the 
 color varies from white and gray to brown. The ore is distributed irregularly, 
 being found in some places in large masses and in others in thin seams. The 
 general features of the lode are like those other great argentiferous veins, and 
 mining geologists say that the class are inexhaustibly rich in silver. It is pre- 
 t timed that they are rich in ore far beyond any depth which miners can reach.* 
 
 * 39. BARON RICHTHOFEN'S REPORT. 
 
 Tbe following 1 is a quotation from "The Comstock Lode, its character and the probable 
 mode of its continuance in depth. By Ferdinand Baron Richthofen, Dr. Phil., San Francis- 
 co, 1866:" 
 
 "If we proceed to compare the Comstock vein with those "best explored, it is evident that 
 it differs in nature from a certain class of narrow veins, winch, as those of Freiberg, Knnigs- 
 berg, and Chaiiarcillo, in Chili, Pasco, in Peru, Catorce, in Mexico, and Austin, in Nevada, 
 fill a number of small fissures, which are either parallel or intersect each other, and which 
 exhibit in depth nearly the same character and richness as near the surface. It presents, on 
 .the contrary, all the characters of a second class of silver veins, which are prominent on 
 account of their magnitude and unity, and exhibit, wherever they occur, one great mother 
 vein, or l vcta madre, 1 surrounded, in most instances, by some smaller veins of little or no 
 importance. To this class belong the veins of Schemnitz and Felsobanya, in Hungary, the 
 Veta Madre, of Guanajuato, and the Veta Grandre, of Zacatecas, while the veins of Potosi, 
 in Peru, and the Biscayna of Real del Monte, in Mexico, have to be referred more to tins than 
 to the former class. Notwithstanding their small number, these great mother veins furnish 
 by far the greater portion of the silver produced throughout the world. They resemble each 
 other in many points. All of them fill fissures of extraordinary width and length, and appear 
 to be of very recent origin, and also to be intimately related to volcanic rocks, by which they 
 are accompanied. Although the laws which govern the distribution of ore differ more or less 
 for each vein, yet all of them have been found to be highly metalliferous to whatever depth 
 explored ; and it appears that nearly an equal quantity of silver is with most of them contained 
 in each level, the vein of Guanajuato being an exception to this rule. It maybe inferred that 
 this will continue to be the case to an indefinite depth. There is, however, a marked differ- 
 ence in the concentration of silver, ores of extreme richness being usually accumulated in lim- 
 ited bodies in the upper levels, while in depth similar bodies recur greater in extent, but con- 
 sisting of lower grades of ores. This is one of the principal reasons why, on all the veins 
 mentioned, mining in upper levels has been so highly remunerative compared with the 
 profits derived from deep working. Each ton of ore costs there but little to extract, and yields 
 a large amount of metal, while raising the same weight from greater depth is more expensive, 
 and at the same time a smaller amount of bullion is realized. The history of the Mexican 
 mines is the best illustration of these relations. In former centuries counts and marquises have 
 been made by the king of Spain whenever fortune enabled a single individual to accumulate 
 enormous wealth in a few years. Mining then was confined to rich ores within a few hun- 
 dred feet from the surface. In the present century, since greater depths have been reached, 
 the Spanish crown, if it hfd still the sceptre of Mexico, would scarcely have found an oppor- 
 tunity of bestowing equal honors on fortunate mining adventurers, notwithstanding the un- 
 abated enterprising spirit of the population and' the increased facilities of raising the treasures. 
 And yet the production of the Mexican mines. has anything but decreased. It appears, on 
 the contrary, that it lias never been so high as at the present time. Humboldt states that 
 vastly the majority of the annual production of Mexico has through all times been derived 
 from the mother veins alluded to above, and still at this day they furnish at least three-fourths 
 of it, though each of them has repeatedly been abandoned as unprofitable. They would be 
 inexhaustible sources of wealth if the increase of expenses attending the growing depth did 
 not put a limit to all profitable mining. 
 
 "The equality of produce of the Mexican mines is probably partly due to the prevalence 
 of true silver ores through all levels. The Hungarian offer less favorable conditions, as the 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 35 
 
 The water which gathers in mines at Virginia City, although the deepest there 
 is not half so deep as in many in Mexico, is very great, and a tunnel or adit-level 
 is necessary to secure drainage and vuutilation and procure a cheap mode of ex- 
 tracting the ore and of exploring the lode. Fortunately the lode is situated on 
 a mountain side, and there is an opportunity of draining the lode to a depth of 
 two thousand feet by cutting an adit three and three-fifths miles. The expense 
 will be several millions of dollars, but the saving will be far more. Considera- 
 tions like these led to the formation of the Sutro Tunnel Company, which 
 received a franchise from the legislature of the State and a grant of land from 
 
 ores, on account of the pieviously mentioned increase of lead and copper in depth, undergo 
 a real deterioration. Yet they have evidently had fit upper levels their concentrated bodies 
 of rich ore. Such have been extracted at Schemnitz within the time of historical record, 
 while their former existence at Felsobanya may be inferred from the shape and character of 
 the old Roman works near the oat-cropt>inga. 
 
 "Lotus now return to the Comstock vein, the ' veto, ntadrc' 1 of Washoe, and examine 
 what conclusions as to its future we are justified in drawing from the present condition of the 
 explorations. In the first place, we have mentioned the fact that the ores through all the levels 
 explored retain their character of true silver ores which they had near the surface. The amount 
 of lead, copper, iron, and zinc has never been large in the Comstock ores, and these metals 
 preserve now, at the lowest level, nearly the same relative proportion as formerly. Their 
 increase, especially of lead, would be the most unfavorable indication for the future of the 
 Comstock lode, as, besides the growing difficulty of metallurgical treatment, the conclusion 
 would be justified that lead ores would more and more replace those of silver, and the limits 
 of profitable productiveness would soon be reached. But as it is, no deterioration is to be 
 led, even it'an impoverishment takes place. It thut- approaches in its ore-bearing char- 
 acter the gre.-it mutiu r-veins of Mexico, and is different from those of Hungary. But eveu 
 the reasons fur an impoverishment are by no means so evident as might appear at first sight. 
 There have been, it is true, bonanzas near the surface, which surpassed in richness all those 
 worked upon in later times. As such may be mentioned the bonanzas of tho Ophir, the Gould 
 & Curry, and the western body of ore in Gold Bill. Their richness and the facilities of 
 their extraction co-operated in making the latter exceedingly profitable. Yet the production" 
 of the Comstock vein did not, at the time when it was solely derived from these surface-bonan- 
 zas, reach the figure it attained after the exhaustion of their principal portion. One of the 
 reasons is that then the ore was concentrated within narrow limits, while as the greater depth 
 was attained the distribution of the ores was much more general, though their standard was 
 lower. New bodies of ore had been discovered, commencing at a depth of from one hundred 
 and fifty to three hundred feet below the surface, such as the continuous sheets of ore in tho 
 eastern part of the lode in the Gold Hill mines and the Yellow Jacket, and the similar-con- 
 stitited one in Chollar-Potosi. None of them contain, excepting a few narrow streaks or 
 bunches, ores of equal richness with those of which the surface-bonanzas were composed. 
 But their extent so far exceeds that of the latter as to make up, by the increased amount of 
 daily extraction, for the inferior yield. The profits of working are of course greatly dimin- 
 ished. These bodies of ore have continued to the deepest levels reached in the Comstock 
 mines, varying in width and extent, and also in their yield. The latter did not increase, but 
 in some instances, as in the. southern part of Gold Hill, decreased with the growing width of 
 the deposit, while in others no material change is perceptible. 
 
 "Few new bodies of ore made their appearance below the level of three hundred feet. 
 Foremost in importance among them are two bodies discovered at seven hundred feet below 
 the surface of the Hale & Ncrcross works, one of which is on ground supposed heretofore to 
 be unproductive. 
 
 " Considering these facts exhibited by the Comstock vein itself, and comparing with them 
 what is known about similar argentiferous veins, we believe ourselves to be justified in 
 drawing the following 1 conclusions: 
 
 " 1st. That the continuity of the ore-bearing character of the Comstock lode in depth must, 
 notwithstanding local interruptions, be assumed as a fact of equal certainty with the continuity 
 of the vein itself. 
 
 "&3. That it may positively be assumed that the ores in the Comstock lode will retain 
 their character of true silver ores to indefinite depth. 
 
 "3d. That it is highly probable that extensive bodies of ores equal in richness to the sur- 
 face-bonanzas will never occur in depth. 
 
 "4th. That an increase in size of the bodies of ore in depth is more probable than a de- 
 crease, and that they are more likely to increase than to remain of the same size as heretofore. 
 
 "5th. That a considerable portion of the ore will, as to its yield, not materially differ at any 
 depth from what it is at the present lower levels, while, besides, there will be an increasing 
 bulk of lower-grade ores. We are led to this supposition by the similarity in character of all 
 the deposits outside of the rich surface-bonanzas and the homogeneous nature which almost 
 every one of them exhibits throughout its entire extent. 
 
36 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Congress, and met with the encouragement of the great companies mining on 
 the lode, all of which signed contracts with the company binding themselves to 
 pay a certain sum for every ton taken from their mines after the completion of 
 the tunnel. Although the work has not been commenced, the project has fair 
 prospects, and it occupies an important place in the history of mining in Nevada. 
 The miners at Virginia City will never be content to abandon that plan of 
 
 drainage. 
 
 40. COLUMBIA BASIN AND CARIBOO MINES. 
 
 The first mines in what is now Idaho Territory were found in the bars of 
 Clearwater river in the spring of 1860, and those of the Salmon river were 
 opened in a few months later. The placers of Boise were struck in 1862, those 
 of Owyhee in 1863, and the quartz veins of Owyhee and Alturas began to at- 
 tract attention in 1S64. In eastern Oregon the placers of Powder and Burnt- 
 rivers were discovered in 1861, and those of John Day's river in the following 
 year. 
 
 None of the Idaho or Oregon placers have proved so rich, so extensive, or so 
 durable as those of California, although they have yielded considerable amounts 
 of gold. The deep diggings of Cariboo, 500 miles from Victoria, in the upper 
 part of Eraser valley, were discovered in 1859, and the placers in the shallow 
 bars and creeks at the Big Bend of the Columbia, in the territory of British 
 Columbia, in 1865. California had to send miners to all these places. 
 
 The number who went to Idaho was, probably, 20,000; and in 1866 at least 
 5,000 migrated to Montana. 
 
 It was also in this year that a rumor became current that rich placers had 
 been discovered at Barbacoas, in New Granada, and the result was the migra- 
 tion and bitter disappointment of about a thousand men, who found nothing to 
 reward their trouble. 
 
 "6th. That the ore will shift at different levels, from certain portions of the lode to others, 
 a? it has done up to the present time. More equality in its distribution may, however, be ex- 
 pected below the junction of the branches radiating toward the surface, when the vein will 
 probably fill a more uniform arid more regular channel. Some mines which have been here- 
 tofore almost unproductive, as the Central, California, Bullion, and others, have therefore 
 good chances of becoming 1 metalliferous in depth. But throughout the extent of the vein, it 
 is most likely that the portion which lies next to the foot-wall will continue unproductive, as 
 it did from the surface down to the lowest w r orks, while the entire portion between it and the 
 hanging wall must be considered as the probable future source of ore. As remarked in the 
 foregoing pages, it is also probable that repeatedly, in following the lode downward, branches 
 will be found rising from its main body vertically into the hanging wall and consisting of 
 clay of quartz. Many of them will probably be ore-bearing. Such bodies of ore should be 
 sought for, at all the mines, in what is generally supposed to be the eastern country. Expe- 
 rience in upper levels would lead to the supposition that such eastern bodies might carry richer 
 ores than the average of the main portion of the vein. 
 
 "7th. That the intervention of a barren zone, as is reported by good authorities to occur 
 at the Veta Madre of Guanajuato at the depth of twelve hundred feet, is not at all likely to be 
 met with in the case of the Comstqck lode. The argument which we have to adduce for this 
 conclusion has some weight from a geological point of view. It is a well known fact that 
 the enclosing rocks have usually great influence on the quantity and quality of the ores of 
 certain metals in mineral veins, and that a rich lode passing into a different formation fre- 
 quently becomes barren or poor. At the Veta Madre of Guanajuato a sudden decrease in the 
 yield of the ore at the depth of twelve hundred feet attends the passage of the lode into a dif- 
 ferent formation, which from thence continues to the lowest depth attained. No such change 
 can be anticipated for the Comstock lode, since the structure of the country seems to indicate 
 the continuity of the enclosing rocks to an indefinite depth. 
 
 " In winding up these considerations, we come to the positive conclusion that the amount 
 of nearly fifty million dollars, which have been extracted from the Comstock lode, is but a 
 small proportion of the amount of silver waiting future extraction in the virgin portions of the 
 vein, from the lowest level explored down to indefinite deptli ; but that, from analogy with 
 other argentiferous veins, as well as from facts observed on the Comstock lode, the diffusion 
 of the silver through extensive deposits of middle and low grade ores is far more probable 
 than its accumulation in bodies of rich ore." 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 37 
 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL FORMATION, ETC., OF PACIFIC SLOPE. 
 
 REPORT OF. MR. WILLIAM ASHBURNER, MINING ENGINEER, MEMBER OF TPIE STATE 
 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CALIFORNIA, &c. 
 
 1. Gold mining interest of California. 2. Characteristics of the gold-belt. 3. Northern 
 mining districts. 4. Mining in the sierras ; mills, expenses, &c. 
 
 1. GOLD MINING INTEREST OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, November , 1866. 
 
 In accordance with the request you made me some time since, I beg leave to 
 submit the following report upon the present condition of the gold mining inter- 
 est of California, so far as it can be ascertained. The absence of all pfublished 
 documents of a reliable nature, with the exception of those recently issued by 
 the geological survey of the State, make it a matter of considerable difficulty to 
 arrive at results which shall have the merit of being perfectly trustworthy, and 
 the only means of obtaining them is by personal examination by competent in- 
 dividuals of the various gold fields throughout the State. Everybody will ac- 
 knowledge that accurate statistics of the results obtained throughout the exten- 
 sive mineral regions of the United States, particularly those where the precious 
 metals are found, and published under the official sanction of the government, 
 would be of the greatest value. If properly compiled they in themselves alone 
 would go far to remove the great ignorance which prevails in the public mind 
 with regard to many important facts bearing upon the question of mining, and 
 enable people to judge for themselves how far the great majority of those wild 
 assertions which are so frequently made by amateur visitors and newspaper 
 correspondents are likely to be true. It is from this class of writers who, 
 from their education, are not qualified to weigh and appreciate the value of 
 statements made to them, generally by interested and enthusiastic persons 
 that nearly all the information which the public now possesses of the gold and 
 silver mines of this country is derived. 
 
 It is universally conceded that the great objection to mining is its uncertainty, 
 and that, while in some cases the profits are large, the risks are more than pro- 
 portionably great, and the cautious capitalist hesitates before embarking upon a 
 mining enterprise, feeling that a shroud of mystery envelops the whole ques- 
 tion, and that he may be placing himself blindfolded in the hands of evil and 
 designing persons. 
 
 The mineral resources of many of the States have been under scientific inves- 
 tigation since 1830 ; but it was in 1844 that the first district for mining other 
 minerals than coal and iron was opened up upon the shores of Lake Superior. 
 Then followed a wild excitement in mines, which seems to have continued pe- 
 riodically since that time, upon the discovery of new and valuable mines. In 
 1863-'64 attention was particularly directed to the silver and gold mines of 
 Nevada and Colorado. No statements seemed too gross to be made, or too im- 
 probable to be believed. Tracts in the midst of the desert covered with sage 
 brush, and miles distant from any mineral-bearing vein, were located, companies 
 formed, prospectuses issued, and considerable sums of money actually expended 
 in search of mines which by no possibility could exist in such places. 
 
 A thorough survey of the various mining districts which are now attracting 
 so much attention both at home and abroad would confer incalculable benefit upon 
 the country at large, and every means should be employed to bring before the 
 public information of such a reliable nature that the capitalist may be guided in 
 his investments, and the field of the prospector for new mines be restricted to 
 
38 KESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 those comparatively limited districts where there is any chance of their efforts 
 being successful. Money and time uselessly expended in running, prospecting, 
 tunnels, or in sinking shafts that can never be turned to any account, is so 
 much loss of capital and labor taken from the productive industry of the country 
 at large. It was estimated that in 1862-'63 there were some 30,000 persons 
 in this State and on its immediate borders engaged in prospecting for gold, sil- 
 ver, and copper; and it is a notorious fact that not even one per cent, of the 
 claims discovered by those persons have ever proved remunerative to those who 
 invested money in their development. In 1S61-'G2 the excitement ran high on 
 copper, induced by the discovery of the Union mine in Calaveras county, and in 
 a few months the Sierra Nevada, from the foot-hills to their summits, were cov- 
 ered with miners fruitlessly occupied in attempting to discover new deposits? 
 which could be worked with a profit. A few months of scientific labor turned 
 in this direction would have shown how utterly futile the efforts of most of them 
 would prove, and how exceedingly limited in w r idth is the copper-bearing belt 
 of California. 
 
 The existence of gold in California was known long before the date com- 
 monly ascribed for its discovery. In several places along the Coast Ra; ge of 
 mountains between Santa Cruz and Los Angeles there were small, inconsider- 
 able "diggings" which were worked by the Mexicans, and some of them are 
 said to have yielded as much as $6,000 per annum, which, ai, that period, was 
 a considerable sum. The interest which is attached to these now is chiefly his- 
 torical, and they were generally abandoned as soon as the more extensive de- 
 posits which lie in the Sierra Nevada were made known. 
 
 It was on the 19th of January, 1848,* that the first gold east of the Coast 
 Range was discovered on the South Fork of the American river, at a place now 
 called Coloma. It was the result of accident, and although attempts were made 
 to preserve the fact a secret, the news soon spread far and wide, and by Jyly of 
 that year it is stated that the number of persons employed on the American river 
 and its branches were as many as four thousand, who were obtaining- from 
 $30,000 to $40,000 a day, and by November it is thought that from four to five 
 millions of dollars had been already extracted. It was not until a year subse- 
 quent to this discovery, or jn the spring of 1849, that commenced the most ex- 
 tensive immigration that the \vorld has ever seen. Adventurers poured into 
 California from all quarters of the globe: first from Mexico, Chili, and Peru ; 
 then from the Sandwich Islands, China, and New Holland; lastly from the 
 United States and Europe. During the six months between the first of July, 
 1849, and the first of January, 1850, it is estimated that 90,000 persons arrived 
 in California from the east by sea or across the plains, and that one-fifth of them 
 perished by disease during the six months following their arrival, such were the 
 hardships they had endured arid the privations to which they were subjected. 
 
 The western slope of the Sierra Nevada was soon covered with explorers, 
 who, with their " pans " upon their shoulders, penetrated every ravine or gulch, 
 "prospecting" the sands and washing the gravel wherever there was chance of 
 finding the precious metal. Mining towns sprang up with almost incredible 
 rapidity, and for several years they presented a scene of busy life. But the 
 shallow "diggings" soon became exhausted, and in 1851 the yield of gold was 
 higher than it has ever been since, amounting to at least $65,000,000. During 
 the last four years California has produced an average of about ^30,000,000 
 per annum of gold from the mines situated within her borders. At least ninety 
 per cent, of the total production reaches San Francisco by public conveyance, 
 and by some it is considered that even a larger proportion is transported in this 
 manner. In order to arrive at the present production, and compare it with what 
 has been produced in former years, we must take the amount of uncoined bul- 
 
 * History of California by Franklin Tuthill, p. 226. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 39 
 
 lion which is known to have arrived here from the various mining districts, and 
 add say ten per cent, for that brought by private hands. At the same time that 
 this means is far from affording all the accuracy desired, it will give a closer 
 approximation to the truth than any other. 
 
 Referring to the San Francisco Mercantile Gazette, which obtains and pub- 
 lishes regularly the amount of coin and bullion received in San Francisco from 
 all sources, we find that the receipts of uncoined treasure from the interior, in- 
 clusive of that from Nevada, have been as follows during the last four years : 
 
 Production of gold from California during tlie last four years. 
 
 1862. 
 
 1863. 
 
 1864. 
 
 1865. 
 
 From the northern mines. 
 From the southern mines. 
 
 $30. 948, 369 
 ! 6,601,509 
 
 $33,936,771 
 5,610,094 
 
 $34,782,312 
 5, 347, 778 
 
 $36, 649, 337 
 5,108,413 
 
 Total bullion receipts 
 
 Deduct bullion from Nevada. 
 
 Add 1 per cent, for Arrivals in pri- 
 vate hands 
 
 :J7, 549, 878 
 6, 000, 000 
 
 39,546,865 
 12,433,915 
 
 40, 130, 090 
 15, 900, 000 
 
 41,757,750 
 15, 800, 000 
 
 31,549,878* 
 
 27,112,950 
 2,711,295 
 
 24, 230, 090 
 2, 423, 009 
 
 25, 957, 750 
 2, 595, 775 
 
 34, 704, 866 
 
 29, 824, 245 
 
 26, 653, 099 
 
 28,553,525 
 
 Probable production for 1866, based upon the receipts of the jirst nine months 
 
 of the present year. 
 
 Northern mines, exclusive, of Nevada bullion $19,719,900 
 
 Southern mines 3,385,0] 
 
 23,104,910 
 Add 10 percent, for arrivals in private hands 2,310,491 
 
 25,415,401 
 
 If we compare this production with that of the Australian gold fields during 
 the last three years, we find that these latter have produced as follows : 
 
 1863 1,627,066 ounces. 
 
 1864 : 1,545,450 ounces. 
 
 1865 1,556,088 ounces. 
 
 The Australian gold is of remarkable fineness, averaging about T 9 2 oV' an( ^ 
 worth, consequently, $19 04 an ounce. This would be, in our currency, as 
 follows : 
 
 1863 $30,984,336 
 
 1864 29,425,368 
 
 1865 29,627,916 
 
 The mineral statistics which are published annually by the colony of Victoria 
 give much valuable information concerning the present situation of the gold 
 mining interest in Australia, and from them the above information has been 
 gathered. The average earnings of the miners in this colony have been as 
 follows during the last three years : 
 
 Alluvial miners. Quartz miners. 
 
 1863 $487 45 $596 24 per annum. 
 
 1864 296 69 632 44 per annum. 
 
 1S65 323 32 491 36 per annum. 
 
40 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 We have for this coast no statistics which will enable us to arrive at the 
 average earnings of the miners in California with the same degree of accuracy, 
 but there does not seem any reason to suppose that they are greater here than 
 in Australia. 
 
 During the year 1864, of 1,54/5,450 ounces of gold exported from this colony, 
 about one-third, or 503,618 ounces, were supposed to have been derived from 
 the quartz mines. This proportion of two to one must be very nearly the 
 relation which the gold produced from the placer diggings of California bears 
 to that from the quartz mines, which probably does not exceed $8,000,000 or 
 $9,000,000 per annum. 
 
 2. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GOLD BELT. 
 
 The auriferous belt of California extends from the Tejon pass, in latitude 35, 
 to the northern extremity of the State, or for a distance of about five hundred 
 miles. The principal gold fields, however, and that portion of the State which 
 has produced most largely, lies between about latitude 37 and the North Fork 
 of the Feather river, or over a distance not exceeding two hundred and fifty 
 miles. Towards the south this gold-bearing range is narrow, rarely exceeding 
 twenty-five miles in width. As we proceed north, however, it widens rapidly, 
 and along the Feather and Yuba rivers it reaches from th*e lower foot-hills of 
 the Sierra Nevada to the central axis of the mountains, or over a width of fifty 
 miles from east to west. There are other diggings in the more northern part of 
 the State, bounded by the Trinity, Upper Sacramento, and Klamath rivers, 
 which at one time were valuable, and yielded largely, but now the principal in- 
 terest attaches to those deep placers lying between the forks of the Yuba, those 
 deposits which underlie the volcanic formation in many places on the auriferous 
 belt as far south as Tuolurnnc county what are known as the cement diggings 
 and the quartz mines which are to be found between Tulare county on the 
 south and Plumas county on the north. The " shallow diggings," which were 
 formerly so immensely rich, and which attracted the first attention of the miner, 
 are now, for the most part, hopelessly exhausted ; but, notwithstanding this, 
 by far the greater proportion of the total gold production of California is still 
 derived from the " washings," hydraulic and others ; and this will undoubtedly 
 continue to be the case until those immense auriferous deposits lying in the 
 northern part of the State, principally in Nevada county, are exhausted. No- 
 thing but an accurate survey will give any thing like an approximation as to the 
 length of time which will be required to work them out at the present rate. Now 
 we have only the wildest conjectures and statements, the result of hasty exam- 
 inations, as to their extent and the probable amount of gold contained in them. 
 At the present time, about eighty per cent, of the gold produced from the mines 
 of California is derived from those lying north of the Mokelumne river, and the 
 production from the southern mines, or those situated between Mariposa and 
 Calaveras counties, is decreasing every year. Probably only about one-third 
 of the gold productions of California comes from the quartz mines, leaving two- 
 thirds to be furnished by the placer and cement diggings, or those sources of 
 supply other than veins. Unfortunately, too little of a reliable nature is now 
 known with regard to these latter for me to venture upon an intelligent expo- 
 sition of them; but enough is known concerning the former to predict that 
 quartz mining will continue to be one of the most lasting, as well as profitable, 
 interests of this State, and there now seems no reason to anticipate that Cali- 
 fornia will cease to be one of the principal gold-producing countries of the world 
 for many years to come. I will therefore confine myself entirely to a descrip- 
 tion of a few of the more noted quartz mines of the State, showing, when it is 
 possible, the amount of profit realized from the working of the quartz, its average 
 yield, the expenses attending the milling and mining, and giving such other 
 facts as may be considered as illustrating the present condition of 4his industry 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 41 
 
 The principal quartz mining districts of California are in Tulare county, about 
 Clear creek ; in Mariposa county, on the Mariposa estate and its immediate 
 neighborhood, and also round about Centreville, north of the Merced river; in 
 Tuolumne county, within a few miles of Sonora, at Soulesbeyville, and near 
 Jamestown ; in Calaveras county, at Angels ; in Amador county, near Jackson 
 and Sutter creek ; in El Dorado county at Logtown and vicinity ; in Nevada 
 county at Grass valley and Nevada; in Sierra county within a few miles of 
 Downieville ; in Plumas county at Indian valley and on Jamieson creek. These 
 localities were nearly all centres of placer diggings before quartz mining became 
 so important. an industry. The width of this quartz-bearing range is, however, 
 much narrower than that occupied by the placer workings, and while rarely more 
 than twentv miles in width, is generally much less. 
 
 The number of veins in this belt is almost innumerable, but the proportion of 
 those which contain gold in sufficient quantity to pay is exceedingly small. 
 
 The most reliable publication which has recently appeared with regard to the 
 quartz veins of California was issued by the State geological survey in April, 
 1866. The statistics were compiled by Mr. A. Rdrnond, and give several im- 
 portant particulars with regard to the mills and mines in the region between the 
 JMerced and Stanislaus rivers. The district embraced by this report is about 
 thirty miles long by from fifteen to twenty in width. Seventy-seven mines and 
 sixty-five mills were examined and reported upon, and of these fifty-six mines 
 and twenty-three mills were being worked at the time of Mr. Remond's visit. 
 So far as the mere number of the veins is concerned this region probably con- 
 tains as many with features sufficiently promising to warrant exploration as any 
 other district of eo|ual size in California. The actual amount of capital invested 
 in the erection of the mills examined has been $430,300, and in addition to this 
 a considerable sum has been spent in the construction of roads, flumes, and 
 ditches, and by far the larger proportion of this whole sum has been expended 
 since 1862, particularly in the years 1864-'65, and therefore several of the 
 mills may be considered as experimental, and the veins upon which they are 
 situated as not having been proved sufficiently to be able to state whether the 
 yield as given to him by the proprietor will be lasting. It is certain that the 
 gross production of this region from the quartz mines now being worked is not 
 very large, nor does it as yet compare favorably with several other districts not 
 nearly so extensive. The greater number of these veins vary in width from about 
 one foot to two feet six inches, while in one case there is a vein noted which is 
 twenty-five feet in width and another fifteen feet. The average width of all the 
 veins examined would appear to be about three feet. The " country rock," or 
 the rock in which the quartz veins of California are incased, is for the most part 
 either slate, granite, or greenstone, and it is not yet determined which of these 
 three formations can be regarded as furnishing the most prolific mines, for we 
 have in each of them veins which have produced largely, and still are continu- 
 ing to do so, though several of them have attained a considerable depth. 
 
 In Mariposa county, and particularly upon the Mariposa estate, the most noted 
 veins are in the slate and have a direction and dip nearly coincident with the 
 general stratification of the enclosing rock. The principal mine in the district 
 is the Princeton, which lias produced between two and three millions of dollars. 
 It was first worked in 1852, and the quartz is said to have yielded as high as 
 seventy-five dollars per ton for a short time, but this large return was probably 
 owing to the various sulphurets contained in the quartz and associated with the 
 gold having been more or less decomposed near the surface by atmospheric 
 agencies, and the gold liberated by this means, so that the outcrops of the vein 
 were far above the average richness of the quartz. Since 1861, arid until within 
 the last year, the rock from this vein has yielded an average of $18 34 per ton, 
 while the expenses of mining have been about $6, and the cost of milling $3 25. 
 
42 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 This would show a profit over and above the expenses of working of nearly 50 
 per cent. 
 
 In the latter part of 1864 the yield of the quartz from this mine fell, almost 
 without giving any warning, from $40 to $6 per ton, and for some time ceased 
 to pay expenses. During 1865 the yield was better, but it is still far from 
 affording as satisfactory results as in former years. The depth of the main 
 shaft is nearly 650 feet, and the length of the underground workings not far 
 from 1,400 feet. It is by no means certain that this mine is exhausted, and that 
 another sinking will not open up new bodies of valuable ore. There are too 
 many examples throughout California of mines falling off rapidly in their yield, 
 and meeting with barren zones of quartz, both in depth and 'on the longitudinal 
 extension of the vein, for any one to state positively that a lode which possesses 
 so many characteristics of permanence as the Princeton should be abandoned, 
 and that it will never again prove remunerative as in past years. 
 
 Near the northern end of the Mariposa estate are two mines known as the 
 "Pine Tree" and "Josephine," which have been worked for nearly sixteen 
 years. When this property passed into the hands of General Fremont these 
 mines were considered as being among the richest as well as most reliable in 
 California, and it is perhaps to be regretted that the anticipations formed at that 
 time have never been realized, for it is mainly owing to their failure that so 
 much discredit has been cast upon the quartz mining interest both at home and 
 abroad. These two mines are situated in close proximity to each other, and 
 although they have never .been connected by underground workings they prob- 
 ably are upon one and the same vein. The Pine Tree vein has a direction 
 nearly the same as that of the slates in which it is encased, or about northwest 
 and southeast, while the Josephine runs more nearly east and west, and the 
 axes of these two veins would form at their junction an angle of about forty 
 degrees. Work is just now abandoned upon this latter mine, but is being ac- 
 tively prosecuted on the former, and the quartz is said to be paying better 
 than was formerly the case, owing to a more careful selection and thorough 
 metallurgical treatment. The outcrops of these veins are at an elevation of 
 about fifteen hundred feet above the Merced river, and can be observed from a 
 long distance to the north. Neither of them can be followed or traced individu- 
 ally for any great distance upon the surface in such a manner as to preserve 
 their identity, and in this respect they in nowise differ from the great majority 
 of gold-bearing veins in California. In fact, the experience of mining in this 
 State has all tended to prove the fact that the longitudinal extension of these 
 veins is generally very limited, and that the metalliferous portion is always 
 considerably less in length than that of the quartz itself. This remark applies 
 equally to the niimerous copper-bearing veins which have been recently dis- 
 covered, some few of which are valuable, w^iile their " extensions" are almost 
 invariably worthless. 
 
 The outcrop of these mines is a very marked and noticeable feature in the 
 landscape. They form part of what is known as the great quartz vein of 
 California; which can be traced by its prominent outcrops about seventy miles 
 . north from Mariposa county, in nearly a straight line, continuing through Tuo- 
 lumne, Calaveras, and Amador. It cannot be proved positively that this is one 
 and the same vein, on account of the many breaks and interruptions which oc- 
 cur in its course, but certain it is that throughout this distance it preserves its 
 distinguishing characteristics, both geologically and lithologically in a most re- 
 markable manner. It furnishes some of the best gold mines in California, which 
 are conspicuous for the great regularity of their yield, and the depth which they 
 have attained. Along its course and in its immediate vicinity are some of the 
 most extensive placers, which, although now for the most part exhausted, have 
 in times gone by produced so largely that while worked they were regarded as 
 being among the richest deposits in California. It must not be presumed that 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 43 
 
 tliis great vein is gold-bearing throughout its whole course, or that even a nota- 
 ble proportion of the quartz which rises .into peaks and mountains between 
 Mariposa and Amador counties is auriferous. It is only here and there at wide 
 intervals that mines can be found which can be worked with a profit. Mr. Re- 
 mond enumerates twenty as being found in the region which he examined, 
 many of which are undoubtedly still experimental enterprises, and may yet be 
 abandoned. 
 
 The yield of the quartz from the mines situated on this great vein is gene- 
 rally low and somewhat under the average of the Calif >rnia quartz, but the gold- 
 bearing portion of the vein is always of greater width than elsewhere, and the 
 quartz can be mined at less expense than in those veins which are narrow and 
 encased in the harder varieties of metamorphic rock. 
 
 The gross production of the Pine Tree and Josephine mines has been, un- 
 doubtedly, very large, though it is utterly impossible to state, with any degree 
 of approximation, what it was previous to 1860. Since June, I860, the quartz 
 from these two mines lias been treated at the Benton mills, on the Merced river, 
 and from the time they commenced running until March of the following year the 
 gross yield was about $ 1 55,000. The quartz near the surface paid much better than 
 that which has been worked at the Benton mills. Not only does it appear to have 
 been absolutely somewhat richer, but, owing to the decomposition of the sulphurets 
 which existed in the Josephine, rock in large proportions, it lent itself to a more 
 ready amalgamation. Also, as it was worked in a ten-stamp mill, of compara- 
 tively email capacity to the Benton mills, which have sixty-four stamps, the 
 miiiipg superintendent was able to select his quartz with much more ease, and 
 send only the better quality to the mill.. The quartz from these mines in 1860 
 averaged about $9 per ton, and gradually grew poorer as the richer portions of 
 the vein were, worked out. The cost of mining, milling, and transportation 
 amounted to about $5 50 per ton. This amount of $9 per ton is what was 
 actually obtained in the mill, although there seems every reason to suppose that 
 much more gold than that was really contained in the quartz, and, in fact, more 
 has been lost and allowed to run to waste than has been secured. On several 
 occasions attempts have been made to ascertain what proportion was lost and 
 what saved, and it would appear that in the case of this quartz not more than 
 forty per cent, of the gold actually contained in it was saved in the process of 
 milling. The cause of this appears to be almost entirely owing to the very fine 
 state of subdivision in which it exists, for very few specimens show any gold 
 visible to the naked eye. Experiments are now being conducted on the Mari- 
 posa estate which seem to confirm this view, for on treating the quartz which 
 formerly only returned $10 or $15 per ton, by more careful methods of amal- 
 gamation, it has been made to yield between $40 and $50. It is not to be presumed 
 from this statement that all the vein consists of quartz of this richness; but 
 there is a large amount which will certainly yield, by improved processes of 
 treatment, much more than it has ever been possible to obtain from it by the ordi- 
 nary rough method. 
 
 3. NORTHERN MINING DISTRICTS. 
 
 As we proceed northward from Mariposa county, the next most interesting 
 mine we meet with, situated upon the "Great Vein," is the App, near James- 
 town, a few miles from Soriora, the county seat of Tuolumne. This mine has 
 been worked almost uninterruptedly for nine years. The average yield of the 
 quartz has been at the rate of $ 15 52 per ton, and the expenses of mining and 
 milling have not exceeded $7 47 per ton. The yearly yield during this period 
 has varied from $13 26 to $19 47 per ton, and the lowest monthly return was 
 at the rate of $12 15; but even then a considerable profit was realized over and 
 above the expenses. The lower works of this mine now present as fine an 
 
44 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 appearance as they have ever done, and when we regard the length of time 
 during which it has been successfully worked, the great regularity of the yield 
 of the quartz, and the various characters of permanency which the vein pre- 
 serves, we have strong reasons for arguing that it will prove as persistent in 
 depth as almost any other mine in California. In its external characters the 
 quartz from this mine resembles very much that taken from the Pine Tree mine. 
 The greater proportion, however, of the gold which it contains is in such a fine 
 state of subdivision that it rarely happens that any of it is visible to the naked 
 eye, and undoubtedly a great deal escapes amalgamation and is lost. By more 
 thorough treatment in the mill, there seems every reason to suppose that the 
 yield could be largely increased. Experiments have been lately instituted and 
 they would appear to confirm this statement most fully showing that by more 
 careful amalgamation the quartz, in some instances, can be made to yield from 
 50 per cent, to 140 per cent, more gold without a corresponding increase 
 in the expense of treatment. Attention is now being given to this important 
 matter throughout California, and experiments are being made in several mills 
 to ascertain to what extent the gold is lost in the process of treatment, and how 
 far it will be economical to erect new machinery for the purpose of saving it. 
 The gold which is contained in the auriferous quartz exists either in such minute 
 particles as to be quite invisible, and not distinguishable from the quartz itself, 
 else in pieces of larger size, which can be readily seen and separated by pul- 
 verization and washing, or by the simplest forms of amalgamation, or else com- 
 bined, probably mechanically, with the sulphurets of iron, zinc, and* lead. In 
 the first and last cases it is amalgamated with great difficulty, and it rarely hap- 
 pens in any of the mills of California that more than a small proportion of the 
 gold is saved. When, however, it is in the state of free gold, as in the second 
 instance, a notable proportion is secured by the most simple methods, and it is 
 not likely that additional machinery would increase the yield sufficiently to pay 
 for its cost. In the quartz from a vein upon the Mariposa estate, known as the 
 "Mariposa," there are but comparatively few sulphurets present, and from 
 repeated assays made from the tailings from the mill it would appear that 
 almost 90 per cent, of the gold contained in the quartz was secured, while at 
 the Benton mills, working upon Pine Tree quartz, only between 30 or 40 
 per cent, was saved. In this connection it may not be uninteresting to show 
 what has been done in this direction in other countries, and how far it is possi- 
 ble to increase the yield of very refractory gold-bearing ores by careful working 
 and skilful treatment. One of the oldest, and, when we consider the rebellious 
 character of the ores, one of the most successful gold mines in the world is 
 that of St. John Del Key, in Brazil. The company now in possession has 
 been in operation thirty-six years, and though, like nearly every other mining 
 compan}', it has had its full share of ups and downs, the general results 
 obtained have been most satisfactory to the shareholders, and it was only 
 through the most careful, economical management of both the mining and 
 milling departments that this end has been arrived at. There is no quartz 
 mine in California which has ores in any quantity of so complex a nature or 
 of so difficult a treatment as those of St. John Del Key. They consist prin- 
 cipally of specular iron mixed with sulphuret of iron, magnetic pyrites and 
 quartz. The auriferous mass at this mine is about forty-four feet in width, and, 
 like most of the gold-bearing veins of California, dips with the rocks in the 
 vicinity at an angle of about 45 to the southeast. * 
 
 The vertical depth upon which this deposit has been worked is now 1,068 
 feet. Before the present company came into possession it had been worked 
 for a hundred years, and was considered exhausted. 
 
 A recent number of the London Mining Journal gives some interesting details 
 
 * Whitney's Metallic Wealth of tlie United States, p 1J2. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 45 
 
 with regard to the present financial position of this company, and as these favor- 
 able results were only obtained by economy in the management and skilful 
 treatment of the ores, which yield far less than the average of California quartz, 
 I will give a condensed statement of their operations for the last thirty-six years. 
 The effective capital of the company is < 129,000, divided into 1,100 shares, and 
 there has been paid in dividends d756,245, or ,68 15*. per share. There is on 
 hand a reserve fund of c41,506, and the value of the property of the mine is 
 estimated at c209,743, showing a total profit during the thirty-six years' work- 
 ing of < 1,007, 494. The produce of the mine during this period has been 
 ,2,902,480, and the expenses cl, 894,986, or 653 per cent, of the gross re- 
 ceipts. The average yield of the ore raised and treated has been at the rate of 
 4 oitavas per ton of 2,240 pounds. This is equivalent to about $S 50, or 
 $7 59 reduced to the usual Califorinia ton of 2,000 pounds. The yield for the 
 last three years has been as follows : ' 
 
 1863, 5,787 oitavas per ton, at $1 89 per oitava, $10 94; 1864, 4,827 oitavas 
 per ton, at $1 89 per oitava, $9 12 ; 1865, 5,479 oitavas per ton, at $1 89 per 
 ton, $10 36. 
 
 During this period of the total amount of gold contained in the ore there was 
 extracted the following percentage : 
 
 1863, 72.35 per cent. ; 1864, 75.52 per cent. ; 1865, 77,95 per cent. 
 
 The various processes heretofore employed in California for amalgamating 
 gold have been of the simplest possible description, and, although probably in a 
 majority of instances where the gold was clean, free and uncombined with the 
 sulphurets of iron, lead, copper, and zinc with which it is so frequently associ- 
 ated, these methods worked well, and the erection of expensive machinery, 
 which would necessitate slower working 1 , would not be warranted by the facts 
 of the case. Yet it has often happened, particularly in those mines situated 
 upon the course of the " Great Vein," that quartz which has been known to con- 
 tain gold in paying quantities has not yielded when treated in the mill more 
 than sufficient to pay expenses, and sometimes has been worked at a loss. This 
 would appear to be chiefly owing to the inefficiency of the apparatus employed 
 to collect and save the gold, which may have been in a very fine state of sub- 
 division, or coated with a thin film of oxide of iron arising from the decomposi- 
 tion of pyrites, which prevents the mercury from adhering to it without the use 
 of more vigorous mechanical or chemical means than are usually employed. 
 
 At and near Sutter creek, in Amador county, there are several very excel- 
 lent mines situated upon the course of the " Great Vein." The most noted of 
 these is that belonging to Messrs. Hay ward & Co., and known as the Eureka. 
 This mine has been worked for about eleven years, and has produced probably nearly 
 as much gold as any other in California. The quartz has never averaged very 
 high, and the principal production has been from ores of a low grade, not yield- 
 ing probably more than from $10 to $15 per ton. The mine is situated at the 
 junction of the slates and greenstone, the hanging or eastern wall of the vein 
 being of the latter material, hard and compact, while the foot-wall is of a dark 
 and soft argillaceous slate. The depth of the lowest workings is now 1,213 feet 
 on the incline of the vein, which makes this shaft the deepest in the United 
 States. The length of the underground workings is about 600 feet, and at the 
 north and south extremities the vein thins out rapidly. The richest portion 
 of this vein appeared to be at a depth of between 1,000 and 1,100 feet, where 
 the quartz is said to have yielded nearly $30 a t-n. The great depth attained 
 in this mine shows conclusively that we cannot draw any general conclusions 
 with regard to exhaustion of quartz veins at an inconsiderable depth. It is true 
 that in nearly every quartz mine of California the outcrop has been found to be 
 much richer than the main body of the vein at even a short distance from the 
 surface, but it must be borne in mind that many of the veins, and in fact a 
 majority of them, contained gold associated with various mineral sulphurets, 
 
IP 
 46 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 which were decomposed and the gold infiltrated down for some distance below 
 the suiface of the ground, causing the upper portion to appear abnormally rich. 
 Thus the gold contained in the first few feet of the vein may be the result of 
 the degradation of many tons of quartz ajpd the decomposition of a large quan- 
 tity of sulphurets. It is only by taking the results afforded by the treatment 
 of quartz during a series of months that anything like a correct average of the 
 value of the ore can be obtained, and although this Eureka mine has probably 
 yielded as regularly as any other prominent mine in California, it has been sub- 
 ject to great irregularities, and frequently the quartz has barely paid expenses. 
 The popular idea that mineral -bearing veins grow richer as they are worked 
 upon in depth, is a fallacy, and has no truth either in theory or fact ; nor can 
 we say that true veins, as distinct from veins of segregation and mineral deposits, 
 grow poorer as we proceed downwards. I do not suppose there is a metalli- 
 ferous vein in the world that is equally rich for any considerable distance, either 
 lengthwise or up and down, and the valuable portion is almost always very 
 limitel in extent compared with the main body of the vein. Some of the silver 
 veins of Mexico, which have produced such enormous sums, have been traced 
 for miles, and on their course have furnished many valuable mines, but by far 
 the greater proportion of the vein has been barren and unproductive. The Oom- 
 stock vein of Nevada, which has already produced upwards of $60,000,000 
 worth of bullion, has been productive only over about one-seventh of its explored 
 length. 
 
 These remarks apply with great force to the gold quartz veins of this coast. 
 The ore exists iii bunches or else in shoots or chimneys which cut the axis of 
 the vein at every conceivable angle between the horizontal and the vertical, and 
 these are always less than the length of the vein itself and sometimes than its 
 width also. 
 
 It frequently happens, that these ore-shoots have distinct terminal lines, and 
 in these cases the experienced miner is enabled to select his ore and avoid ex- 
 tracting that which he knows is too poor to pay. On other occasions, however, 
 it would appear that the gold is distributed without any regularity and appa- 
 rently in the most capricious manner. When we consider the richness of the 
 veins, the length of time that some of the mines have been worked, and the 
 amount of gold annually produced, the most important quartz mining region of 
 California is without any doubt that of Grass valley, in Nevada county. Here 
 mines have been worked uninterruptedly since 1851. It is true there have been 
 periods when the interest jvas more than usually depressed and several of the 
 mines, which are now regarded as being among the best, were thought to be ex- 
 hausted, and abandoned for the time being, but in many instances when work 
 was resumed new bodies of gold-bearing quartz were opened up which proved 
 rich and valuable. The veins in this district, and particularly those which have 
 been the most productive, are noted for their narrowness as well as for the rich- 
 ness of the quartz. They are incased in a hard metamorphic rock, and the ex- 
 penses of mining are, as a general thing, higher here than anywhere else in 
 California, amounting, as they do in some instances, to from $20 to $26 per ton. 
 Within the last fourteen years the total production from the quartz mines of the 
 Grass Valley district has not been far from $23,000,000. The most prolific 
 vein has been that situated upon Massachusetts and Gold Hill, which alone has 
 produced more than $7,000,000 worth of gold during this time from a lode which 
 will only average a foot or fourteen inches in width. 
 
 The " Eureka" is another prominent and leading mine in this vicinity. One 
 great feature of interest connected with it is the gradual improvement of the 
 quartz as greater depth has been attained upon the vein, which varies in width 
 from three to four feet. This mine was first worked in 1854, and more or less 
 ever since that period. About one year ago the property changed hands, and 
 since that time the yield of the mine has been greater than at any previous 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 47 
 
 time. When this vein was. first worked and down to a depth of about thirty- 
 five feet from the surface, the yield of the quartz was from $6 to $12 per 
 ton, which but little more than paid expenses. Below this level the value of 
 the quartz rapidly increased from 814 to $21, and at the one hundred foot 
 level the quartz paid at the rate of $28 ; at the two hundred foot level the 
 average was about $37, and now, between the second, and third levels or three 
 hundred feet from the surface the .average yield has been during the last four 
 months at the rate of over $60 per ton. The quartz contains from two to 
 three per cent, of sulplmrcts of iron, which are said to assay generally about 
 $300 per ton,- and are regarded as being amang the richest in Grass valley. 
 These sul,.hun.-rrf are-worked by parties in the neighborhood, who charge $50 
 per ton and n:;uni whatever gold id extracted to the proprietors pf the mine. 
 During the f'nur months which preceded the first of October the mine produced 
 42,227 x- tons of quartz, which yielded $255,072 55. and the expenses of mining 
 and milling were $67,320 83, leaving as profit $187,751 72. The average 
 yield of the quartz during the period Avas at the rate of $60 33 per ton. Dur- 
 ing the whole year the amount of quartz worked was 11.375JJ tons, which pro- 
 duced $526,431 41, at an expense of $168,389 23, leaving as profit for the whole 
 year $368,042 IS The average yield per ton was $47 15, and the average cost 
 of mining and milling was $13 75, leaving a profit of $33 40 per ton. 
 
 4. MINING IN THE SIERRAS; MILLS, EXPENSES, &c. 
 
 In thus dismissing the Grass Valley district with only a brief description of 
 two of its leading mines, I do not intend to detract at all from its past, present, 
 or future importance, for there is no region in California, or probably upon the 
 Pacific coast, where, by a careful study of the numerous veins in this neigh- 
 borhood, so much information could be obtained which would throw light upon 
 the vexed questions relating to gold mining and the metallurgical treatment o 
 the quartz. 
 
 As we proceed north from Nevada county, the next most important quartz 
 mining district is in the mountainous region round about Downieville, the county 
 seat of Sierra. The placer mines in this vicinity have been exceedingly rich, 
 and Fin-passed only by those in Nevada county in extent and permanence. 
 Quartz mining, however, has received but comparatively little attention until 
 "within the last few years, probably owing to the rugged nature of the country 
 and the severity of the climate during the winter months. 
 
 The most noted mine in this county, as well as Uie one which has produced 
 most largely, is that known as the Sierra Buttes. This mine is about fourteen 
 miles from Downieville, at an elevation of probably not less than 7,000 feet 
 above the sea. The vein is enclosed in a hard metamorphic slate, and varies 
 in width from six to thirty feet. In the process of working, the whole thick- 
 ness of the vein is not removed, and the richer portions, which lie next the 
 fool-wall, are sent to the mill. The average width of this more productive 
 streak is about twelve feet. The. depth upon which this vein has been worked 
 is not far from 750 feet, and the quartz in the lower portion of the mine is said 
 to pay as well as that taken from the upper works. Quartz from- near the sur- 
 face of this vein was worked in arrastras as early as 1851, but the first mill was 
 erected in 1853. The present owners have been in possession of the property 
 since 1857, and the yield of the mine has been, during the last nine years, ap- 
 proximately as follows : 
 
 Gross yield. Expenses. Profits. 
 
 1857 $51,000 $15,000 $36,000 
 
 1858 55,000 15,000 40,000 
 
 1859 88 000 20,000 68,000 
 
48 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 1880 
 
 Gross yield. 
 $120 000 
 
 Expenses. 
 $37 000 
 
 Profits. 
 $83 000 
 
 1861 
 
 198 000 
 
 4 000 
 
 150 000 
 
 1862 
 
 166,000 
 
 54,000 
 
 112,000 
 
 1863 
 
 156,000 
 
 57,000 
 
 99,000 
 
 1864 
 
 90 000 
 
 75 000 
 
 15 000 
 
 1865.. .. 
 
 196 000 
 
 64 000 
 
 13-\000 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,120,000 385,000 735,000 
 
 The yield of the quartz varies generally from $14 to $17 per ton, and the 
 cause of the falling off'in the gross product during 1863-'64 was the great scarcity 
 of water, which necessitated the erection of a flume at an expense of $40,000. 
 
 The principal expenses attending the working of auriferous quartz are the 
 cost of extracting the quartz from the mine and its subsequent treatment in the 
 mill. With regard to the first no general data can be given, for the amount 
 paid for mining varies from $1 50 to $26 per ton. It is dependent upon the 
 hardness of the quartz ; the hardness of the country rock in which the vein is 
 encased ; the relation which the auriferous portion of the vein bears to that 
 which is barren ; the depth of the workings, and finally the amount of water in 
 the mine, and whether it has been drained by adits or pumping. As a general 
 rule, however, it may be assumed that in the case of large veins, or those which 
 exceed five or six feet in width, that the cost of extraction will be from $1 50 
 to $6, arid that the total cost of mining and milling will not be more than $7 
 or $8 per ton under any circumstances. 
 
 With regard to the milling expense, however, we have accurate data to fol- 
 low, and these are not much affected by change of locality. 
 
 The mills are generally situated in close proximity to the mines, for the differ- 
 ence between the cost of running a steam and a water mill is almost always less 
 than the cost of hauling the quartz for any distance by teams. The mills are 
 of nearly ail sizes and capacity, and vary from those which have only two or 
 three stamps to those which have forty-eight. The weight of these stamps is 
 from 400 Ibs. to 1,000 Ibs., and they are run at a velocity varying from 50 blows 
 to 80 blows per minute and fall from 10 to 14 inches. The favorite weight 
 would appear to be about 650 Ibs., with a fall of 12 inches and a velocity of 
 from 60 to 70 blows per minute. It is generally assumed that a ten-stamp mill, 
 with stamp of 550 Ibs., falling^! 2 inches and striking 60 blows a minute, will crush 
 12 J tons of ordinary quartz in the twenty-four hours. 
 
 The mills which are moved by water power alone are situated either on the 
 banks of rivers and streams where the water is free, or else the water is con- 
 veyed to them by a flume from some neighboring ditch and sold at a price 
 which is generally the result of special agreement. 
 
 In the case of steam mills the fuel is always a principal item of expense. 
 Wood either pine or oak is universally employed, and costs from $2 to $4 50 
 and even $5 per cord. Oak, when the two can be obtained and are equally 
 convenient of access, generally costs one-third more than pine and is regarded 
 as being nearly twice as valuable for steam purposes. The mean amount of 
 fuel consumed in the steam quartz mills of California is not far from 0.164 cord 
 for each ton stamped. The prices paid for labor in the mining towns is still 
 very high, and in many cases operates as an effectual barrier to the working of 
 some quartz mines. First class miners receive from $3 to $3 50, and in some 
 cases as high as $3 75 per day, while ordinary laborers receive from $2 to $2 50. 
 In the milling of quartz the item of labor is generally from 60 per cent, to 75 
 per cent, of the total expense. In mining the proportion which this item bears 
 to the whole cost is much greater, so that it is easy to perceive to what an ex- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 49 
 
 tent a reduction of wages would operate in favor of the quartz mining interest 
 of this coast. 
 
 The mercury that is used in the process of amalgamating is derived entirely 
 from the California mines, itnd generally costs the miner about sixty-five cents 
 per pound ; very little, however, is lost in the mills when proper care is observed, 
 and this item of expense is insignificant, for it rarely exceeds six ounces for each 
 ton of quartz treated, and frequently falls below this amount. 
 
 The average cost of milling quartz in the various mills of California may be 
 stated as follows : 
 
 In water mills, when water is free $1 22 per ton of 2,000 pounds. 
 
 In water mills, when water is purchased 1 60 per ton of 2,000 pounds. 
 
 In steam mills 2 14 per ton of 2,000 pounds. 
 
 It is very difficult to state, even approximately, what is the present average 
 yield of the quartz from the California mines. It is probable, however, that it 
 has not varied much within the last five years, and in 1861, taking the returns 
 from those mines which were at that time believed to be profitable concerns, it 
 was at the rate of $18 50 per ton. The two extremes were a mine in Grass 
 valley, which was yielding at the rate of $60 per ton, and another at Angels, 
 in Calaveras county, where the quartz only paid $5, and was still being worked 
 at a small profit. 
 
 I remain, very respectfully, yours, 
 
 WM. ASHBURNER, 
 
 Mining Engineer. 
 
 J. Ross BROWNE, Esq., Statistical Commissioner. 
 
 SECTION 3. 
 
 CONDITION QF GOLD AND SILVER MINING ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 1. Decrease of yield. 2. Export of treasure from California. 3. Receipts from northern 
 and southern mines. 4. Comparison of receipts and exports. 5. Quartz yield increasing. 
 6. Uncertainty in quartz mining. 7. Professor Ashburner's statistics. 8. Esmond's 
 statistics. 9. Pulverization of quartz. 10. Amalgamation of gold. 11. Sulphurets and 
 concentration. 12. Chlorination. 13. Gold in loose state. 14. Placers. 15. Cement 
 mining. 16. Hydraulic mining. 17. River mining. 18. The Haquard quartz mine. 19. 
 Sierra Buttes mine. 20. The Allison mine. 20^. The Eureka mine. 21. Smartsville 
 Blue Gravel Company's mine. 22. Profits of mining generally. 23. Difficulties of 
 getting good claims. 24. Comstock lode, the most productive in the world. 25. Corn- 
 stock mining companies. 26. Quajtz mills in Nevada. 27. The pan. 28. The Wheeler 
 pan. 29. The Varney pan. 30. Knox's pan. 31. Hepburn pan. 32. The Wheeler 
 & Randall pan. 33. Estimated yield of various mines. 34. Assessments levied. 35. 
 The Gould & Curry mine. 36. The Ophir mine. 37. The Savage mine. 38. The 
 Yellow Jacket mine. 39. The Crown Point mine. 40. The Hale & Norcross mine. 
 41. The Imperial mine. 42. The Empire mine. 43. Productive mines of Reese river. 
 44. Yield of various silver districts. 45. Improvements in silver mining. 
 
 1. DECREASE OF YIELD. 
 
 The first fact in the condition of gold mining in California is that the yield 
 is and for the last thirteen years has been decreasing. We know this by the 
 concurrent testimony of the miner, by the^decrease in the traffic of crude 
 bullion, and by the decline of the exports of gold. No record is kept of the 
 amounts taken from the mines, and our best evidence in regard to the produc- 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 4 
 
50 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 tion is furnished by the reports of the receipts and shipments by express and 
 steamer. From these we can get an approximation sufficiently near to serve 
 all general purposes. The gold yield of California reached its culminating 
 point in 1853, and the exportation of treasure, which rose in that year to 
 $57,000,000, gradually fell until 1861, when it was $40,000,000. Then the 
 silver of Nevada and the gold of Idaho began to come in, and the amount of 
 the shipments rose again. 
 
 2. THE EXPORTATION OF TREASURE FROM CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The following table shows the amount of treasure manifested for exportation 
 from San Francisco : 
 
 Years. Amount. 
 
 1849 $4, 92 1 , 250 
 
 1850 ..... 27, 676, 346 
 
 1851 42, 582, 695 
 
 1 852 46, 588, 434 
 
 1853 57, 330, 034 
 
 1854 51, 328,653 
 
 1855 45, 182, 631 
 
 1856 48, 880, 543 
 
 1857 48, 076, 697 
 
 1858 47, 548, 025 
 
 1859 47, 649, 462 
 
 1860 42, 203, 345 
 
 1861 40, 639, 080 
 
 1862 42, 561, 761 
 
 1863 46, 071, 920 
 
 1864 55, 707, 201 
 
 1865 44, 984, 546 
 
 Total 740, 832, 623 
 
 It is well known, however, that this sum is far less than the total production 
 of the coast. In the first place about $45,000,000 must be added for the amount 
 of gold and silver now in use in the Pacific States and Territories for currency ; 
 that amount being the estimate made by experienced bankers. 
 
 A second allowance must be made for gold jewelry and silver plate made in 
 the country, and for specimens of nuggets and rich ores, the value of which 
 may be $5,000,000. Many of the miners in remote camps bury their gold 
 dust until they are ready to return to the Atlantic coast, and $5,000,000 may 
 be laid by in that manner. But the greatest variation between the production and 
 the manifested export was caused by the custom, common among passengers 
 bound eastward, of carrying their dust or coin on their persons, so that no one 
 knew how much they took. Thus there is no manifested export for 1848, and 
 less than $5,000,000 for 1849, and less than $28,000,000 for 1850, while the 
 actual production and exportation of those years was about $100,000,000. We 
 can safely put down the amount carried away in sixteen years unmanifested at 
 $200,000,000, and by this calculation we shall have a total production of about 
 $1,000,000,000 from the coast up to the end of 1865. Of this sum all has 
 come from the mines of California, save about $100,000,000 contributed by 
 Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and British Columbia. The 
 accounts, however, of the contributions from these States and Territories have 
 not been accurately kept, with the exception of Nevada, so it is impossible to 
 give any precise statement of them. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 
 3. RECEIPTS FKOM NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN MINES. 
 
 51 
 
 The express company of Wells, Fargo & Co. transport nearly all the treasure 
 produced on the coast, and they could, from their books, show the shipments 
 of coin and bullion from every large mining town west of the Rocky mountains ; 
 but they have considered it advisable to allow the publication of the receipts of 
 treasure at San Francisco only from the principal districts since 1860. 
 
 The following table shows the receipts of treasure, coined and uncoined, from 
 the northern and southern mines of California : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Northern mines, 
 California. 
 
 Southern mines, 
 California. 
 
 Total, Califor- 
 nia. 
 
 3861 . 
 
 $26, 346, 431 
 
 $9,363,214 
 
 $35,709 645 
 
 1862 
 
 28, 138, 021 
 
 8,154,702 
 
 36 292 723 
 
 1863 
 
 25,429,157 
 
 7,411,931 
 
 3 841 088 
 
 1864 * ... 
 
 22, 804, 677 
 
 6 858 153 
 
 29 662 830 
 
 1865 
 
 24 557 570 
 
 6 428 960 
 
 30 986 530 
 
 
 
 
 
 Of the treasure thus received at San Francisco, about $4,000,000 annually is 
 in coin, leaving the remainder to indicate the value of the dust and bars. 
 
 The "northern mines," as mentioned in the above table, include all those 
 districts which send their treasure to San Francisco by way of Sacramento, or, 
 in other words, all the interior of the State north of latitude 38 30', while the 
 "southern mines" include those districts which send their treasure by way of 
 Stockton. To express it differently, the term "northern mines," as here used, 
 means the counties Siskiyou, Shasta, Trinity, Plumas, Butte, Lassen, Sierra, 
 Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Sacramento, and parts of Calaveras and 
 Amador, while the term "southern mines" means Tulare, Fresno, Inyo, Kern, 
 Stanislaus, Mono, Mariposa, Tuolumne, and parts of Calaveras and Amador. 
 The extension of the railroad from Sacramento to the vicinity of Placerville, in 
 1863 and 1864, drew to Sacramento some trade that previously went to Stock- 
 ton. The receipts from the southern mines show a marked and steady decrease. 
 During the first nine months of 1866 the receipts from the southern mines were 
 $3,418,436. 
 
 Receipts from Nevada and the northern coast. 
 The receipts from other places are the following : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Nevada. 
 
 Northern coast. 
 
 Foreign ports. 
 
 1861 
 1862 
 
 $2, 275, 256 
 6, 247, 047 
 
 $4,931,579 
 
 $1,702,683 
 1,904,084 
 
 18H3 
 
 12, 486, 238 
 
 4 970,023 
 
 2, 156, 612 
 
 1864 ... . 
 
 15 795 585 
 
 8 052 968 
 
 1 715,024 
 
 1865 
 
 15 184 877 
 
 7 495 766 
 
 1 709 390 
 
 
 
 
 
 The "northern coast" means those mines which send their treasure to San 
 Francisco by ocean steamers plying to ports of Northern California, Oregon, 
 and Vancouver island. The term "foreign ports" excludes Victoria, and in- 
 cludes Mazatlan, Guaymas, La Paz, Honolulu, China, and Japan. San Fran- 
 cisco stands on a long peninsula, and all the traffic with the gold and silver 
 mining regions is done across water. The yield of the northern mines is 
 brought by the Sacramento steamers; the yield of the southern mines by the 
 Stockton steamers; the yield of the northern coast by the northern coast 
 steamers, and the imports frorr foreign ports are brought by other vessels. 
 
52 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The sources of the receipts are classified according to the vessels in which 
 they are brought. These receipts are, however, not all in the precious metals 
 as they come from the mines and mills, but portions are in coin. 
 
 Thus the coin included in those receipts was $9,363,214 in 1861, $5,593,421 
 in 1862, $6,383,974 in 1863, $5,743,399 in 1864, and $4,961,922 in 1865. 
 No accounts have been kept of the coin sent to the interior; but all this coin 
 received must have gone from San Francisco, which has the only mint of the 
 coast, and is the point at which nearly all the passengers and treasure arrive. 
 
 4. COMPARISON OF RECEIPTS AND EXPORTS. 
 
 The following figures show the exports, the receipts, and the difference be- 
 tween exports and receipts for the last five years : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Exports. 
 
 Receipts. 
 
 Difference. 
 
 1861 . 
 
 $40, 639, 080 
 
 $43 391,760 
 
 $2 752 680 gain. 
 
 3862 
 
 42, 561 , 761 
 
 49 375,462 
 
 6 813 701 " 
 
 3863 
 
 46,071,920 
 
 52, 953, 96J 
 
 6,38^,041 " 
 
 1864 
 
 55, 707, 201 
 
 55, 228, 907 
 
 478 794 loss. 
 
 1865 
 
 44, 984, 546 
 
 55 467 573 
 
 10 483 027 gain 
 
 
 
 
 
 The total amount of coin receipts for the five years was $32,045.928; and 
 the excess of receipts over exported during the same period was $25,952,655. 
 A large part of the coin received must have belonged to the regular circulation 
 of the country, going and coming with the current of trade. The receipts of 
 treasure at San Francisco during the first nine months of 1866 were $3,000 
 less than in the -corresponding period of 1865. 
 
 The year 1862 was unfavorable to mining in California because of a great 
 flood, and 1863 because of a great drought; and some special unexplained in- 
 fluence may have operated to reduce the production and shipment in 1865; but 
 the annual gold yield of California cannot now be safely estimated at more than 
 $27,000,000. Several millions of each year's produce of the precious metals 
 may be retained on the coast for purposes of currency, ornaments, and table- 
 
 ware. 
 
 5. QUARTZ YIELD INCREASING. 
 
 The yield of the quartz mines is increasing slowly, as we know by the gen- 
 eral testimony of the miners and by the increase of quartz mills ; but there are 
 no statistics to show the rate of increase. Although some mines have paid 
 steadily at about the same rate for the last ten years, the business generally is 
 very uncertain. Thus it appears from a report made by Mr. Eemond, State 
 geological surveyor, that of sixty-three mills built in TuoJumne and Mariposa 
 counties, between the Merced and Stanislaus rivers, thirty-eight were not running 
 when he visited them between August and November, 1865, and in many in- 
 stances the veins had ceased to yield quartz rich enough to pay. And so it is 
 in every part of the State where quartz mills have been built a considerable 
 portion of them have been abandoned as very unprofitable investments. And 
 yet every week new and valuable veins are discovered, and they cannot be left 
 unwoiked ; and though many quartz miners fail, yet others are deriving princely 
 revenues from their claims. 
 
 Grass valley, the chief centre of the quartz mining of California, is becoming 
 richer every year. It is safe to estimate that the capital invested in quartz 
 mines* and mills is yielding an average profit of twenty per cent, per annum, and 
 that the average yield is at least three dollars per day for the men regularly at 
 
WEST OP THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 53 
 
 work on mines which have been fairly opened. There are in the State a multi- 
 tude of men engaged nominally in quartz mining who really spend much of their 
 time in prospecting and lounging about, unwilling to work hard for ordinary 
 wages, but preferring to ramble over the country in the hope of striking a for- 
 tune. As to the well-known mines, the yield on some of them is more than 
 twenty dollars per day to the hand the year round. 
 
 6. UNCERTAINTY IN QUARTZ MINING. 
 
 There are certain elements of uncertainty in quartz mining not found in farm- 
 ing or manufacturing. The farmer, on looking at the soil, knows that it will 
 produce grain enough to support him ; he can ascertain precisely what it will 
 cost him to transport his grain to a market, and so can calculate how much 
 money he will receive from an ordinary crop. There is a possibility of a great 
 drought or a great blight, but he has, perhaps, a little capital as a reliance in 
 such a case, and he makes his estimates on the basis of an average season. If 
 he cannot afford to risk anything, he does all his work with his own hands, and 
 he cannot lose more than his time. 
 
 The manufacturer is uncertain about the price which he must pay for the raw 
 material, but he knows the world will have the goods, and will pay as much to 
 him as to anybody else, and if he can manufacture a little cheaper than others 
 he is certain of his profit. If he is incompetent to manage the business success- 
 fully, some one else can afford to buy him out at the cost of the building and 
 machinery and make it pay. When a manufacturing establishment is once 
 erected by a person of judgment and experience, it is presumed that the business 
 will go on steadily for generation after generation. The supply of the raw ma 
 terial and the demand for the manufactured article, at least if the goods are not 
 of the sort required by fickle fashion, will remain constant. 
 
 But with gold mining it is different. Auriferous quartz lodes have paying 
 quantities of metal only in spots or streaks. The law of the distribution of the 
 precious metals in veins is yet unknown. The quartz may be traced for miles, 
 but only here and there will it pay to work. No mineral lode anywhere is 
 worked, I believe, with much profit for more than two continuous miles, and it 
 is seldom that the pay-rock extends more than one thousand feet along a vein. 
 The great quartz lode of Mariposa, called sometimes the mother vein of Califor 
 nia, has been traced, it is supposed, for thirty miles or more ; at least croppings 
 of a large lead of the same quality of quartz, nearly in a straight line, ^re seen 
 at various points between Bear valley, in Mariposa county, and Angels, in Cal- 
 averas county ; and it is assumed that these croppings all belong to the same 
 lode. In some places this vein is very rich, but the rich spots are not long, and 
 are far apart, and in the intervals the rock is nearly or entirely barren. The 
 miner may find quartz containing ten dollars to the ton, and he knows if the 
 supply is abundant he may make a fortune from his claim ; but to explore the 
 lode requires a large capital, and there is no certainty of any return. The rock 
 is too poor to work without a mill, and there is not enough in sight to justify the 
 erection of a mill. If he takes the risk, and the pay-rock is eoon exhausted, his 
 mill, in that position, becomes worthless, and he loses the cost of all his frame- 
 work, roads, and ditches, which, with the transportation, is frequently greater 
 than the cost of the machinery proper. The manufacturer knows that his sup- 
 ply of cotton, wool, iron, leather, or wood, will not fail altogether, and if it be- 
 comes scanty he can raise his price so that his work will still be profitable ; and 
 the farmer knows that his soil will produce grass and grain as long as he lives ; 
 but the quartz miner does not know that the supply of his pay-rock will keep 
 steady, and if it runs short he cannot expect the price of the precious metals to 
 rise so that he can sell his produce for a higher pace per pound. 
 
 There is, again, a great diversity in the facilities for quartz mining at different 
 
54 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 places. The farmer or the manufacturer usually goes into a level country with 
 open roads, and after ascertaining the distance to the market and the cost of trans- 
 portation, he can decide whether he can afford to go into business. Perhaps he 
 would find fifty places within a range of ten miles, all equally good for his farm 
 or his factory. But with the miner the case is different. The mines are usually 
 found in the mountains, where there are no roads, water is not conveniently ac- 
 cessible, and wood is scarce. The rock in one part of the lode is hard, in another 
 soft; in one there is much sulphuret of iron, in another little. It is relatively 
 cheaper to work a wide streak of pay rock, other things being equal, than a nar- 
 row one. The mill may be far or near; it may be above the level of the mine, 
 or below it; the water for washing the pulverized rock may be obtainable for 
 only part of the year, and the gold may be found in thick masses so that the 
 workmen can conveniently pilfer considerable quantities. Many of the mills 
 are in secluded places, where men of wealth do not like to live, and thus the 
 property is put in charge of hired men, who lack the zeal and care of a pro- 
 prietor. These are some of the points in which there are serious variations. It 
 may safely be said that a farmer owning a hundred acres of rich soil on a prairie 
 within twenty miles of any large town of Illinois is certain of being able to 
 make a very comfortable living ; but a miner with a vein of auriferous quartz 
 yielding ten dollars to the ton, within ten miles of a California town, is not cer- 
 tain of anything until he has examined the vein, its position, its size, the char- 
 acter of the vein-stone and accompanying minerals, and the proximity and quan- 
 tity of wood, besides a number of other particulars. 
 
 These are some of the diversities of circumstances which beset quartz mining 
 in different places, and render it impossible to give a statement of the expenses 
 of taking out rock, building a mill, and reducing the ore, applicable to the ma- 
 jority of the mines. It is useless to attempt to convey any precise idea about 
 matters -in which the variations are so great between the workings of different 
 mines, and between the workings of the same mine at different times. All that 
 can be done is to collect the facts in regard to the operations of the mines and 
 mills of which we have reports, so as to show the range. 
 
 7. PROFESSOR ASHBURNER'S STATISTICS. 
 
 In 1861 Professor TV. Ashburner, connected with the State geological survey, 
 prepared a tabular statement of the operations of the principal quartz mills then 
 running in California. Of these there were four in Mariposa county, eight in 
 Tuoluinne, three in Calaveras, seven in Amador, three in Eldorado, two in 
 Plumas, two in Sierra, and nine in Nevada thirty-eight in all. 
 
 It appears from his table that in seven of the mills the stamps weighed 400 and less 
 than 500 pounds each; in eight mills the weight was 500 and under 600 pounds; 
 in eight the weight was between 600 and 700 pounds ; in eight it was 700 and 
 less than 1,000 pounds ; in two it was 1,000, and in one 1,500. 
 
 The height to which the stamp was raised when allowed to fall varied from 
 eight to fourteen inches. In ten mills the height was ten inches ; in six, twelve 
 inches ; in five, fourteen inches ; in four, thirteen inches ; in one, eleven inches ; 
 in one, eight inches' ; in one, nine inches. 
 
 In thirteen mills the speed of the blows was from sixty to sixty-five inclusive 
 per minute ; in ten mills it was from fifty to fifty-eight ; in three mills it was 
 from forty to forty-eight ; in three mills it was seventy ; in three mills it was 
 eighty ; and in one mill it was thirty-two per minute. 
 
 In six of the steam-mills the consumption of wood for ten tons of ore crushed 
 was from a cord to a cord and a half; in eight mills it was from a cord and a 
 half to two cords ; in two mills it was from two to three cords ; in three mills 
 it was less than a cord ; in one mill it was over three cords, and in another five 
 cords. 
 
 The loss of mercury is reported for twenty-nine mills, and in two the loss is 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 55 
 
 less than a pound in working one hundred tons of quartz ; in twenty-one the 
 loss is less than a pound in working ten tons ; and in six the loss is over one 
 pound in working ten tons. The lowest loss is seven pounds in working one 
 thousand tons, and the yield of the rock there is reported to be $25 per ton, and 
 the highest is one hundred and ninety-eight pounds for one thousand tons ; and 
 in that case the rock is reported to yield $17 14 per ton. The general rule is, 
 however, that the higher the yield of gold, the greater the loss of quicksilver per 
 ton, because more must be used. 
 
 The cost of extracting the quartz is reported for twenty-eight mines. In 
 eight, it is $2 and less than $3 ; in four mines it is $3 and less than $4 ; in two 
 mines it is $4 and less than $5 ; in five mines it is $5 and less than $6 ; in three 
 mines it is $6 ; in two mines it is less than $2 ; in three mines it is between $7 
 and $14; in one mine it is $15; in another $20 ; and in another $26. 
 
 The average yield per ton was $5 and less than $10 in four mines ; $10 and 
 less than $16 in eleven; $16 and less than $55 in five; between $25 and $40, 
 inclusive, in seven ; between $50 and $75 in four, and $80 in one. 
 
 In seven mills the cost of stamping per ton was 50 cents and less than $1 ; 
 in seven $1 and less than $1 50 : in five $1 50 and less than $2 ; in four $2 
 and less than $3 ; in three $3 and less than $4. 
 
 In thirteen mills the total cost of treatment (which includes crushing, amal- 
 gamation, and all the handling after the delivery of the quartz at the mill, and 
 loss of quicksilver) was $2 and less than $3 per ton; in seven mills it was $1 
 and less than $1 50 per ton ; in four mills it was over $1 50 and less than $2 ; 
 in two mills it was less than $1 ; in five mills it was between $3 and $4; and in 
 three mills it was respectively $4 59, $6 27, and $8 31. The cheapest tr^at- 
 ment was that of the Badger mine, in Amador county, where the cost was only 
 67 cents per ton. 
 
 a ESMOND'S STATISTICS. 
 
 In the months of August, September, October, and November of the year 
 1865, Mr. A. Remond, in the service of the State geological survey of Califor- 
 nia, visited all the quartz mines and mills in operation, or that had been in op- 
 eration, in those portions of Tuolumne and Mariposa counties lying between the 
 Merced and Stanislaus rivers. The following is a list of the mines and mills 
 thus visited : 
 
 No. Mine. Mill. 
 
 1. French Mary No mill. 
 
 2. Hope Brichman's. 
 
 3. Victor Victor. 
 
 4. Mount Hope Mount Hope. 
 
 5. Catherine Catherine. 
 
 6. Cranberry Yosemite. 
 
 7. Rutherford No. 6. 
 
 8. Ferguson's Ferguson's. 
 
 9. Cedar : Cedar. 
 
 10. Empire , Empire. 
 
 11. Mary Harrison Old French Mill. 
 
 12. Malvina New French Mill. 
 
 13. Adelaide Crown Lead. 
 
 14. McAlpine McAlpine. 
 
 15. Louisiana Louisiana. 
 
 16. Schimer's Low Mill. 
 
 17. Funk's Funk's (2) Mills. 
 
 18. Casabon's Casabon's. 
 
 19. Goodwin's Eclipse 
 
56 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 20. Derrick's Derrick's. 
 
 21. Humbug ... Humbug. 
 
 22. Blue Ledge , Black's. 
 
 23. Heslep's Heslep's. 
 
 24. App's App's. 
 
 25. Morse's No mill. 
 
 26. Orcutt's Orcutt's. 
 
 27. No mine * Ryerson's. 
 
 28. Eureka Eureka. 
 
 29. Summers's Summers's. 
 
 30. Grizzly Grizzly. 
 
 31. Excelsior Excelsior. 
 
 32. Dagner Dagner. 
 
 33. Mt. Vernon No mill. 
 
 34. Monitor Monitor. 
 
 35. Green's Green's. 
 
 36. Pirate Pirate. 
 
 37. Independence Independence. 
 
 38. Great Eastern .No mill. 
 
 39. Comstock No mill. 
 
 40. Soulsby Soulsby. 
 
 41. Independent No mill. 
 
 42. Gilson's, (old mine) Gilson's. 
 
 43. Jackson's No mill. 
 
 44. Calder's No mill. 
 
 45. No mine Wheeler's. 
 
 46. Consuelo Consuelo. 
 
 47. Waters's Waters's. 
 
 48. Watts's Watts's. 
 
 49. Union Union. 
 
 50. Alabama Alabama. 
 
 51. Gilson's, (new mine) Gilson's, (No. 42, 
 
 52. No mine Washington. 
 
 53. Toledo Labitour. 
 
 54. Raw Hide Raw Hide. 
 
 55. Shanghai * Shanghai. 
 
 56. Columbia Columbia. 
 
 57. Patterson's Patterson's. 
 
 58. Valparaiso Valparaiso. 
 
 59. Turner's No mill. 
 
 60. Preston's Preston's. 
 
 61. Italian Occidental. 
 
 62. Old Whiskey Hill Wood's Crossing. 
 
 63. Nyman's Nyman's. 
 
 64. John Knox's t No mill. 
 
 65. No mine Widow Hill. 
 
 66. Clio Clio. 
 
 67. Shawmut Shawmut. 
 
 68. Josephine Stetson's. 
 
 69. Eagle Eagle. 
 
 70. Italian , No mill. 
 
 71. Nonpareil Duprat's. 
 
 72. Burns ' No mill. 
 
 73. No mine Cross's. 
 
 74. Second Garote Pacific, (No. 75.) 
 
 75. Morkam . . , Pacific. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 5? 
 
 76. Kanaka Pacific, (No. 75.) 
 
 77. Phoenix . ., Phoenix. 
 
 78. Mohrmann's No mill. 
 
 79. Kenney's Kenney's. 
 
 80. Golden Rule Golden Rule. 
 
 81. Golden Rule, (No. 80) Golden Rule, (No. 80.) 
 
 82. Golden Rule. (No. 80) Golden Rule, (No. SO.) 
 
 83. Brown's Flat Brown's Flat. 
 
 84. Zuckermann's Zuckermann's. 
 
 Number. 
 
 Average width of lode. 
 
 Average yield per ton. 
 
 s. 
 fa- 
 
 o 
 
 s 
 
 o 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 ** 
 
 1 
 
 Cost of treatment. 
 
 ft 
 
 C 
 
 .2 
 
 II 
 
 ja 
 
 I 
 
 "o 
 
 1 
 
 -i 
 fi 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 Kind of amalgamating 
 machinery. 
 
 Cost of roads. 
 
 . 
 
 11 
 
 'O 3 
 
 o 
 
 8 
 
 o 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 Ft. in. 
 1 6 
 
 $12 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 6 00 
 10 60 
 
 $3 00 
 
 $i 66 
 
 $1 50 
 
 Not running 
 Not running 
 
 $4, 000 
 3,000 
 
 Water.. 
 Water.. 
 
 10 
 
 tc. 
 
 {C &A 
 
 $500 
 100 
 
 $500 
 1 000 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 500 
 
 Water 
 
 5 
 
 
 100 
 
 1 000 
 
 S 
 
 G 
 
 7 
 
 1 2 
 2 6 
 1 6 
 
 32 50 
 18 00 
 25 00 
 
 14 00 
 3 50 
 
 1 25 
 2 00 
 
 3 00 
 3 00 
 
 Not running 
 Running. ... 
 
 3,000 
 3,000 
 
 Water. . 
 Water.. 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 C. & A. 
 C. 
 
 1,000 
 1,000 
 
 '600 
 1,200 
 
 8 
 
 g 
 
 20 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 000 
 
 Water 
 
 B 
 
 C 
 
 500 
 
 1 000 
 
 i) 
 
 11) 
 
 1 
 1 6 
 
 40 00 
 40 00 
 
 4 00 
 
 2 50 
 
 2 50 
 
 Running . . . 
 Ruined 
 
 3,000 
 
 Water.. 
 
 5 
 
 c. 
 
 * 
 
 90 
 
 '150 
 
 11 
 
 3 
 
 14 00 
 
 4 00 
 
 1 00 
 
 2 66 
 
 
 
 Steam 
 
 15 
 
 * 
 
 330 
 
 
 12 
 
 10 
 
 19 00 
 
 1 75 
 
 
 2 00 
 
 Running 
 
 
 Steam 
 
 
 * 
 
 150 
 
 
 13 
 14 
 IS 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 1 6 
 1 
 1 
 
 6 00 
 37 50 
 25 00 
 15 00 
 
 1 00 
 4 00 
 4 00 
 3 00 
 
 1 25 
 2 00 
 75 
 None. 
 
 75 
 2 00 
 2 00 
 2 00 
 
 Not running 
 Not running 
 Running . . . 
 Not running 
 
 42,000 
 10, 000 
 6,000 
 6,000 
 5 700 
 
 II w. & s. 
 
 Water.. 
 Steam.. 
 Steam.. 
 Water 
 
 25 
 8 
 5 
 8 
 10 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 c. 
 
 6,500 
 100 
 50 
 4 
 100 
 
 18, 000 
 200 
 None. 
 None. 
 500 
 
 1ft 
 
 1 6 
 
 15 00 
 
 
 
 
 Not running 
 
 6,000 
 
 Water.. 
 
 8 
 
 c 
 
 100 
 
 3 000 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 2 
 1 6 
 
 15 00 
 25 00 
 4 00 
 
 2 00 
 12 00 
 1 50 
 
 1 50 
 3 00 
 50 
 
 1 50 
 4 00 
 3 00 
 
 Not running 
 Not running 
 
 4,000 
 3,000 
 2 300 
 
 Water.. 
 Water.. 
 Water 
 
 8 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 c. 
 
 c. 
 
 1,000 
 1,500 
 50 
 
 1.000 
 500 
 500 
 
 22 
 
 
 23 00 
 
 5 00 
 
 2 00 
 
 3 00 
 
 Not running 
 
 1,500 
 
 Water.. 
 
 4 
 
 c 
 
 None 
 
 500 
 
 S3 
 24 
 
 10 
 6 
 
 12 00 
 
 18 00 
 
 2 50 
 3 00 
 
 40 
 75 
 
 200 
 2 50 
 
 Running . . . 
 Running 
 
 12, 000 
 4,500 
 
 Water.. 
 W. & S. 
 
 10 
 10 
 
 c. 
 
 X 
 
 300 
 500 
 
 1,200 
 
 "-> 
 
 1 6 
 
 27 50 
 
 2 00 
 
 50 
 
 6 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 
 26 
 
 "7 
 
 2 6 
 
 25 00 
 
 2 00 
 
 50 
 
 6 00 
 
 Running.. . 
 
 3,000 
 20 000 
 
 Water.. 
 Water 
 
 5 
 
 * 
 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 86 
 
 4 
 
 14 00 
 
 4 00 
 
 None. 
 
 2 75 
 
 Running . 
 
 28, 000 
 
 Water . . 
 
 "0 
 
 * 
 
 
 1 500 
 
 29 
 30 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 15 00 
 
 17 50 
 
 2 50 
 
 4 00 
 
 50 
 50 
 
 2 50 
 6 00 
 
 Not running . 
 Not running 
 
 6,000 
 
 Water.. 
 W. & S. 
 
 8 
 90 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 5 
 
 2 200 
 
 300 
 1 200 
 
 31 
 32 
 33 
 
 2 6 
 1 
 1 
 
 60 00 
 40 00 
 
 3 00 
 4 50 
 
 50 
 None. 
 
 1 00 
 1 75 
 
 Not running 
 Not running . 
 
 13, 500 
 22,000 
 
 Water... 
 Steam . . . 
 
 10 
 10 
 
 * 
 
 2,000 
 None. 
 
 500 
 None. 
 
 34 
 35 
 36 
 
 1 <3 
 1 
 1 
 
 30 00 
 80 00 
 25 00 
 
 3 00 
 10 00 
 9 50 
 
 None. 
 None. 
 50 
 
 2 00 
 3 50 
 3 50 
 
 Running .... 
 Running.. .. 
 
 7,000 
 4,000 
 10 000 
 
 Water... 
 Steam... 
 Water 
 
 5 
 5 
 10 
 
 C & A 
 
 1,000 
 None. 
 
 300 
 None. 
 
 37 
 
 36 
 
 4 6 
 2 
 
 40 00 
 20 00 
 
 4 37i 
 
 50 
 
 2 75 
 
 Running .... 
 
 15,000 
 
 Steam... 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 None. 
 
 39 
 
 1 6 
 
 
 2 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 4! 
 
 1 3 
 10 
 
 27 50 
 36 00 
 
 8 00 
 
 None. 
 
 3 75 
 
 Running .... 
 
 20, 000 
 
 Steam... 
 
 20 
 
 c. 
 
 
 
 None. 
 
 4-2 
 43 
 
 1 6 
 6 
 
 52 50 
 107 00 
 
 12 00 
 
 None. 
 
 4 50 
 
 Not running . 
 
 9,000 
 
 Steam... 
 
 10 
 
 c: & A. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 44 
 
 1 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 "W t 
 
 7 500 
 
 
 10 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 3 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 No*, finished 
 
 
 Water 
 
 20 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 47 
 48 
 
 50 
 
 9 
 2 
 2 
 25 
 1 4 
 
 6 00 
 180 00 
 8 00 
 10 00 
 40 00 
 
 2 00 
 60 00 
 I 00 
 1 50 
 13 00 
 
 25 
 25 
 25 
 None'. 
 1 25 
 
 1 75 
 7 00 
 1 75 
 1 00 
 6 00 
 
 Running .... 
 
 Not running . 
 Not running . 
 Running .... 
 
 3,000 
 800 
 2,000 
 1,500 
 
 Water... 
 Water... 
 Water... 
 Water... 
 
 6 
 3 
 8 
 4 
 
 C. 
 
 C.' 
 
 1,000 
 None. 
 50 
 150 
 1,000 
 
 600 
 2,500 
 500 
 200 
 
 None. 
 
 53 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 00 
 
 Water 
 
 3 
 
 c 
 
 None 
 
 None 
 
 53 
 
 3 6 
 4 
 
 10 00 
 25 00 
 
 2 00 
 
 None. 
 
 2 00 
 
 Not running . 
 
 14, 800 
 
 Water... 
 Water 
 
 15 
 ]0 
 
 c. 
 c. 
 
 1,000 
 
 4,000 
 
 55 
 
 56 
 
 2 6 
 3 6 
 
 40 00 
 9 00 
 
 5 00 
 
 2 UO 
 
 None. 
 60 
 
 2 00 
 250 
 
 Running.. .. 
 Not running . 
 
 4.000 
 15, 000 
 
 Water... 
 Water... 
 
 10 
 15 
 
 c. 
 c. 
 
 None. 
 1,000 
 
 100 
 4 000 
 
58 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Number. 
 
 Average width of lode. 
 
 Q 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 L 
 
 P 
 
 
 
 li 
 
 CM 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 O 
 
 P 
 
 o 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 "o 
 
 .2 
 11 
 
 !* 
 1 
 f 
 
 'i 
 
 o 
 
 1 
 
 O 
 
 ti 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 rg C5 
 fl- 
 
 S3 
 
 1 
 
 Number of stamps. 
 
 Kind of amalgamating 
 machinery. 
 
 Cost of roads. 
 
 o 
 1 
 
 Is 
 
 *J 
 
 <S<* 
 
 57 
 
 58 
 
 Ft. in. 
 4 
 2 
 
 $8 00 
 80 00 
 
 $2 00 
 
 25 
 
 None 
 
 $2 50 
 
 Not running. 
 
 $6,500 
 3 000 
 
 Water... 
 Water 
 
 10 
 
 fi 
 
 C. 
 
 c 
 
 $400 
 
 $1, 200 
 
 59 
 
 2 6 
 
 
 
 None. 
 
 None 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (]() 
 
 10 
 
 
 o 00 
 
 60 
 
 I 50 
 
 "W f 
 
 4 ooo 
 
 Water 
 
 10 
 
 C 
 
 300 
 
 500 
 
 01 
 
 62 
 63 
 64 
 
 6 6 
 15 
 4 
 1 
 
 20 00 
 15 00 
 17 00 
 65 00 
 
 4 00 
 50 
 3 00 
 
 None. 
 50 
 90 
 
 1 50 
 1 50 
 1 00 
 
 Not running. 
 Running 
 Running 
 
 6,000 
 2, 000 
 4,000 
 
 Water... 
 Water... 
 Water... 
 
 12 
 4 
 10 
 
 C. & A 
 C. 
 C. & A. 
 
 400 
 1,000 
 1,000 
 
 300 
 1,200 
 1,000 
 
 65 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 Q 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 66 
 
 67 
 
 68 
 
 5 6 
 1 6 
 
 8 
 
 15 00 
 25 00 
 8 00 
 
 3 00 
 2 75 
 2 00 
 
 75 
 None. 
 None. 
 
 2 00 
 1 50 
 1 50 
 
 Not running . 
 Not running . 
 Not running . 
 
 5,000 
 H,000 
 7,500 
 
 Water... 
 
 Steam... 
 Water 
 
 10 
 10 
 
 
 1,000 
 2,000 
 800 
 
 16, 000 
 None. 
 500 
 
 69 
 
 70 
 
 2 
 8 
 
 12 00 
 
 3 50 
 
 50 
 
 2 00 
 
 Running 
 
 11, GOO 
 
 Water... 
 
 10 
 
 C. 
 
 2,500 
 
 3,000 
 
 71 
 
 
 30 66 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Water 
 
 5 
 
 " * 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 4 
 
 20 00 
 
 1 00 
 
 1 12 
 
 4 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 T? 
 
 4 500 
 
 
 10 
 
 '* 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 1 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 i mg 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 75 
 
 4 
 
 14 00 
 
 1 50 
 
 40 
 
 3 66 
 
 Not running . 
 
 3,666 
 
 Water. 
 
 *> 
 
 C. & A. 
 
 
 
 76 
 
 
 8 00 
 
 2 00 
 
 2 00 
 
 3 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 77 
 
 2 6 
 
 15 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 Water 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 78 
 
 2 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 ( ) 
 
 5 
 
 15 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 000 
 
 Water 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 8 
 
 40 00 
 
 1 00 
 
 
 2 00 
 
 Running 
 
 2' ooo 
 
 Water 
 
 5 
 
 c 
 
 50 
 
 400 
 
 SI 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 300 
 
 
 2 
 
 * 
 
 
 200 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 000 
 
 W'lter 
 
 15 
 
 * 
 
 " 
 
 
 83 
 84 
 
 6 
 1 6 
 
 40 00 
 40 00 
 
 11 00 
 5 00 
 
 None. 
 
 1 50 
 4 00 
 
 Not running . 
 
 3, 500 
 
 4 UOO 
 
 Water. 
 Water 
 
 4 
 4 
 
 C. & A. 
 C 
 
 None. 
 
 1,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * The amalgamating >apparatus in the mills marked with the asterisk is given below. 
 
 1 C. copper plate. } C. & A. copper plate and arrastra. || W. & S. water and steam. A. arrastra. 
 
 In numbers 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 25, 30, and 40 the average yield is obtained by 
 dividing the sum of two figures given by Mr. Remond. For instance, the 
 average yield of mine No. 5 is given above as $32 50, whereas Mr. Remond 
 says the yield is from $25 to $40. In the same manner the cost of exiraction 
 in No. 37 is given at $4 37J, whereas Mr. Remond says it is from $2 75 to $6. 
 Mines Nos. 59 and 70 yield coarse gold, which is taken from the rock after 
 pounding it in a hand-mortar. 
 
 In mill No. 11 Hungarian pans are used, and in No. 12 Hungarian pans and 
 an arrastra; in No. 13, Patterson's pans and separators; in No. 14, copper 
 plates and amalgamating pans ; in No. 15, Salmon's amalgamator and Salmon's 
 separator; in No. 23, copper plates, an arrastra, a Beath's grinder, and a Sal- 
 mon's concentrator; Nos. 26 and 37, copper plates and blankets; in No. 27, 
 a centrifugal grinder, a Ryerson's pulverizer, a super-heated steam apparatus, 
 and a shaking table ; in No. 28, shaking pans and a Chili mill ; in No. 29, 
 copper plates, shaking pans, and an arrastra ; in No. 30, cast-iron barrels ; in 
 No. 31, copper plates and a shaking pan; in No. 32, copper plates, arrastras, 
 and a shaking table ; in No. 34, an Ambler's concentrator, a shaking table, and 
 arrastras; in No. 35, copper plates and a Beath's amalgamator; in No. 45, 
 Varney's pans and a concentrator; in Nos. 66 and 67, copper plates and Knox's 
 pans ; in No. 71, copper plates, a Farrand's amalgamator, and a settler; in No. 
 73 Varney's pans and a settler, and in No. 82, copper plates, shaking tables, 
 and an arrastra. 
 
 It appears that the average thickness of 21 lodes is from 1 to 12 inches, 
 inclusive ; in 2(), from 13 to 24 inches, inclusive ; of 9, from 25 to 36 inches, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 59 
 
 inclusive ; of 10, from 37 to 48 inches, inclusive ; of 9, from 5 to 10*feet inclu- 
 sive ; and of 2, over 10 feet. 
 
 In 9 mines the average yield is under $10 per ton ; in 22 it is between -$10 
 and $19, inclusive; in 14 it is between $20 and $29, inclusive; in 14 it is be- 
 tween $30 and $49, inclusive ; in 3 it is between $50 and $69, inclusive, arid in 
 4 it is over $70. Only one mine has a yield as low as $4 ; three have a yield 
 of $6 ; 4 of $8, and 1 of $9. 
 
 The cost of extraction per ton depends, to a considerable extent, upon the 
 thickness of the vein, or, rather, of the pay -rock in the vein. In mine No. 48 
 the vein is only two inches thick, and it costs $60 to get out a ton of ore, while 
 in No. 62 it costs only 50 cents to take out a ton of rock from a vein 15 feet wide. 
 In 1 mine the cost of extraction was under $1 ; in 8, between $1 and $1 90 in- 
 clusive; in 14, between $2 and $2 90, inclusive; in 9, between $3 and $3 90, 
 inclusive ; in 9, between $4 and $4 90, inclusive ; in 7, between $5 and $9 90, 
 inclusive, and in 7, $10 or more. 
 
 In 16 mines there is no cost of transportation of ore to mill, the extraction 
 covering that expense ; in 23 mines the cost is less than 90 cents ; in 7 mines 
 it is between $1 and $1 90, inclusive ; in 6 it is $2 or more. 
 
 In 1 mill the cost of treatment is 75 cents ; in 14 mills it is from $1 to $1 90, 
 inclusive ; in 19 it is from $2 to $2 90, inclusive ; in 9 it is from $3 to $3 90, 
 inclusive, and in 9 it is $4 or more. The richer the rock, as a general rule, the 
 more expensive the treatment. The quartz of mine No. 48, yielding $180 to 
 the ton, costs $7 for treatment. 
 
 Of the mills visited by Mr. Remond in 1865, 38 were not running, 25 were 
 running, 2 were ruined, and 2 were unfinished. Of those not running, some 
 were standing idle for want of water, others had exhausted the pay-rock within 
 sight and were preparing for further explorations, and the owners of a third 
 class had no expectation of resuming work, having found it unprofitable, but 
 hoped to sell or intended to move their machinery. 
 
 The cost of each of 11 mills was under $2,900 ; of 20 mills it was between 
 $3,000 and $3,900, inclusive; of 14 it was between $5,000 arid $9,000, in- 
 clusive, and of 14 it was $10,000 or more. 
 
 The number of stamps in 10 mills was 4 or less ; in 22 mills, between 5 and 
 9, inclusive; in 20 mills, between 10 and 14, inclusive; in 10 mills, 15 or more. 
 
 The power in 52 mills is water; in 11 mills, steam ; in 3, water and steam. 
 
 In 31 mills copper plates were used alone for amalgamating, (outside of the 
 battery;) in 3 the arrastra was used alone; in 7, copper plates and arrastra; 
 and in 26, other devices, with or without copper plates or arrastras. 
 
 At 25 mills the roads cost less than $1,000 for each ; at 12 mills, between 
 $1,000 and $1,900, inclusive; at 4 mills, between $2,000 and $2,500, inclusive; 
 at 1, $6,500 ; and at 15, nothing. 
 
 At each of 21 mills the ditches and flumes cost less than $1,000 ; at 13 mills 
 the cost was between $1,000 and $1,900, inclusive; at 3, between $2,000 and 
 $3,900, inclusive; at 3, $4,000 or more; and at 14, nothing. 
 
 The county assessor of Nevada county, California, reported the statistics of 
 the quartz mines and mills of Grass valley and Nevada for the year ending 
 October 1, 1866, as follows : 
 
60 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 List of quartz mines at Nevada City and Grass valley. 
 
 Name of company. 
 
 No. of rneri em- 
 ployed 
 
 Engines. 
 
 00 
 
 p. 
 
 1 ' 
 
 02 
 
 J& 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 (4-1 
 
 o 
 
 02 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 1, 
 
 0} 3 
 
 b Q 
 
 s 
 
 5 
 
 GRASS VALLEY TOWNSHIP. 
 
 Eureka Mining Company 
 
 175 
 
 S 
 
 "0 
 
 11 400 
 
 $50 
 
 Union Hill 
 
 100 
 
 3 
 
 4 '0 
 
 J,000 
 
 40 
 
 Cambridge (new) . . .. 
 
 75 
 
 S 
 
 10 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 7 000 
 
 30 
 
 lone . ... 
 
 70 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 3 000 
 
 20 
 
 Forest Springs ............ .. ... 
 
 (j 
 
 
 10 
 
 4 500 
 
 50 
 
 Empire 
 
 80 
 
 4 
 
 36 
 
 6 000 
 
 45 
 
 Hewston Hill 
 
 65 
 
 3 
 
 
 1,500 
 
 100 
 
 New Orleans Mill . . 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 1 700 
 
 Cust 
 
 Noramba"ua . 
 
 100 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 Lone Jack. .... 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Golden Rock, (new)' .. .......... ....... 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Atlantic Cable (new) 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Wisconsin . 
 
 40 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 000 
 
 50 
 
 Laton Mill 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 g 
 
 5 000 
 
 Cust 
 
 Lucky 
 
 50 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 
 5 600 
 
 25 
 
 Ophir Hill, (new). . 
 
 20 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 Black Ledge .- 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Sebastopol 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 2 000 
 
 Cust 
 
 Hartery Mine. ...... ...... ...... .... ...... .... ...... 
 
 50 
 
 i 
 
 8 
 
 4,000 
 
 20 
 
 Central (newj 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 Gold Hill Mill 
 
 Q 
 
 j 
 
 20 
 
 2 000 
 
 Cust 
 
 Gold Hill Mine 
 
 10 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 Frankfort 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 14 
 
 Perrin's Mill 
 
 15 
 
 
 5 
 
 400 
 
 8 
 
 Inkerman ..... ..... ... .. ... .. ...... 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 25 
 
 Lamarciue 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Shangliae. 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 60 
 
 Almaden 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 500 
 
 25 
 
 Independent (new) 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pike Tunnel (new) 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 Burdett 
 
 10 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 Badger 
 
 20 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 Osborn Hill 
 
 30 
 
 s 
 
 1 r > 
 
 
 100 
 
 Spring Hill. 
 
 20 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 Larimer Mill 
 
 4 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 1,000 
 
 New York Hill . 
 
 40 
 
 9 
 
 
 500 
 
 60 
 
 Rocky Bar * 
 
 60 
 
 4 
 
 in 
 
 3,500 
 
 23 
 
 North Star 
 
 140 
 
 3 
 
 16 
 
 7, 000 
 
 30 
 
 Merrirnac .. .... . .... 
 
 25 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 2,000 
 
 20 
 
 Coe Mining Company . 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 Town Talk Mining Company 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 Redan . . .. . .... 
 
 35 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 Betsey . 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 Alta Hill 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 Slate Creek 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Smith Mining Company . 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Murphy Mining Company 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 Idaho 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 Byers's Ouartz Mill 
 
 2 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Shamrock Company 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 600 
 
 25 
 
 Omaha , .. . . .. . 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 22 
 
 Hill and Farnani Metallurg. ...... 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total.., 
 
 1.601 
 
 
 284 
 
 71, 420 
 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 List of quartz mines, fyc. Continued. 
 
 61 
 
 Name of company. 
 
 No of men em- 
 ployed. 
 
 i 
 
 Sb 
 W 
 
 I 
 
 .2 
 
 OJ 
 
 M 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 CM 
 
 O 
 B 
 
 1 
 
 M 
 
 O 
 
 P. 
 
 &g 
 
 S3 
 
 o> 
 
 3 
 
 NEVADAR TOWNSHIP. 
 
 Palmer's 'Mill 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 
 Gust 
 
 I3anner - . ............... ........... 
 
 40 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 Neva<la Quartz Minin" Company .. ....... 
 
 30 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 $6 
 
 Providence 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 1,200 
 
 8 
 
 Oriental 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 800 
 
 Gust. 
 
 Sneath & Clay 
 
 55 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 6,000 
 
 
 New York ..... . ...... 
 
 35 
 
 3 
 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 Murchie Mill 
 
 13 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 French Mill 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 600 
 
 Gust. 
 
 Forest Hill Mill 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 California (new) . . ........................... 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Wigham Mill . 
 
 
 9 
 
 90 
 
 
 
 Cornish Mill 
 
 4 
 
 
 6 
 
 100 
 
 30 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Willow Valley 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gold Tunnel 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Federal Loan . ..................................... 
 
 
 
 9, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 Stiles's Mill . . 
 
 6 
 
 
 8 
 
 2,500 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 230 
 
 4 
 
 142 
 
 14 200 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Grass valley is the most productive gold-quartz mining district in the world. 
 The annual yield of an area drawn by a radius of four miles is $3,500,000. The 
 number of laborers employed in the mines and mills is 2,000, showing an average 
 yearly production for each person of -$1,750, and the average yield of the rock 
 worked is $30 to $35. The lodes are narrow, none of them exceeding seven 
 feet in width, and most being less than afoot. They contain much pyrites, 
 and this fact contributes with the narrowness of the veins to make the average 
 expense of extraction and reduction high about $ 15 per ton. Some of the works 
 have been sunk to a depth of 400 feet, but most of the pay-quartz is obtained 
 within 200 feet of the surface. 
 
 9. PULVERIZATION OF QUARTZ. 
 
 The main processes of quartz mining are extraction, crushing, and amalgama- 
 tion. The extraction of auriferous quartz from the vein is like that of ores 
 generally. Any person familiar with copper mining can in a few days learn to 
 be a good gold miner. The quantity of copper ore can usually be discovered 
 by a glance, but in auriferous quartz it is often necessary to pulverize a piece 
 of the quartz, and wash the powder in a spoon or little basin to see whether it 
 will pay to extract. The cost of tunnels and shafts for opening mines in such 
 rock as is usually found about the auriferous lodes is from ten to fifteen dollars 
 per lineal foot. * 
 
 Ninety-live per cent, of all the crushing in California is done with stamps. 
 The stamp is a block of iron, weighing from 300 to 1,500 pounds, fastened to a 
 wooden or iron shaft, usually iron. A battery consists of several stamps standing 
 side by side, and in most mills the number of stamps is five or a multiple of 
 
62 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 five. The stamps are successively lifted by machinery, and then allowed to fall 
 on the .quartz. The height to which they are raised is from ten to fifteen 
 inches, and each stamp falls from forty to eighty times in a minute. It is cal- 
 culated that each stamp should crush a ton of quartz of ordinary quality in 
 twenty-four hours. The mills usually run night and day. Of course, the amount 
 of quartz crushed depends to a considerable extent on the hardness of the rock, 
 the weight of the stamp, the height of the fall and the rapidity of the blows. 
 
 The fineness to which the rock must be pulverized depends on circumstances. 
 The particles of gold may be very fine, so that the quartz must be reduced to 
 an impalpable powder before they can be liberated ; but if the particles of gold 
 and the grain of the rock are coarse, or if the pulp is to go through a grinding 
 pan, the quartz may be allowed to escape when many of the particles are as coarse 
 as sea-sand, or even coarser. The battery has on one side a screen of wire-cloth, 
 or perforated sheet-iron, with apertures of the size of the largest particles that 
 must be permitted to escape. A steady current of water runs through the battery, 
 so as to carry away the quartz dust as soon as it is fine enough. The sheet-iron 
 screens are punched with needles, and are known by the numbers. No. 7 screen 
 is punched with a cambric needle ; No. 3 with a darning needle. 
 
 In Grass valley most of the mills use Nos. 3 and 4 screens ; elsewhere Nos. 
 4 and 5 and 6 are preferred. 
 
 A multitude of crushers have been tried to break up the quartz before it is 
 given to the stamps or other pulverizing apparatus, but the number in use is 
 very "small. Those principally in use consist of two heavy iron jaws, which are 
 wide apart at the top, and close together at the bottom, and as they work back 
 and forth, the quartz is smashed between them. The quartz is usually in pieces 
 not larger than goose eggs when delivered to the battery, and it is broken this 
 size either by sledge-hammers, or by a large stamp, kept for the purpose of 
 breaking up the large stones. 
 
 The musket-ball pulverizer has been tried as a substitute for stamps, and the 
 report is favorable, but the trial has not been sufficient to command the confi- 
 dence of miners. It is an iron barrel which revolves twenty-four times per min- 
 ute on a longitudinal, horizontal axis. Inside of the barrel are a number of 
 chilled iron balls weighing an ounce each. The quartz is introduced in particles 
 not larger than a grain of wheat, and in two hours it is reduced to an impalpable 
 powder. 
 
 Another pulverizer, that has been tried without attaining favor, is an iron 
 star or wheel without a rim, which makes 1,000 or 1,500 revolutions per minute 
 in an iron casing. The quartz is thrown with great force by the arms against 
 the casing and is dashed into fragments by the concussion. The casing is so 
 made witji little offsets that the quartz strikes at right angles. 
 
 10. AMALGAMATION OF GOLD. 
 
 Much of the gold is caught or amalgamated in the battery. The stamps fall 
 into an iron box or mortar, into which Efn ounce of quicksilver is thrown for 
 every ounce of gold supposed *o be in the quartz. If the rock is crushed fine 
 in the battery, two-thirds or three-fourths of all the gold saved may be caught 
 there, leaving one third or one-fourth that escapes through the screen. 
 
 After leaving the battery, the pulverized quartz in most mills runs down over 
 copper plate which has been washed over with diluted nitric acid, and then 
 rubbed with quicksilver till the whole surface is covered with amalgam. The 
 particles of gold running over this surface adhere and form amalgam; and when 
 the plate is covered with gold it operates far more effectually than when the 
 quicksilver is fresh. Gold unites more readily with gold amalgam than with 
 pure quicksilver, The copper plate, which is the bottom of a trough or sluice, 
 may be fifty'or a hundred feet long. Kustel in his book on Nevada and Call- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 63 
 
 fornia processes of silver and gold extraction (page 16) says, copper plates as a 
 means of amalgamation are " very imperfect and mostly abandoned." Imper- 
 fect they may be, but they are still used in most of the quartz mills of the State, 
 and in some of the best, or at least in some of those which produce the largest 
 amounts of bullion. 
 
 Between the copper plates in many mills are troughs, in the bottom of which 
 are laid coarse blankets, or gunny-bag, or even cow-hide with the hair on and the 
 grain against the stream. Gold amalgam and sulphurets are caught in the 
 rough surface of the blanket, gunny-sack, or hide, which must be taken up and 
 washed at intervals, which are usually not more than half an hour long. 
 
 The shaking table used in amalgamation is a long box with transverse divi- 
 sions containing quicksilver. It is set horizontally and is shaken longitudinally, 
 receiving from 100 to 200 short jerks in a minute. By these jerks the pulp is 
 thrown back upon the quicksilver. 
 
 At the Hayward mine the pulp runs out from the amalgamating battery over 
 a wide pine board, across the grain, and the appearance of the amalgam on this 
 board is supposed to give the best indication whether the proper quantity of quick- 
 silver is being used in the battery. If too much, most of the amalgam runs off, 
 and the little caught on the board is in brilliant round globules ; and if not 
 enough, the amalgam has a rusty look. 
 
 The arrastra is extensively used for amalgamating, and it has the merits of 
 cheapness, grinding well, adaptability to any place, kind of power, economy of 
 water, and facility of working ; but it is slow, and is therefore not in favor in 
 large mills. 
 
 Atwood's amalgamator, used in many mills at Grass valley, consists of level 
 troughs with quicksilver at the bottom ; and over the troughs are horizontal re- 
 volving cylinders with projecting spikes, which stir up the quicksilver and the 
 pulp as the latter passes over the trough. 
 
 .Pans are coming into use slowly in the gold quartz mills at least in some of 
 the new ones lately erected in Grass valley. Kiistel says of pan amalgamation 
 that it is " at present the most perfect gold manipulation," and by it "gold is 
 extracted as close as ninety-five per cent, of the fire assay" that is, if there are 
 no sulphurets. (Nevada and California processes, page 63.) The general 
 opinion is that from twenty to forty per cent, of the gold is lost in the ordinary 
 processes. The pans used are mostly like those that will be described as being 
 used in the silver mills of Nevada. There is, however, one pan not used for sil- 
 ver reduction that has found some favor with gold miners. This is Baux and 
 Guiod's pan, which has a tight-fitting cover. The pulp runs constantly with a 
 stream of water down into the pan through a tube at the side, and the light mat- 
 ter after being ground runs up and out through a tube in the centre. There is thus 
 a constant feed and discharge, while in nearly all the other pans a batch of ore 
 is put in and worked, and then taken out to make room for another batch. 
 
 The Rverson amalgamator is an air-tight chamber in which quartz that has 
 been crushed very fine by some dry process is subjected to the influence of su- 
 per-heated steam for half an hour as a preparation for the quicksilver, which is 
 then introduced and converted by the heat into a vapor, in which form it is sup- 
 posed to pervade the pulp and get access to all the gold. Cold water is injected 
 to condense the quicksilver, and the pulp is drawn up to be separated. . 
 
 11. SULPHURETS AND CONCENTRATION. 
 
 But after the pulp has passed through all the amalgamating processes cus- 
 tomary in gold quartz mills, it is found that in many ores much of the gold is 
 lost because of the presence of sulphurets of iron and copper. The presence 
 of the sulphurets appears to chill the quicksilver and prevent it fro^pi taking hold 
 of the gold, and many particles of gold appear to be enveloped by them. The 
 
64 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 gold can be separated from the pyrites, but heretofore the separation has been 
 effected mainly in establishments specially devoted to that purpose, and not in 
 the ordinary mills. It is customary to save the sulphurets and sell them to the 
 sulphuret works, or keep them until there may be a sale for them. But for 
 the purpose of saving them, they must be separated from the earthy and rocky 
 matter in the pulp, and this is called concentration. Tho sulphurets have a spe- 
 cific gravity of 4.5, while quartz has a specific gravity of 2.6. By this 
 difference in density, it is possible to separate the two. 
 
 There are several patent concentrators in use, all made of ir*on, and shaped 
 like shallow pans. The one more used than any other has a bottom that rises 
 from the edge to the centre, where there is an outlet through which the lighter 
 material runs away. This outlet is, of course, not so high as the rim. This 
 pan turns on a perpendicular axis, and is shaken back and forth by two hun- 
 dred short jerks per minute. A hole in the side is left open for the escape of 
 the sulphurets, which flow out in a steady stream ; and lower down is another 
 hole, which is opened when the heavier matter is to be taken out. 
 
 One of the best cheap concentrators is a long and wide rocker with a flat 
 bottom and a slight inclination^ A boy can work one of these concentrating 
 rockers for a large mill, and the cheapness of the machine and the slight power 
 i ^q aired for it are great advantages. The sulphurets are arrested by cleets in 
 the bottom of the rocker, and need to be taken out at intervals of half an hour. 
 
 Any sluice serves also, to some extent, for concentration. 
 
 12. CHLORINATION. 
 
 The most approved method of reducing auriferous sulphurets is chlorination. 
 As a preparation for this process the sulphurets are roasted. They are placed 
 in an oven brought to a red heat, retained in that condition for about six hours, 
 or until the smell of sulphur has disappeared. After they have cooled the sul- 
 phurets are sprinkled with water, shovelled over, and put into wooden tubs or 
 boxes, so made that chlorine gas can be introduced at the bottom and made to 
 rise all through the mass. The tub or box is kept closely covered, and chloride 
 of gold, which is soluble in water, is formed. After the lapse of four or five 
 hours water is let in, and the chloride of gold is dissolved by it ; the solution is 
 drawn off into glass vessels, and some sheets of iron are put in ; the chlorine 
 unites with the iron, and the gold falls as a purplish-brown powder to the bot- 
 tom of the vessel. 
 
 13. GOLD IN LOOSE STATE. 
 
 Gold mines are divided into the two main classes of quartz and placer, but at 
 Whiskey Hill, near the town of Lincoln, in Placer county, about thirty miles 
 from Sacramento, a large mass of loose slate rock is found, containing consider- 
 able pyrites and about six dollars of gold to the ton. The material is so soft 
 that eight tons can be crushed by a stamp in a day. It is supposed that below 
 the water-line a vein of hard auriferous copper ore will be found. The mass of 
 auriferous slate in the hill is large, and the mine is considered very valuable, 
 one-half of it having been sold for $175,000. Similar bodies of auriferous slate 
 mixed with clay are found at Lander's ranch, Placer county, and at Telegraph 
 City, im Calaveras county. 
 
 14. PLACERS. 
 
 Placer mining is decreasing every year. Every month witnesses the exhaustion 
 of some rich placer district, or its exhaustion at least for the present. It 
 may be that in the future, when laborers can be employed for fifty cents per 
 day, claims which cannot be worked now will be in demand. 
 
 There are Iftrge bodies of gravel that contain just gold enough not to pay, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 65 
 
 at the present rates of water and labor, and it is evident that both must be 
 cheaper after the lapse of a few years. 
 
 But although land might pay the miner, it may pay the farmer still better, 
 and the State should give every preference to the' latter, who beautifies and en- 
 riches the soil, while the miner destroys it. 
 
 Notwithstanding the continuous decline of the placer mining interest for ten 
 years past, there are yet, and long will be, very rich placers. Some of the de- 
 posits of gold in clay and gravel are so protected that a score of years may 
 elapse before they can be reached. On the sides and near the base of the Sierra 
 Nevada are innumerable hills that are destined to come down before the hy- 
 draulic pipe of the miner. One of these hills commences near the town of You 
 Bet, in Nevada county, and extends sixteen miles up the mountain side, with a 
 height of two hundred feet, and a width of a mile ; au there is reason to believe 
 that the foundation throughout its length is a bed of rich auriferous cement. 
 
 15. CEMENT MINING. 
 
 The cement deposit is a stratum of very tough clay enclosing gravel and 
 boulders ; and the clay is so stubborn that it will not dissolve in a sluice-box, 
 and it has been necessary to crush it in mills. The material is heterogeneous ; 
 the clay is soft under the stamp ; some of the gravel is hard, and other soft. 
 The gravel is not auriferous, but it must be crushed, so as to permit the crush- 
 ing of the clay. Several attempts have been made to separate the stones from 
 the remainder of the mass without crushing them, but without success. As the 
 stones contain no gold, all the power spent in crushing them is lost ; but at 
 present there is no other way, nor is it probable that any mode of separation 
 can be devised. One stamp will crush from four to six tons of cement per day, 
 and the cement stamps are only about half as heavy as quartz stamps. The 
 pulverization is not so fine as in quartz ; the sheet-iron screen through which the 
 cement pulp escapes is punched with holes that vary from a sixteenth to an 
 eighth of an inch in size. The particles of clay that escape are so small that 
 they are easily dissolved in the water. The gold is caught in the battery, and 
 that which escapes through the screen is caught in the sluice. It is a singular 
 fact that many of the hills of the present day stand upon the beds and precisely 
 indicate the course of the streams of a former geological epoch. The existence 
 of a layer of basalt or volcanic rock along the top of these hills indicates that 
 currents of lava followed the streams, and after hardening protected the gravel 
 under them from being washed away by the great aqueous agencies which wore 
 down the rock and earth in the neighborhood to a depth of more than two thou- 
 sand feet in some places. So common are auriferous channels under the hills 
 that the term "rim rock" has long been in common use among miners to indi- 
 cate that part of the bed rock which separates the lowest portions of the channel 
 from the outside of the hill on both sides. In some districts it is taken for 
 granted that if a tunnel is cut into a basalt- covered hill at the proper elevation 
 the channel of the ancient river will be found. 
 
 16. HYDRAULIC MINING. 
 
 Most of the placer gold of California is obtained by hydraulic mining ; the 
 most profitable placer claims, as a class, are those worked by the hydraulic pro- 
 cess ; and the most prosperous mining counties are those which have the 
 largest areas suitable for piping. The yield in some of the claims is as $100 
 per day to the hand, and occasionally twice or thrice as much, but the average 
 is probably $10 or $15, of which about half goes to pay for wages, water, and 
 other expenses. 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 5 
 
66 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 17. RIVER MINING. 
 
 Nearly all the river beds have been washed, but they are washed over and 
 over again. The rivers are to be regarded as large sluices into which all the 
 N fine gold that escapes from the adjacent mining operations is carried and de- 
 posited ; and thus there are some river beds that pay for a short time to wash 
 every year. The yield, however, is not large, and miners take to the rivers 
 only as a last resort. 
 
 In Trinity and Klamath counties, California, there is a large area of ground 
 that is comparatively undeveloped ; and that is the best region in the State for 
 the miner who wants to work on his own account, and on a small scale. The 
 country is rugged, the climate wet and cold, the roads bad, and there is some 
 danger of Indians ; but on the other hand there is much gold to reward the 
 skilful miner who is willing to face the hardships and dangers of -the place. 
 
 18. THE HAYWARD QUARTZ MINE. 
 
 The Hay ward claim is one of the notable mines of California. It is situated 
 on Sntter creek, Amador county. The vein is peculiar in its character. 
 
 The quartz is in places almost a powder, and is mixed with slate and clay. 
 The length of the ground worked is about one hundred and sixty yards, and 
 both north and south the vein seems almost to disappear. The average yield 
 of the rock is not high, although some very rich and beautiful specimens have 
 been found in it. The mine has been worked since 1851, and the rock has al- 
 ways given a good average yield, but it is during the last eight years that the 
 mine has risen to much importance. The total product is stated to be $6,000,000. 
 
 The yield per ton and the width of the vein have been gradually increasing, 
 and now at a depth of 1,200 feet the former is $25, and the latter twenty-five 
 feet. The works are by far the deepest in the State, and as the mouth of the 
 mine is estimated to be nine hundred feet above the sea, the lowest works must 
 be three hundred below the surface of the ocean. Professor Whitney speaks 
 thus of the mine, in the first volume of his geological report, written several 
 years ago : " The vein is enclosed in a dark-colored, rather soft argillaceous 
 slate. In the Eureka the mass of vein stone is from eight to twenty feet wide, 
 but in the Badger it widens out suddenly to forty feet. 
 
 " The length of ground worked in both mines is about four hundred and sev- 
 enty feet ; to the south of the Badger shaft, which is on the south end of the 
 mine, there is hardly any quartz to be seen, and the lode, which is eight feet 
 wide on the north side of the Eureka, pinches out very rapidly in that direc- 
 tion, so that the body of quartz worked is very short in proportion to its great 
 width, being almost a column, or chimney, rather than a vein. At the junction 
 of the two veins there is a large mass of slate and soft clay mixed with a little 
 quartz, which is often in a state of fine powder. * 
 
 " Few if any mines in the State have been more uniformly and permanently 
 successful, while the yield of gold to the ton of rock stamped is quite low." 
 
 19.-SIERRA BUTTES MINE. 
 
 The Sierra Buttes quartz mine is one of the most noted and most valuable 
 mines in the State. It is situated at an elevation of 6,000 feet, on the south- 
 western slope of the Downieville Butte, and twelve miles from the town of Dow- 
 nievilie. There are two lodes, but most of the auriferous rock is obtained from 
 the cliff ledge, which averages about twenty feet in width, and of this about 
 eleven feet in thickness on an average are worked. In some places the pay 
 streak is only two feet wide, in others seventeen. The average yield of the 
 quartz is about eighteen dollars per ton. 
 
 Thfe quartz is bluish white in color, and is very hard when first taken out, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 67 
 
 but it crumbles after having been exposed to the air for a time. The gold is 
 disseminated in small particles through the rock, and in most of the quartz the 
 metal is scarcely visible to the naked eye. There are few sulphurets, and there- 
 fore amalgamation is easy. About two -thirds of the gold is caught with quick- 
 silver in the batteries, after leaving which the pulverized quartz is carried by 
 water over about a hundred feet of copper plate covered with quicksilver, and 
 then over a blanket, below which are some arrastras which are owned by differ- 
 ent parties who pay for the tailings and the water. 
 
 The following is an authentic statement of the annual yield, expenses, and 
 dividends since the mine came into the possession of the present company : 
 
 Years. Yield. Expenses. Dividends. 
 
 1857 $51,000 $15,000 $36,000 
 
 1858 55, 000 15, 000 40, 000 
 
 1859... 88,000 20,000 68,000 
 
 1860 120, 000 37, 000 83, 000 
 
 1861 198,000 48,000 150,000 
 
 1862 166,000 54,000 112,000 
 
 1803 156,000 57,000 99,000 
 
 1864 90, 000 75, 000 1,5, 000 
 
 1865 ,. 196,000 64,000 132,000 
 
 No assessments have ever been levied. The produce of the mine has paid for 
 all the improvements. The yield in 1866 is better than ever; and the charac- 
 ter of the lode has remained almost the same wherever they have worked it, 
 without notable difference between the surface and the deepest workings. 
 
 20. THE ALLISON MINE, &c. 
 
 The Allison mine at Grass valley is one of the richest and most productive 
 in the State. It had been worked with almost uniform profit for the ten years 
 The average thickness of the lode is about eighteen inches, and the rock yield 
 from $30 to $150 per ton. According to the best information obtainable by tl. 
 State geological survey 14,858 tons were reduced between March, 1857, ar 
 December, 1861, and the average yield was $50 per ton or $942,900 in a 
 Since the summer of 1862 the mine pays better than before. The lowest wo 
 ings are nearly 500 feet deep, and the lode at that depth is three feet wide, w 
 rock that averages $100 to the ton. The owners refuse to give any sta 
 ments of their receipts or expenditures, but the men employed in the mill s 
 the yield is $40,000 per month, or $400,000 for ten months' work in a yea 
 and of this sum two-thirds or more is clear profit. The claim has been work 
 for a length of about 1,400 feet. 
 
 The Norambague mine at Grass valley has yielded more than half a milli 
 dollars in the last five years. The average yield of the ore is about $75 p 
 ton. The deepest workings are 500 feet from the surface, and drifts have be 
 run J ,000 feet along the course of the lode. 
 
 The following is a statement of the operations of the Eureka mine at Gr< 
 valley for the year ending September 30, 1866 : 
 
 Receipts from bullion $531, 431 
 
 Total expenditures at mine 192, 648 
 
 Dividends 90, 000 
 
 Net profits 368, 042 
 
 Tons of quartz crushed 11, 375 I 
 
 Average yield per ton 47 li 
 
 Average cost per ton crushed 14 80 
 
 Average cost of 1,500 tons 18 00 
 
 Average cost of remainder per ton 13 75 
 
68 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The following is a statement of the operations of the same mine for four months 
 ending September 30, 1866: 
 
 Receipts from bullion $248, 072 55 
 
 Dividends 90, 000 00 
 
 Total expenditures at mine 69, 430 04 
 
 Net product of mine 187, 751 72 
 
 Tons of quartz crushed 
 
 Average yield per ton 
 
 4,227 00 
 60 33 
 
 The Rocky Bar claim on Massachusetts Hill, near Grass valley, has produced 
 about $1,500,000 in the last six years. 
 
 The Princeton vein, in Mariposa county, has yielded $2,000,000 within the 
 last twelve years, but lately it has produced very little, and for a time work on 
 it was abandoned. 
 
 21. THE SMARTSVILLE BLUE GRAVEL COMPANY'S MINE. 
 
 The richest placer mine in the- State is that of the Blue Gravel Mining Com- 
 pany, at Smartsville, in Yuba county. The yield since March, 1864, has been 
 as follows : 
 
 1864. March $9,381 
 
 May 24,275 
 
 June 7,000 
 
 July 22,350 
 
 August 3,485 
 
 September 49, 440 
 
 October 24, 669 
 
 December 45, 093 
 
 1865. January 2, 723 
 
 February 24, 051 
 
 March 44,981 
 
 1865. May $24, 000 
 
 June 50, 118 
 
 August 24,679 
 
 September 46, 500 
 
 October 26,660 
 
 December 37,000 
 
 February 23,746 
 
 April , 43,423 
 
 June 23,880 
 
 August 42,494 
 
 1866. 
 
 Total 599,948 
 
 The gold is obtained only when the sluice is cleaned up ; and the cleaning up 
 occurs sometimes at intervals of two or three months, and there is no yield for 
 the intervening months. The claim will continue to pay for many years, and 
 probably it will be richer than ever, for the miners have not yet reached the bed 
 rock. The claim covers an area of about a hundred acres on a long hill or 
 ridge that stands over the bed of an ancient stream. The hill is made up of 
 numerous layers of gravel, sand and boulders, with a rim of rock at the bottom 
 on each side of the hill. To get access to the auriferous deposit it was neces- 
 sary to cut a tunnel 1,700 feet long through the rim rock. This work was com- 
 menced in February, 1855, by the company, which had a capital of $20,000. 
 This sum was soon expended in cutting a tunnel, which in places cost $100 per 
 lineal foot, and then money was borrowed and the debt ran up gradually to 
 $60,000, so that at the end of 1859 the company had spent $80,000 and nearly 
 five years of hard labor, with no certainty of any return. In 1857 they began 
 to wash some of the gravel in the higher portions of the claim, and the expense 
 was greater than the yield for more than two years; but in 1860 this washing 
 commenced to yield a profit, and in three years more the debt xvas reduced from 
 $60,000 to $20,000. In December, 1863, the tunnel reached the pay-dirt, and 
 then it was necessary to sink an incline down from the top of the hill so that 
 the dirt could be carried off by the water through the tunnel. It was a difficult 
 matter to open this incline to so great a depth and get it into such condition that 
 there was no danger of the earth falling in and choking up the channel or kill- 
 
WEST OF THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 69 
 
 ing the miners ; but at last this was accomplished, and since then the company 
 have reaped a rich harvest of gold. They are using 500 inches (miners' mea- 
 surement) of water per day, under a head pressure of 150 feet, at a cost of $75 
 per day. They use 125,000 pounds of powder annually in blasting to loosen 
 the earth so that the water can wash it away readily. A steady current, eight 
 inches deep and three feet wide, of mud, estimated to contain four inches in depth 
 of solid matter, runs through their sluice, and they use three tons of quicksilver 
 at one time to catch their gold They have sluiced away an area of twenty 
 acres, 100 feet deep, and they have built in all four miles of fluming, much of 
 which is not now in use. They expended 880,000 on their first tunnel and 
 have commenced another lower down. It will cost $75,000 and will require 
 three years for completion. 
 
 The flume now in use is 3,000 feet long, and is paved alternately with wooden 
 blocks set on end and flat stones set on the edge. The sections of block paving 
 extend across the flume, and seventeen inches longitudinally, and the sections 
 of stone paving are two feet long. The flume has an inclination of six and one- 
 half inches in twelve feet. 
 
 This company is the only one which has mined steadily for ten years in the 
 Smartsville district, with a profit for the whole period. Many other companies 
 have spent immense sums of money and obtained no return. Others have 
 made a profit for a year or two, but the general result has been failure. The 
 Blue Gravel company succeeded only by the extraordinary and, it might almost 
 be said, the unbusiness indulgence of their creditors, who might at any time for 
 a period of seven years have come and taken the claim. As late as 1862 the 
 shares in the company were selling at the rate of $11,000 for the whole claim. 
 When the enterprise, the patience, the perseverance, the privations, the risks 
 of failure, the hard labor of nine unprofitable years, the faithful devotion of the 
 stockholders to one another, and the generous trust of the creditors are consid- 
 ered, it must be admitted that the Blue Gravel company have abundantly mer- 
 ited all their success. Many other claims of less value have cost their owners 
 proportionately as much in money, labor, and patience. 
 
 22. PROFITS OF MINING GENERALLY. 
 
 The business of mining has not been in any branch a source of much profit 
 to the majority of those who have undertaken it in California. The proportion 
 of California miners who have made fortunes within the last fifteen years is 
 much less than that of the Illinois farmers. One of the chief sources of wealth 
 in the United States east of the Rocky mountains has been the increase in the 
 value of land, but in the mining districts hitherto there was little land to which 
 a fee-simple title could be obtained. The largest income in the State of 1865 
 is that of Jules Tricot, who made in that year $182,511 by quartz mining and 
 the sale of quarts mines, and the third largest is that of James P. Pierce, who 
 made $102,011 in placer mining. When, however, we come to examine the 
 incomes of the miners generally we find that they are small. 
 
 The following table shows the number of adult white men in some of the 
 mining counties, and the number of those who pay tax on an income of $1,800 
 or more, reckoned in legal tender : 
 
 Counties. No. white miners. No. incomes $1,800. 
 
 Del Norte 250 None. 
 
 Klamath 700 5 
 
 Trinity 700 10 
 
 Siskiyen 2,500 24 
 
 Shasta 1,000 17 
 
 Plumas 1,000 9 
 
 Butte 1,000 13 
 
70 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Counties. No. white miners. 
 
 Sierra 2,500 
 
 Nevada 3,000 
 
 Placer 1,800 
 
 El Dorado 2,000 
 
 Amador 1,200 
 
 No. incomes $1,800. 
 
 45 
 148 
 66 
 33 
 18 
 
 An examination of the lists shows that most of these who have these incomes 
 are not miners, and that the proportion of those who have large incomes is 
 greater in the agricultural districts and in the towns than in the mines. As a 
 matter of curiosity, the list of incomes of Nevada county for 1865 is here ap- 
 pended, with the names of those who derive their incomes from quartz marked 
 with an asterisk, and those who derive their incomes from placers marked with 
 a dagger. 
 
 NEVADA COUNTY. 
 
 Anderson, John* $2,063 
 
 Alger, Moxtont 6,341 
 
 Alexander, Dt 1,000 
 
 Abbey, Richardt 2,5J5 
 
 Belden, David 4,868 
 
 Bales, C. M 2,580 
 
 Bigelow, E. W 2,400 
 
 Bigelow, E.W 3,689 
 
 Byrne, James 2,490 
 
 Brady, A. B* 4,708 
 
 Binkleman, D 2,064 
 
 Bennett, John 2,058 
 
 Boury, Gt '.- 3,756 
 
 Brown, J. H 7,274 
 
 Baylis, J. H* 2,234 
 
 Black, R. Ct 1,804 
 
 Bell, V. Gt 2,138 
 
 Colley, James 1,983 
 
 Crawford, W. H 4,124 
 
 Clark, Jonathan 4,291 
 
 Cashin, John 5,020 
 
 Cohn, Jacob 1,898 
 
 Coleman, Edwardt 7,790 
 
 Coleman, J. C* 7,768 
 
 Corbett, E. S 2,963 
 
 Caldwell, J. J 1,800 
 
 Cliff, William* 5,280 
 
 Connolly, Ellen* 33,119 
 
 Corbett, John* 4,736 
 
 Colbert, Michael* 4,735 
 
 Curmack, Ht 4,619 
 
 Crull, S. Mt 4,799 
 
 dull, J. St 5,362 
 
 Cadwalader, Nt 27,190 
 
 Deal, M. S 2,400 
 
 Davenport, T. T 5,120 
 
 Delano. A w 7,500 
 
 Dorsey, S. P 2,150 
 
 Dibble,A. B 3,654 
 
 Daniel, William* 6,024 
 
 Dornin, George D 3,410 
 
 Dikeman, S. Ht 2,032 
 
 Enright, Michaelt 2,738 
 
 Edwards, J. R* 2,654 
 
 Eddy, A. Ht 3,138 
 
 Everett, Henry* 13,829 
 
 Effinger, John Ht 3,400 
 
 Ennis, Frankt 2,875 
 
 Finninger, R 3,420 
 
 Farquhar, R. H 5,400 
 
 Fiicot, J* 182,511 
 
 Findler, Thomas* $13,051 
 
 Faulkner, James 3,090 
 
 Ford, Marin* 3,546 
 
 Fahey, John* 9,561 
 
 Fogarty, Park* 40, 058 
 
 Furtt, Simon 1,900 
 
 Furtt, Daniel 1,900 
 
 Felton, Dt 1,913 
 
 Gregory. A. B 1,900 
 
 Gepeard, George 5,639 
 
 Gad, B 1,898 
 
 Galaway, Philip* 3,544 
 
 Greenwell, J. Wt 2,525 
 
 Greenwell, S. Jt 3,275 
 
 Gaskill, J. Lt 7,546 
 
 Hawley, T. P 4,298 
 
 Hinds, J. W 3,131 
 
 Hamiston, M. S 5,960 
 
 Hunt, R. M 4,825 
 
 Hodue, Thomas 2,458 
 
 Hasken, William* 2, 393 
 
 Hunter, John Rt 1,328 
 
 Henry, Samuel Tt 2,335 
 
 Henderson, H 2,000 
 
 Henry, Williamt 2,294 
 
 Johnston, Peter 2,528 
 
 Johnston, John 2, 528 
 
 Judsion, Orint 3,428 
 
 Judson, Harw'dt 3, 558 
 
 Kidd, George W* 3,749 
 
 Keeney, George 2, 275 
 
 Leavitt, C. C 5,079 
 
 Loutgenhisee, W* 6, 025 
 
 Larimer, John* 3, 150 
 
 Lee, S. Wt.., 1,834 
 
 'Lloyd, Thomas* 3,200 
 
 Leech, Charles* 4,900 
 
 Lauey, Thomast 13, 784 
 
 Mackie, H 8,731 
 
 Marvillus, E. Pt 2,609 
 
 Marsh, M. L 2,6oO 
 
 McFarlan, T. B 5,260 
 
 Marsh, Charles 4, 475 
 
 Mason, James B 2,523 
 
 Maguire, Thomas 3, 526 
 
 McDonald, Gt 1,900 
 
 Mull, E. Wt...' 1,960 
 
 Morian, F* 7,908 
 
 Northy, Et 10,610 
 
 Nathan, B* 2,113 
 
 Nickell, G. W 2,888 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 71 
 
 O'Connor, M. P $3,548 Stone, J. P $1,936 
 
 Pierce, A* 6,900 Smith, C. C _ ],963 
 
 Peiry, S. E 3,850 Swan, A. Bt..... 6,889 
 
 Phillips, Henry 5,713 Shardin, Chariest 1,893 
 
 Pralus, A* 89,681 Spooner, G. Ct 8,019 
 
 Pollnier, Henryt 3,150 Smith, Francis 3,275 
 
 Quine, Patrick! 14,313 Smith, Jacob 1,900 
 
 Richards, F 1,833 Sheets, L. Ft 2,840 
 
 Roads, W. H* 5,168 Tisdale, W. L* 4,884 
 
 Ripert, S* 80,096 Torson, O 3,104 
 
 Roberts, D. G* 31,400 Tower, A. D 3,806 
 
 Remington, M. L* 2,278 Tully, R. W 2,840 
 
 Rosmussan, P*.. 2,434 Turner, G. E 1,900 
 
 Rosendale, C. Et .--- 4,966 Trenberth, J* 3,428 
 
 Spence, E. F 2,650 Thomas, Johnt 2,055 
 
 Sargent, A. A 5,321 Villian, Bt 4,363 
 
 Swithenback, J 2,465 Whartenby, Jt 25,105 
 
 Scaddin, Henry* 2,951 Werte, E. G 2,494 
 
 Silvester, H* 4,000 Watt, Robert* 42,890 
 
 Shaffer, George 2,453 Watt, William* 42,794 
 
 Smith, C. W 2,400 Whiting, L. L* 2,750 
 
 Smith, John 2,588 Williams, Et 8,575 
 
 Smith, Robert 2,588 Weil, A 2,960 
 
 This list is marked by a gentleman well acquainted in the county, but a 
 few of those whose names are not marked may be miners. It appears that out 
 of 148 names, 42 of those are quartz miners and 40 of placer miners. It must 
 be remembered, however, that Nevada is the most prosperous and the most 
 productive mining county in California, and that the proportion of large incomes 
 among the miners is greater than elsewhere. 
 
 23. DIFFICULTY OF GETTING GOOD CLAIMS. 
 
 A fact which should never be overlooked on the Atlantic slope by persons 
 who speak of mining is, that a good claim cannot be had by merely making an 
 effort to get one. It costs -as much effort generally as it costs to get a good 
 farm, or more. If the claim is open and its value is established, it can only be 
 bought at a high price. If it is not open, years may be spent in opening it, and 
 then it may prove to be barren at last. That has been the experience of thou- 
 sands. A list of the expensive tunnels and shafts undertaken in California and 
 Nevada would include numerous failures after years of time and scores of thou- 
 sands of dollars had been devoted to the labor. These things are not written, 
 because few want to publish their own failures or to read about those of others ; 
 and a number of those who own mines famous for their rich yields had to strug- 
 gle along for years, barely paying expenses and exposed to the jeers or the pity 
 of their acquaintances for their obstinacy in sticking to claims that could never, 
 it was said, be made to pay. It is unjust to the miner to assume that he is 
 taking the public property without compensation. In most cases he has more 
 than paid for it by his labor, and although it may not yield him a good income, 
 it is no more than a fair return for his enterprise and industry, and he should be 
 allowed to enjoy it as a proper encouragement to others to devote themselves 
 to the development of other mines. Many, indeed, think that even with unre- 
 strained liberty to take the precious metals from the public lands, and with entire 
 exemption from taxation, the pay of the miner is less than that of any other 
 equally industrious and intelligent body of laborers in the country. 
 
 24. COMSTOCK LODE THE MOST PRODUCTIVE IN THE WORLD. 
 
 Although some rich argentiferous veins have been discovered in California, 
 Idaho, and Arizona, they have not been developed sufficiently to enable us to 
 say much of them ; and our remarks on the condition of silver mining on the 
 coast must be based chiefly upon the business as conducted in Nevada. During 
 
RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 the last three years there lias been no increase in the production, but the gen- 
 eral condition is very satisfactory. The Comstock lode is now the most pro- 
 ductive mineral vein in the world. A strip of land six hundred yards wide and 
 three miles long yields $12,000,000 annually. ' There is no parallel to that in 
 ancient or modern times. The other richest silver mining districts of the present 
 century, such as Guanajuato, Zaeatecas, Sombrerete, Durango, Chihauhau, 
 Alamos, Real del Monte, Potosi, Cero Paseo, and Chanarcillo, do not produce 
 more than about $20,000,000 each annually, and the Comstock lode is now con- 
 tributing more silver to the commerce of the world than any other four lodes. 
 The total number of men employed in the mines and mills to obtain this metal 
 is about 5,000, giving an average annual yield of $2,500 for each. The ore is 
 not so rich nor so abundant as it has been in some Mexican lodes, but a greater 
 yield has been obtained by employing more machinery. The general custom 
 of the Mexican mines has been to employ men to carry the ore U out of the 
 mine on their backs, and to transport it from the mine to the mill on mules, to 
 pulverize it by mule power, and to stir it during amalgamation by tramping 
 with the feet of men or mules. If water invaded the works it was hoisted by 
 hand or by horse whims. Thus a Mexican mine required a hundred men to do 
 the work that can be done in a Nevada mine by twenty, and it was difficult to 
 make room for a hundred men to work within such narrow limits. Either they 
 were continually in the way of one another or most of them discharged, and the 
 work advanced with corresponding slowness. 
 
 The leading mines at Virginia City are marvellous for the extent of their 
 works and the rapidity with which they extract and reduce the ore. The chief 
 gold mines of California, high as their product is, are small affairs when com- 
 pared with the vast works of the chief silver companies of Nevada. 
 
 25. COMSTOCK MINING COMPANIES. 
 
 S. H. Marlette, surveyor general of the State, in his official report for the 
 year 1865, gives the following list of the mining companies on the Comstock 
 lode, with the accompanying statistics and remarks : 
 
 Companies. 
 
 Length in feet. 
 
 Greatest depth 
 reached. 
 
 Length of lode 
 explored. 
 
 Utah 
 
 1,000 
 
 260 
 
 300 
 
 Allen 
 
 925 
 
 200 
 
 300 
 
 Sierra Nevada - 
 
 2 157 
 
 410 
 
 400 
 
 Union . 
 
 302 
 
 80 
 
 (*) 
 
 Opbir N mine 
 
 1,200 
 
 428 
 
 400 
 
 Mexican 
 
 100 
 
 6^0 
 
 100 
 
 Ophiv S. mine . ................. . .......... 
 
 900 
 
 620 
 
 200 
 
 Central 
 
 150 
 
 428 
 
 150 
 
 California 
 
 300 
 
 428 
 
 300 
 
 Empire, N . 
 
 55 
 
 600 
 
 55 
 
 Eclipse . ' 
 
 30 
 
 1595 
 
 30 
 
 
 20 
 
 1595 
 
 20 
 
 
 20 
 
 550 
 
 20 
 
 Pl^to 
 
 10 
 
 550 
 
 10 
 
 
 20 
 
 550 
 
 20 
 
 Piute .... . .. -. 
 
 20 
 
 550 
 
 20 
 
 Winters & Kutstel . . 
 
 30 
 
 585 
 
 30 ' 
 
 Consolidated 21 feet .... .... 
 
 21 
 
 585 
 
 21 
 
 
 300 
 
 360 
 
 100 
 
 Kinney . . ................. ... ......... 
 
 50 
 
 369 
 
 (*) 
 
 \\ T liitc & Murphy ............ . .... 
 
 210 
 
 369 
 
 120 
 
 *1 cross cut. {Evidently an error, and much 
 
 too large. 
 
 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 73 
 
 List of the mining companies on the Comstock lode, Sfc. Continued. 
 
 Companies. 
 
 1 
 
 .2 
 
 ID 
 
 
 
 
 rG 
 
 A 
 
 !1 
 
 "co *3 
 
 Si 
 
 02 }-i 
 
 o 
 
 Length of lode 
 explored. 
 
 Sides 
 
 500 
 
 500 
 
 200 
 
 Best & Belcher . .. 
 
 222 
 
 469 
 
 222 
 
 Grould & Curry 
 
 921 
 
 8 4 >1 
 
 921 
 
 
 768 
 
 496 
 
 768 
 
 
 400 
 
 700 
 
 200 
 
 Chollar Potosi . 
 
 1 434 
 
 700 
 
 700 
 
 Buillon 
 
 940 
 
 *455 
 
 430 
 
 Dxchequer 
 
 400 
 
 *540 
 
 None 
 
 Alpha 
 
 278 
 
 620 
 
 278-j- 
 
 Apple & Bates . .... ...... ....... . .... 
 
 3U 
 
 600 
 
 3U 
 
 Imperial (Alta) . .. ' 
 
 118 
 
 600 
 
 118 
 
 
 45 
 
 600 
 
 45 
 
 
 134 
 
 550 
 
 13i 
 
 Imperial (H andL.) . .. ............ 
 
 65* 
 
 550 
 
 653- 
 
 Challenge 
 
 50 
 
 554 
 
 50 
 
 
 130 
 
 544 
 
 130 
 
 Burk & Hamilton .. ........................... 
 
 40 
 
 544 
 
 40 
 
 Yellow Jacket . ...... 
 
 957 
 
 430 
 
 
 Keutuck 
 
 90 
 
 300 
 
 Shaft 
 
 
 540 
 
 301 
 
 540 
 
 Belcher ...... . . .. .. 
 
 940 
 
 520 
 
 940 
 
 Segregated Belcher . ......... 
 
 160 
 
 500 
 
 160 
 
 
 1 200 
 
 640 
 
 1 200 
 
 
 2 000 
 
 300 
 
 
 Baltimore American .................. ...... 
 
 2 000 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Deduct 6 feet in dispute between Imperial and Apple & Bates Cos.. 
 
 22, 264 
 6 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 22 258 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 "The 'dead work' (i. e., shafts, wings, tunnels, and excavations not in pay 
 ore) of the Gould & Curry company equals about 12,750 lineal feet, (about 
 Sy^o miles,) with an average cross- sectional a^rea of thirty feet, or about 14,167 
 cubic yards. 
 
 " The companies enumerated above have excavated about 28 miles of tunnels 
 and drifts, and about 5J miles of shafts, wings, and inclines, exclusive of stopes 
 on ore chimneys, which will amount at least to as much more, giving a total of 
 at least 67J miles. 
 
 " The longest tunnel penetrating the Comstock lode is the Latrobe, 3,200 
 feet in length in a straight line, besides various branches, which was commenced 
 in February, 1861, aad is still being driven ahead. The above-mentioned com- 
 panies have forty-four hoisting and pumping engines, which will probably 
 average between thirty and forty horse-power, and give an aggregate of more 
 than 1,500 horse-power. The mines of the Comstock employ seventy-six mills 
 for reducing their ores, with an aggregate capacity for crushing 1,800 tons daily; 
 some of which are fourteen miles from the mines, the ore being transported on 
 wagons. 
 
 " There is consumed annually by these companies about 22,265 cords of wood, 
 at a cost of not far from sixteen dollars per cord, and a total cost of more than 
 one-third of a million of dollars; and they use about 15,540,120 feet, board 
 
 * Evidently an error, and much too large. 
 
74 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND "'TERRITORIES 
 
 measure, of timber and lumber, all of which must be transported long distances 
 on wagons, at a cost of about forty dollars per thousand, or a total cost of 
 nearly two-thirds of a million of dollars. Thus, for wood and timber, we have 
 a total annual cost of one million of ^dollars." 
 
 26. QUARTZ MILLS IN NEVADA. 
 
 Surveyor General Marlette, in the report for 1865, gives the following figures 
 of the quartz mills in the State : 
 
 Counties. 
 
 02 
 
 Water. 
 
 1 
 
 Horse-power 
 of engines. 
 
 No. of stamps. 
 
 Churchill .. . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 497 
 
 169 
 
 Huinboldt 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Lander .... .... ...... 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 19 
 
 
 163 
 
 
 21 
 
 9 
 
 34 
 
 940 
 
 508 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 38 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 1,510 
 
 623 
 
 Washoe - 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Capacity and machinery of ComstocJc mills. 
 
 The Mining and Scientific Press published the following quartz mills in Vir- 
 ginia City and the vicinity, with the name, the number of tons reduced per 
 month, the number of stamps, and the kind of machinery used in reduction. 
 
 Quartz mills in Virginia City and the vicinity, with the name, the number of 
 ton's reduced per month, the number of stamps, and the kind of machinery used 
 in reduction. 
 
 Location and name of 
 mill. 
 
 S . 
 
 p*s 
 
 3 
 
 o 2 
 H B 
 
 gSJ 
 
 1! 
 
 | 
 
 Remarks 
 
 Virginia City. 
 Summit ............. 
 
 900 
 
 20 
 
 11 Wheeler pans, 4 settlers, 1 small Varney pan 
 
 Central 
 
 670 
 
 13 
 
 and settler, 1 agitator. 
 4 Hepburn pans and 4 settlers, working 500 tons. 
 
 
 1,000 
 
 22 
 
 wet ; 4 furnaces and 6 barrels, working 170 tons, 
 dry. 
 12 Wheeler pans and 4 settlers. 
 
 
 800 
 
 21 
 
 24 Knox and 2 Wheeler pans. 
 
 Hoosier State ..... 
 
 400 
 
 8 
 
 24 Ivnox pans. 
 
 Seven Mile Canon. 
 
 600 
 
 12 
 
 6 Wheeler pans, prospecting battery, 2 Knox pans 
 
 Chas Land's 
 
 1,000 
 
 20 
 
 and 3 large settlers. 
 1 Blake's breaker, 19 Wheeler pans, 5 settlers, and2 
 
 Bassett's 
 
 700 
 
 16 
 
 grinders for grinding amalgam and work'g slum. 
 4 improved Wheeler and 2 Hepburn pans, 2 tubs, 
 
 
 
 
 and 3 settlers. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 Quartz mills in Virginia City, fyc. Continued. 
 
 75 
 
 Location and name of 
 mill. 
 
 b 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 Number 
 of stamps. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Winfield, or Booth's 
 Gould & Curry .. 
 
 1,000 
 3 502 
 
 18 
 80 
 
 1 Blake's breaker, 8 Hepburn pans, 1 grinder, and 
 4 settlers. 
 39 Hepburn pans, 3 Varney pans, and 21 settlers. 
 
 
 700 
 
 15 
 
 2 Hepfiurn, 2 Wheeler, and 20 4- feet Knox pans. 
 
 G. Atwood' s, Fly Deland' s 
 
 Gold Hill and Gold 
 Canon. 
 
 600 
 700 
 
 15 
 15 
 
 26 Knox pans, 2 Wheeler pans, and 2 settlers. 
 8 Hepburn pans, 2 grinders, and 4 settlers. 
 
 Crown Point ...... .... 
 
 200 
 
 Q 
 
 13 Knox pans and tubs. 
 
 Rhode Island Cr. P't Co. 
 
 1, 350 
 
 400 
 
 25 
 14 
 
 8 Hepburn and 10 7-feet Knox pans. 
 14 tubs and 1 agitator. 
 
 Gold Hill 
 
 475 
 
 14 
 
 24 Knox pans, 6 6-feet tubs, and 4 settlers. 
 
 Sapphire .... .... .... 
 
 800 
 
 16 
 
 56 Knox pans. 
 
 Petaluma . ...... 
 
 300 
 
 g 
 
 18 Knox pans. 
 
 Imperial 
 
 1 100 
 
 44 
 
 74 Knox pans. 
 
 
 900 
 
 Ifi 
 
 12 \Vheeler pans 6 settlers and 2 concentrators* 
 
 
 500 
 
 9 
 
 30 5-feet plain pans and 2 agitators. 
 
 Douglas .. ...... 
 
 450 
 
 10 
 
 26 plain pans and 1 agitator. 
 
 Atlas 
 
 750 
 
 IP: 
 
 8 Hepburn pans and 4 settlers. 
 
 Piute Piute Co 
 
 1 200 
 
 20 
 
 12 Hepburn pans 6 8-feet settlers and 1 grinder 
 
 Pacific Alpha Co 
 
 1 SOO 
 
 Of) 
 
 15 W^heeler pans 5 large settler*' and 2 grinders 
 
 Succor .. ...... 
 
 600 
 
 20 
 
 2 Hepburn pans, 24 Wheeler flat-bottom pans, 1 
 
 Confidence 
 
 650 
 
 10 
 
 settler, and 1 agitator. 
 8 Varuey pans 5 settlers and 3 agitators 
 
 G C Reduction 
 
 600 
 
 15 
 
 6 Hepburn and 4 5-feet flat-bottom pans. 
 
 Phoenix .... . ..... 
 
 500 
 
 16 
 
 6 pins and 4 settlers. 
 
 Eastern Slope 
 
 550 
 
 12 
 
 6 Hepburn pans and 3 large settlers. 
 
 Swansea 
 
 600 
 
 12 
 
 22 6-f'eet tubs 3 settlers prospecting battery, and 
 
 Excelsior ...... ....... 
 
 530 
 
 10 
 
 pan. 
 18 Knox pans and 1 settler. , 
 
 Sacramento 
 
 550 
 
 10 
 
 12 7-feet iron pans and 1 agitator. 
 
 Weston's 
 
 700 
 
 15 
 
 9 Wheeler pans, 5 settlers, and 1 agitator. 
 
 On Carson river, from 
 Empire to Dayton. 
 
 Mexican .............. 
 
 1 260 
 
 44 
 
 12 Hepburn pans, 4 furnaces, and 10 barrels; by 
 
 
 2 300 
 
 40 
 
 wet process, 1.000 tons ; by dry process, 260 tons. 
 30 Hepburn pans, 15 settlers, 2 agitators, and 2 
 
 Brunswick .. 
 
 600 
 
 g 
 
 grinders. 
 8 Varney pans and 4 agitators. 
 
 Merrimac 
 
 2 350 
 
 20 
 
 15 Wheeler 4 Knox, and 1 Varney pan, pros- 
 
 Vivian . ....... 
 
 750 
 
 16 
 
 pecting battery and pan, 6 large settlers, and 10 
 agitators. 
 8 Wheeler pans, 4 settlers, and 1 agitator. 
 
 Santiago ...... 
 
 1 100 
 
 24 
 
 1 Blake's breaker, 14 Wheeler and 4 Hepburn pans, 
 
 Eureka 
 
 1 100 
 
 20 
 
 and 9 settlers. 
 10 Wheeler pans, 5 settlers, and 2 agitators. 
 
 San Francisco . 
 
 500 
 
 10 
 
 3 Hepburn pans and 7 tubs. 
 
 
 500 
 
 10 
 
 2 Wheeler and 2 Hepburn pans, 5 tubs, and 2 
 
 
 500 
 
 10 
 
 settlers. 
 10 Varney pans and 3 settlers. 
 
 Ophir Co.'s 
 
 1 200 
 
 24 
 
 12 Hepburn pans and 6 settlers. 
 
 Dayton No. 1 
 
 '500 
 
 20 
 
 6 Wheeler pans 2 8-feet settlers, and 2 agitators. 
 
 Dayton No. 2 
 
 800 
 
 I** 
 
 8 Varney pans 4 settlers and 4 agitators. 
 
 Birdsall & Carpenter. .. 
 
 2,400 
 500 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 20 Wheeler pans, 10 large size- Wheeler settlers, 5 
 agitators, 1 grinder, and 1 Blake's rock breaker. 
 24 Knox pans and 1 settler. 
 
 
 500 
 
 20 
 
 6 HeDburn nans. 2 settlers, and 3 agitators. 
 
76 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Quartz mills in Virginia City, fyc. Continued 
 
 Location and name of 
 mill. 
 
 K (^ 
 
 O 
 
 Number 
 of stamps. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Imperial Co.'s, Black P't 
 
 American Flat. 
 Bay State 
 
 2,400 
 1,400 
 
 56 
 23 
 
 Blake's breaker, large size, 14 Hepburn pans, 27 
 7-feet tubs, and 7 7-feet settlers. 
 
 14 Wheeler pans and 7 settlers 
 
 Bigby & Co 
 
 400 
 
 10 
 
 5 Varncy pans and 4 settlers 1 extra pan and set- 
 
 Washoe Valley and 
 vicinity. 
 
 Temelec 
 
 800 
 
 15 
 
 tler for tailings, and 1 barrel. 
 12 "Wheeler pans and 2 laro'e settlers 
 
 Manhattan N. Y. Co 
 New York .... . 
 
 1,300 
 1 300 
 
 24 
 
 24 
 
 16 pans, 8 settlers, and \ grinder. 
 16 Varney pans 6 settlers and I grinder 
 
 Atchison Savage Co 
 Minnesota Savage Co. . . 
 Buckeye ...... . . 
 
 1,200 
 1,000 
 700 
 
 20 
 16 
 10 
 
 1 breaker, 16 Wheeler pans, and 8 settlers. 
 1 breaker, 12 Wheeler pans, 6 settlers, abd 1 agita'r. 
 1 breaker 8 \Vheeler pans and 4 settlers 
 
 Ophir Co 's 
 
 450 
 
 72 
 
 \Vorking only 36 stamps (Freiberg 1 process ) 9 
 
 J. H. Ball's 
 
 1,725 
 
 60 
 
 furnaces, 24 amalgamating barrels ; work 43 
 men ; full capacity of mill, 750 tons. 
 2 Blake's breakers, 8 furnaces, 20 barrels 6 Var- 
 
 
 
 
 ney and 4 Wheeler and Randall pans. 
 
 It appears from this table that there are 331 Knox's pans, 226 Wheeler's 
 pans, 190 Hepburn's pans, 58 Varney pans, 94 plain pans, 24 Wakelee's 
 pans, 213 settlers, 37 agitators, 12 grinders, 59 barrels, 77 tubs, and two con- 
 centrators in use at these mills. Under the head of amalgamating machinery, 
 though not strictly in place, the breakers are mentioned. The list includes 
 62 mills, 1,226 stamps, 919 pans. The total amount of ore reduced per month 
 is given at 53,787 tons, but the capacity is considerably greater. 
 
 27. THE PAN. 
 
 The pan, which is the chief instrument used in the amalgamation of the silver 
 ores of Nevada, is of cast iron, two feet deep, and from two to seven feet in 
 diameter usually four and a half; to the bottom are fastened dies or movable 
 pieces of iron which form a false bottom, and can be replaced by others when 
 worn out. A shaft rises through the centre of the pan, and to it are fastened 
 shoes or pieces of iron which are to run round over the false bottom and grind 
 the pulp. Many of the pans have chambers at the bottom for steam, which is 
 to keep the pulp at a heat of about 200. 
 
 28. THE WHEELER PAN. 
 
 The above is a description of the general features of the plain pan, the 
 Wheeler pan, and the Varney pan. The Wheeler pan has curved grooves in 
 the bottom, running from the centre to the rim, to hold the quicksilver. To the 
 sides above the mullers are fastened boards so shaped as to throw the pulp to 
 the centre. But for these boards the pulp would move as fast as the muller, 
 sixty revolutions per minute, and might run over at the sides, and would not be 
 brought into proper contact with the quicksilver at the bottom; whereas by 
 throwing the pulp to the centre the current is broken, the heavy matter sinks 
 to the bottom to be ground and be mixed with the quicksilver 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 77 
 
 29. THE VARNEY PAN. 
 
 The Varney pan has a flat bottom, and is made to grind as well as amalga- 
 mate. The speed is greater and the pulp thinner than in the Hepburn. Some 
 vertical pieces of sheet iron, which run from the side of the pan with a curve 
 towards the centre, and in a direction contrary to that in which the muller runs, 
 bring all the pulp sucessively under the muller. Near the centre there are 
 holes in the muller, into which the heavier matter sinks, and from there it is 
 carried out under the muller, being ground as it passes along. The muller does 
 not reach quite to the side of the pan, so a little space is left there for quicksilver. 
 
 30. KNOX'S PAtf. 
 
 Knox's pan, which is used more than any other, is the simplest of the pans. 
 It is used to amalgamate only, not to grind. Four boards crossing one another 
 at right angles, are set vertically in the pan, over the mullers, so as to keep the 
 surface of the pulp still. If the boards were not there the pulp would run 
 round with the mullers and the ore would not be brought so well in contact 
 with the quicksilver. The mullers run slow, making ten or twenty revolutions 
 per minute. 
 
 31. -HEPBURN PAN. 
 
 The "Hepburn pan," as it is commonly known, or, as it is styled by the 
 patentees, the " Hepburn and Peterson pan," which ranks third in the extent 
 of use, has a bottom shaped like an inverted cone, with sides sloping up from 
 the centre at an angle of 45. The muller sets on this slope, and the pulp, 
 which is mixed with only a little water so as to make a thick paste, runs up 
 under the muller, flows inward over the edge, runs down over its upper surface 
 to the centre, where it again turns to run up under the muller. Thus a constant 
 current is maintained, and every particle of the pulp is successively ground and 
 brought into contact with the quicksilver. The Hepburn pan is made with hard 
 iron mullers and false bottom so as to grind well, and if the ore goes in coarse 
 it comes out fine. The muller makes from forty to sixty revolutions per minute, 
 and a large pan will take half a ton of ore at a charge and amalgamate it 
 thoroughly in three hours. 
 
 32.-THE WHEELER AND RANDALL PAN. 
 
 It is evident that the iron in Hepburn's pan must be ground as well as the 
 ore, and that the grinding will be the greatest at the sides of the pan and least 
 at the centre. Thus it is that in the flat-bottom pan it -is frequently necessary 
 to get new mullers and new false bottoms or dies. To remedy this evil, and to 
 make a pan in which, however much the wear, the muller shall fit close to the 
 bottom, the Wheeler and Randall pan was invented. The bottom of this slopes 
 upwards from the rim ; but the slope, instead of being straight, as in the Hep- 
 burn, curves inward on the line called the tractory curve. The muller has the 
 'same curve, and no matter how much it wears it always fits close to the bottom. 
 The same inventors have another pan made on the same principle, but with the 
 point turned down instead of up. These pans have not come into extensive 
 use, but they are mentioned here to show what experiments have been tried in 
 the mechanical construction of pans- 
 
 33. ESTIMATED YIELD OF VARIOUS MINES. 
 
 According to the estimate of Mr. Marlette, the following companies had taken 
 out before the 1st September, 1865, tha amounts set opposite their respective 
 names : 
 
78 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Gould & Curry $14, 000, 000 
 
 Ophir 7, 000, 000 
 
 3,647,764 
 
 Savage 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Yellow Jacket, 
 Belcher 
 
 2, 500, 000 
 1,891,916 
 1, 462,005 
 
 Total for six companies 30, 502, 085 
 
 34. ASSESSMENTS LEVIED. 
 
 The following table gives a few instances of the manner in which money has 
 been put into mines on the Comstock lode : 
 
 Mines. 
 
 Feet. 
 
 Assessment 
 per foot. 
 
 Total assess- 
 ment. 
 
 
 ] 200 
 
 $400 
 
 $480, 000 
 
 Sierra Nevada . 
 
 3 000 
 
 116 
 
 348 000 
 
 Alpha . ... 
 
 278 
 
 1 210 
 
 336 380 
 
 
 800 
 
 2^5 
 
 188, 000 
 
 Crown Point .. . 
 
 600 
 
 290 
 
 174 000 
 
 Best & Belcher . . 
 
 2-24 
 
 580 
 
 119 920 
 
 Hale & Norcross . . . 
 
 400 
 
 875 
 
 350, 000 
 
 White & Murphy 
 
 210 
 
 303 
 
 63 630 
 
 Imperial 
 
 184 
 
 270 
 
 49 680 
 
 North Potosi . .. . . ... 
 
 2,000 
 
 140 
 
 280, 000 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 2,289,610 
 
 
 
 
 
 This list does not include one-half of the amount of assessments levied by well, 
 known companies, and several millions have been advanced in cash by capitalists 
 in San Francisco for prospecting and opening mines which never were heard of 
 except by a few who spent their money, and their friends'. A Mexican proverb 
 says, "It takes a mine to work a mine." 
 
 35. THE GOULD & CURRY MINE. 
 
 The following figures of the operations of the Gould & Curry company are 
 taken from official reports : 
 
 Years. 
 
 43 
 
 !** 
 
 M 
 
 Dividends. 
 
 Tons extracted. 
 
 Percentage of 
 dividends. 
 
 Average yield 
 of ore per ton. 
 
 1862 
 
 $900 743 
 
 
 8 427 
 
 
 $104 50 
 
 1863 
 
 3 917 9'I7 
 
 $1 464 400 
 
 48 743 
 
 34 
 
 80 40 
 
 -[864 
 
 4 898 060 
 
 1 44Q (joo 
 
 67 443 
 
 29 
 
 73 48 
 
 1865 
 
 2 395 242 
 
 618 000 
 
 46 022 
 
 25 
 
 50 76 
 
 Half of 1866 
 
 908 119 
 
 156 000 
 
 17 890 
 
 17 
 
 36 90 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 13 020 101 
 
 3 678 400 
 
 188 525 
 
 28 
 
 69 06 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The mine was not opened until 1862, and before it began to pay its way the 
 Bum of $175,000, or $148 per foot, had been levied as assessments. The dividends 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 79 
 
 commenced in 1863, and for that year alone amounted to more than $1,000 a 
 foot ; and also for the next year, although very large sums were expended in 
 building a mill and in making other improvements. The average yield of the 
 ore, however, and the percentage of the dividends, decreased with each year. 
 The ore was nearly twice as rich in 1863 as in 1865, and the expenses in the 
 former year were greater than the gross receipts of the latter. 
 
 The total number of tons extracted in four years was 173,000, or a mass 
 of 165 feet cubic, and the bullion produced amounted to about 300 tons of 2,000 
 pounds of 12 troy ounces each. The expenses of the mine and mill in 1865 
 were the following : 
 Total expense at mine $609, 135 97 
 
 Under this head come the following items : 
 
 Labor at mine 298, 055 62 
 
 Contracts for tunnels, drifts, &c 37, 323 50 
 
 Lumber and timber 1 . 147, 382 92 
 
 Freight from California 11, 357 86 
 
 Total expenses at the reduction works $356, 865 81 
 
 Under this head come these items among others : 
 
 Labor 160, 260 22 
 
 Hauling ore to mill by contract 32, 489 83 
 
 Firewood 206, 749 32 
 
 Foundry work 33, 188 30 
 
 Hardware 12, 631 28 
 
 Sulphate of copper 12, 747 56 
 
 Quicksilver 9, 903 98 
 
 Salt 15,885 54 
 
 Water 10, 416 84 
 
 Oil, candles, &c 8,440 78 
 
 Freight from, California 20, 993 89 
 
 The following are further figures from the president's report for 1864: 
 
 Cost of extracting ores from mine, per ton 1 . $10 84 
 
 Cost of reducing third-class ore at Gould & Curry mill 14 46 
 
 Cost of reducing third-class ore at Custom mills 21 82 
 
 Cost of reducing second-class ore at Custom mills 50 00 
 
 Average yield of all ores reduced, per ton 50 76 
 
 Average yield of second-class ore 255 66 
 
 Average yield of third-class ore at Gould & Curry mill 44 26 
 
 Average yield of all ores reduced at Custom mills 45 12 
 
 The following is a statement of the operations and expenses of the Gould & 
 Curry mill, (which, however, did not reduce all the ore produced by the mine) 
 for the six months ending May 31, 1866 : 
 
 The pay of officers, general laborers, watchmen, teamsters, &c., was $14,354 88. 
 
 The cost of the driving power was, $10,565 87 for labor ; $85,996 for wood ; 
 $2,618 for sundries; $99,179 87 in all. 
 
 The cost of preparing ore for the batteries was, $8,913 23 for labor; $828 for 
 sundries ; $9,741 23 total. 
 
 The cost of the batteries was, $14,266 38 for labor; $4,546 for shoes, dies, 
 &c. ; $2,002 for sundries ; total, $20,814 38. 
 
 The cost of amalgamating was, $15,421 13 for labor ; $1,363 for retort wood ; 
 $12,037 for shoes and dies ; $5,794 for salt ; $12,256 for sulphate of copper; 
 $17,822 for quicksilver ; $2,232 for sundries ; total, $66,925 13. 
 
 The cost of repairs was, $16,424 48 for labor; $15,402 for sundries; total, 
 $31,826 48. 
 
80 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The total expense of the mill was $79,945 97 for labor; $162,896 for ma- 
 terial ; total, $242,841 97. 
 
 The amount of ore delivered at the mill was 20,744 tons ; the amount amal- 
 gamated was 17,890 tons. The difference of 2,854 tons "shows the loss of ores 
 carried off in slimes." 
 
 The value of the ore and of the bullion produced was the following : 
 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Samples. 
 
 Total. ' 
 
 Value of ore . 
 
 $185 765 12 
 
 $639 598 21 
 
 
 $825 363 33 
 
 Bullion produced 
 
 211 712 69 
 
 448 036 76 
 
 $507 72 
 
 660 257 17 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 [The excess of gold in the "bullion produced" over that in the "value of 
 ore," must be accounted for by supposing that the samples assayed did not fully 
 represent the average value of the ore.] 
 
 The average assay per ton was $46 13 ; the average yield was $36 90 ; the 
 amount lost was 20 per cent. The total cost of reduction per ton amalgamated 
 was $13 57. 
 
 The cost of reduction per ton was $0 80.23 for officers, watchmen, and la- 
 borers ; $5 54.37 for driving power ; $0 55.04 for preparing ore for batteries ; 
 $1 16.33 for batteries ; $3 73.50 for amalgamation; $1 77.88 for repairs, and 
 $13 57 in all. 
 
 The expenses of the mine during the six months were the following : 
 
 The salaries of officers were $6,766, or 20 cents per ton. 
 
 The cost of extracting ore was $103,042 99, or $3 06 per ton. 
 
 The cost of prospecting and dead-work was $68,631 04, or $2 04 per ton 
 
 The cost of accessory work, $56,308 38, or $1 67 per ton. 
 
 The cost of improvements was $19,876 52, or 59 cents per ton. 
 
 The total cost of salaries of officers, extraction of ore, prospecting and dead- 
 work, accesrory work, and improvements was $254,624 93, or $7 56 per ton. 
 
 The amount of ore produced was 33,705 tons. 
 
 The amount of bullion produced from the Gould & Curry ore by outside 
 mills was $227,085 81, and the total receipts of the company for six months, 
 $908,119 25. 
 
 The expenses were $254,624 93 for the mine ; $243,131 97 for the Gould 
 & Curry mill ; $7,777 61 for assays ; $128,404 83 for reducing ores at outside 
 mills ; $27,285 53 for general expenses, and $6,375 76 for the boarding-house. 
 Total, $667,600 63. 
 
 36. THE OPHIR MINE. 
 
 The Ophir company has tried and compared the yard, the barrel, and the 
 pan processes of amalgamation, and the general result of their experience is 
 that the yard process costs $30 per ton, and loses 20 per cent, of the metal ; 
 the barrel process costs $28, and loses 15 or 20 per cent, of the metal; and the 
 pan process costs $15. per ton, and loses from 35 to 40 per cent, of the metal. 
 They have abandoned the yard process, as unsuited to the climate and having 
 no advantages ; the barrel is retained for ore yielding S90 per ton or upwards ; 
 and the pan is preferred for poor ore. Ore containing $150 per ton will yield, 
 at SO per cent., $120 to the barrel, leaving $92 after subtracting $28 in the cost 
 of working; whereas the same ore would give, at 65 per cent , a gross yield of 
 $97 50, and a net yield of $82 50 to the pan, showing an advantage of $950 
 per ton in favor of the barrel. By the same mode of calculation ore containing 
 $50 to the ton will yield $12 net to the barrel, and $17 50 net to the pan. Ore 
 containing $80 to the ton gives about an equal net yield to the barrel and the 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 81 
 
 pan. The following are the figures of some of the operations of the Ophlr com- 
 pany for the year ending November 30, 1864 : 
 
 I 
 
 Tons 
 worked. 
 
 Valne. 
 
 Yield. 
 
 C06t 
 
 per ton. 
 
 Barrel . 
 
 4 554 
 
 $601 653 99 
 
 $519 703 38 
 
 $3 05 
 
 Yard 
 
 3 336 
 
 299 825 85 
 
 248 947 65 
 
 3 37 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Since -1864 the cost of barrel amalgamation has been reduced to $28 per ton. 
 
 In 1865 the barrel and pan were used, and the following figures show the 
 amount of bullion produced, and the sums and proportions of gold and silver 
 in it : 
 
 
 . Gold. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Ratio of gold. 
 
 Barrel 
 
 $64 816 27 
 
 $178 747 61 
 
 $243 563 88 
 
 26 per cent 
 
 Pan 
 
 115,029 16 
 
 96,247 72 
 
 211,876 88 
 
 54 per cent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The qualities of ore used in the two processes were different, but the propor- 
 tions of gold and silver were about the same ; and hence it appears that the 
 barrel loes the gold and the pan loses the silver. The value of the ore'sub- 
 mitted to the barrel process in 1865 was $332,273 61, and the total bullion ob- 
 tained, including some not represenfed in the above table, was $269,327 94, 
 showing a loss of $62,945 67, or 18 per cent. The bullion obtained from the 
 barrels was worth $1 05 per ounce, and, therefore, must have contained a con- 
 siderable proportion of base metal, since one-fourth in value was gold, and pure 
 silver alone is worth Si 33 per ounce. The pan bullion was worth $2 31 per 
 ounce, or more 'than twice as much as the barrel bullion. 
 
 37. THE SAVAGE MINE 
 
 At the annual meeting of the stockholders of the Savage Mining Company, 
 on the 10th of July, 1866, Alpheus Bull, president, submitted a report, in which 
 he said : 
 
 " By reference to the annual reports heretofore made I find the first ore taken 
 from the mine was in April, 1863. The total number of tons extracted up to 
 July, 1865, (26 months,) was 81,183, or 3,122 tons a month. The entire yield 
 of bullion from the above number of tons amounted to $3 ; 600,709 26, being 
 an average of $44 35 per ton. 
 
 " During these twenty-six months there was disbursed $2,939,808 76, be- 
 sides paying over $800,000 in dividends. For reduction alone there was paid 
 $1,682,701 44, almost fifty per cent, of the gross yield of the mine. 
 
 " The total production of ores for the past year was 30,653 tons, of which 
 there were reduced 20,535 tons, yielding bullion of the value of $1,303,852 91, 
 or an average of $44 14 per ton, at a cost for reduction of $16 74 per ton. 
 Notwithstanding there was less ore extracted during the year just ended, and the 
 average value per ton a little less than the preceding years, yet the net earnings of 
 the company are in favor of last year's operations. The cost for extraction of 
 ores the past year is certainly high, but this is justly chargeable to the exten- 
 sive improvements in building machinery and explorations in the mine, the 
 practical benefits of which will be derived by the stockholders at some future 
 period." 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 6 
 
82 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The superintendent's report for the year ending on the 1st of July, 1866, 
 gives the following figures relative to the ore extracted : 
 
 
 Extracted. 
 Tons. 
 
 
 Total yield. 
 
 Yield 
 per ton. 
 
 First class 
 
 435 
 
 $93 220 04 
 
 $224 08 
 
 Second class .. 
 
 26, 338 
 
 1,096,449 23 
 
 42 04 
 
 Third class 
 
 3 878 
 
 62 084 54 
 
 20 43 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total.., 
 
 30, 652 
 
 1,251,753 81 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Average yield of all ore reduced, per ton, 842 38. 
 
 During the last four months preceding the date of the report the cost of re- 
 duction had varied from $11 69 to $12 95 per ton. 
 
 38. THE YELLOW JACKET MINE. 
 
 The following statistics of the yield of the Yellow Jacket Silver Mining 
 Company for the year ending July 1, 1866, are taken from the annual reports 
 made by the officers of the company : 
 
 218 tons first-class ore worked, yielded, per ton ... $172 05 
 
 53,307 tons second-class worked, yielded, per ton 31 00 
 
 1,479 tons sold, yielded, per ton 3 26 
 
 Average of all ore worked per toa 32 51 
 
 Gross product of bullion from ores worked, t $1, 690, 394 82 
 
 Gross product of ore sold 4 r 833 88 
 
 Total product .' 1, 695, 228 70 
 
 Assessments to the amount of $300,000 were collected, and no dividends were 
 declared during the year, but a debt of $379,771 was paid off and a surplus of 
 $142,915 remained on hand at the end of the year. Among the expenditures 
 are the following items : 
 
 Crushing ore at outside mills $507,438 23 
 
 Crushing ore at company's mills 352,178 81 
 
 Total cost of crushing 859,617 04 
 
 The term " crushing" here must include all the process of reduction, and the 
 cost is about half the total yield of the ore worked. 
 
 39. THE CROWN POINT MINE. 
 
 It appears from the annual .report of the Crown Point Mining Company for 
 the year ending May 1, 1866, that the recepts from the mine in that period were 
 $689,191 37; the number of tons reduced, 1S,259J; and the average yield per 
 ton $37 33. Excluding about $8,000 of assay chips and bullion sold, there 
 was $243,967 86 in gold and $437,207 27 in silver. The average cost of ex- 
 tracting the ore was $8 97. The cost of reduction is not given precisely. 
 
 40. THE HALE AND NORCROSS MINE. 
 
 The Hale and Norcross Silver Mining Company own 400 feet on the Corn- 
 stock lode. They commenced operations in 1862, and worked on for four years, 
 at great expense, before they found any considerable body of ore to- reward them. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 83 
 
 They levied and collected assessments to the amount of $875 per foot, making 
 a total for the company of $350,000 invested before any return began to come 
 in. In February, 1866, 1,261 tons were taken out, and the amount has since 
 steadily increased. September yielded 2,152 tons, and the eight months from 
 February to September, inclusive, 16,986 tons, which produced $736,394 32 in 
 bullion ; an average of $43 35 per ton. 
 
 41. THE IMPERIAL MINE. 
 
 The total receipts of the Imperial Mining Company, from the beginning of its 
 operations to the 31st of May, 1866, were $259,133 80, including 850,000 of 
 assessments. The dividends paid amounted to $527,500. The following are 
 certain figures for the years ending May 31, 1865, and May 31, 1866 : 
 
 1865. 1866. 
 
 Tons extracted - 28, 236 34, 735 
 
 Total yield $854, 630 56 $1, 019, 275 9.1 
 
 Average yield per ton 22 14 29 90 
 
 Cost of extraction per ton 537 5 49 
 
 The bullion for 1866 was worth $2 02 per ounce on average, the fineness in 
 gold being .039 and in silver .942. 
 
 The cost of reducing 11,404 tons of ore at the Gold Hill mill was $8 66 per 
 ton, and at the Rock Point mill, (where 23,227 tons were reduced,) $10 15 per 
 ton. 
 
 42. THE EMPIRE MINE. 
 
 The following are extracts from a report made by Benjamin Lilliman on the 
 Empire mine on the 2d of December, 1864: 
 
 " Up to this time (November 30) this company have crushed, since their 
 organization on March 7, 1863, about 25,000 tons (of 2,000 pounds) of ores in 
 their own and other mills, and have received from it, for the same period, in 
 bullion, one million forty-three thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars and 
 forty-eight cents ($1,043,720 43,) as appears by the bullion receipts which I 
 have examined. The actual value received by the company in working their 
 ores has been, therefore, $40 76 per ton of 2,000 pounds. The amount lost in 
 tailings it is impossible to fix, but we are justified, from the general experience 
 of the mills working on the Comstock ores, in assuming the loss to be at least 
 one-thild of the total value extracted." * * * " There has never 
 
 been an assessment on the mine, nor was there any capital stock paid in. The 
 nominal capital was one million of dollars. But the mine has paid for every- 
 thing, besides paying its fortunate owners $308,000 above all costs and charges." 
 
 " If from the balance of $731. 720 48 
 
 We deduct the cost of the mill in 1863 $60, 000 
 
 Mill in Virginia City . 75, 000 
 
 New shaft and present improvements to 1864 70, 000 
 
 205, 000 00 
 
 
 
 There remains for the presumed cost of mining and milling. . . 526, 720 48" 
 
 The president of the company, in his report for the year ending November 
 30, 1865, says : 
 
 " The receipts of the year, from all sources, amount to the sum of $543,081 79, 
 and the total disbursements to $525,129 79, of which $120,000 have been paid 
 in dividends to stockholders." * * * * " At the mine, during the 
 year, the main shaft has been sunk 133 feet, and drifts run, ,-it various levels, 
 965 feet, consuming 554,500 fet of timber..' 
 
84 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 During the year 20,500 tons were extracted from the Empire mine, and the 
 bull ion 'produced amounted to $485,542 49, including $185,452 30 in gold and 
 $298.929 96 in silver. The bullion was worth $2 02J per ounce ; weighed 
 ^40,812.20 troy ounces before melting, and 239,707.95 ounces after melting. 
 
 43. PRODUCTIVE MINES OF REESE RIVER. 
 
 The following statement of the amount of bullion produced by the mines of 
 Lander county, Nevada, during the quarter ending September 30, 1866, is taken 
 from a report by the county assessor : 
 
 Name of mine. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Average 
 per ton. 
 
 Great Eastern . 
 
 412 
 
 659 
 
 $176 82 
 
 Fortnna 
 
 23 
 
 
 85 71 
 
 North River ................... ......... . ............... 
 
 29 
 
 536 
 
 217 56 
 
 Troy 
 
 2 
 
 1,000 
 
 83 82 
 
 
 1 
 
 402 
 
 132 57 
 
 Blind Ledge . . ... .. . . .. .... . .. 
 
 2 
 
 1,965 
 
 128 64 
 
 Semanthe 
 
 2 
 
 774 
 
 276 97 
 
 Othello * * 
 
 5 
 
 1 105 
 
 36 35 
 
 Idora ...... ................. ...... . ...... 
 
 16 
 
 1,237 
 
 212 62 
 
 Eastern Oregon 
 
 
 
 86 46 
 
 Foster 
 
 26 
 
 1 212 
 
 48 47 
 
 La Plate 
 
 50 
 
 882 
 
 7J 60 
 
 Chase & Zent 
 
 4 
 
 1 000 
 
 362 04 
 
 Canada 
 
 6 
 
 1 500 
 
 132 90 
 
 Eldorado - .............. .................. 
 
 2 
 
 568 
 
 291 58 
 
 Magnolia 
 
 4 
 
 ] 171 
 
 259 93 
 
 
 4 
 
 88 
 
 187 43 
 
 Morgan & Mnncey - ... ........... .......... ... 
 
 17 
 
 634 
 
 107 75 
 
 Diana 
 
 17 
 
 563 
 
 180 40 
 
 Detroit 
 
 14 
 
 1,800 
 
 116 18 
 
 
 39 
 
 
 90 77 
 
 Timoke 
 
 28 
 
 253 
 
 167 92 
 
 Dover .... ...... .. . ...... ...... ...... ...... .. . ...... 
 
 2 
 
 450 
 
 161 64 
 
 Isabella . ............ 
 
 19 
 
 503 
 
 40 08 
 
 Harding &, Dickman 
 
 1 
 
 1 233 
 
 87 19 
 
 Providential ...... ...... .... .. . ...... ...... .... ...... ...... 
 
 79 
 
 1,000 
 
 39 04 
 
 
 227 
 
 
 65 07 
 
 Folsom 
 
 5 
 
 1 019 
 
 166 00 
 
 Savage Consol No. 1 . . 
 
 160 
 
 
 156 83 
 
 Savage Consol No 2 .- ... ... ....... 
 
 230 
 
 
 74 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 44. YIELD OF VARIOUS SILVER DISTRICTS. 
 
 The total annual yield of Lander county, Nevada, (or, as it is often called, 
 Reese River region,) is about $900,000, and the yield of the Owyhee district in 
 silver is about $1,500,000 ; so that this latter is next to Virginia City among 
 the silver producing districts of the United States, and it has the resources to 
 increase its production greatly within a few years. The yield of Esmeralda 
 was nearly $1,000,000 in 1863, but it is now not $100,000, and the Humboldt 
 district does not produce more than $50,000. 
 
 45. IMPROVEMENTS IN SILVER MINING. 
 
 Although the silver mining at the Comstock lode is not in a satisfactory con- 
 ^dition, it is at least progressive, and there is a certainty of steady improvement 
 for a long time. So far as the extraction of the ore is concerned, there is nothing 
 better anywhere. The pumping and hoisting are done by machinery of unsur- 
 passed excellence. A machine has been invented for lowering men with safety 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 85 
 
 into the mine, and another for framing the timbers to be used in supporting the 
 sides and roofs of drifts. It is in the reduction department that the chief defect 
 exists. For a long time most of the ore was sent to custom mills, and as they 
 were paid a certain sum per ton, it was their interest to reduce as much as possible 
 without special regard to the thoroughness. For years this was the only method 
 of obtaining any return from most mines ; and besides, it was in accordance with 
 the custom of the silver miners of Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, where for centu- 
 * ries the mines and the reduction works have belonged to distinct classes. * 
 
 But in time it became evident that the most productive mines must have 
 reduction works of their own, and now 'they are provided with magnificent 
 mills,' in which tlie processes of pulverization and amalgamation are carefully 
 studied by many careful and competent' men ; and they will undoubtedly make 
 valuable contributions to the metallurgy of silver within a few years. Although 
 the expenditures in the large silver mines are immense, they are not extrava- 
 gant. The general financial affairs are very carefully studied and strictly 
 managed. The operations are so extensive, the amount of material consumed 
 is so great, and labor is so high, no small sums of money r-ufEce. The comple- 
 tion of the railroad from Sacramento to Virginia City will reduce the cost of 
 wood, and of various other important supplies, nearly or quite fifty per cent, and 
 will be followed by consequent reduction in the price of labor ; and the comple- 
 tion of the Sutro tunnel will reduce the cost of draining and ventilating the 
 mines and of extracting the ore. The railroad may be in running order within 
 a year; the tunnel will not be finished for several years at least. 
 
 SECTION 4. 
 
 RESOURCES -OF NEVADA, OREGON, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, UTAH, MON- 
 TANA, AND IDAHO. 
 
 1. Historical sketch of Nevada. 2. Geography and products of Nevada. 3. Mines and 
 mineral resources of Nevada. 4. Mining property, &c. 5. General view of the mines 
 of Nevada, Oregon, Washington Territory, Utah, Montana, and Idaho. 
 
 1. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NEVADA. 
 
 Boundaries. The State of Nevada, erected from the former Territory of 
 Nevada, extends easterly and westerly from tjie 37th to the 43d meridian west 
 from Washington, and from the 42d degree of north latitude to Arizona, hav- 
 ing Oregon and Idaho on the north, Utah on the east, Aiizona on the south, and 
 
 rmnm< 
 thougl 
 
 mines and the opulence of the tescutndores (amalgamators,) by whom these extensive 
 buildingswere raised. Few or none of them possessed a sufficiency of water to work their 
 machinery, for which purpose mules were employed, and .14,000 'of these animals were in 
 daily use (to work the arrastras and tread the ores in the patio} before the revolution. The 
 rescatadores purchased their ores at the mouths of the shafts, relying entirely on their own 
 powers of estimating by the eye the value of the montones (heaps) exposed for sale in such 
 a manner as not to make a disadvantageous bargain. In this science they attained great 
 perfection ; for more fortunes were made in Glianajuato by amalgamation works than by mi- 
 ners themselves; while the extent to which the system was carried afforded to the successful 
 adventurer the means of realizing instantly almost to any amount. During the great 
 bonausa (rich yield) of the Valeuciana mine, sales were effected to the amount of $80,01)0 
 in one day ; and it is to this facility iu obtaining supplies that the rapid progress of the works 
 in that mine, after its first discovery, may be ascribed. Had it been necessary to erect 
 private amalgamation works in order to turn his new born riches to account, many years must 
 have elapsed before the first Count Valericiana could have derived any advantage from his 
 labors ; for when fortune began to smile upon them, the man who was destined in a few 
 years to rank as one of the richest individuals in the world did no't possess a single dollar." 
 
86 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 California on the southwest and west ; comprising within its limits an area of 
 80,239 square miles. This region was a portion of the territory acquired by 
 the United States from Mexico under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, belonging 
 previous to its transfer to the " department of Alta California." Prior to its 
 acquisition by our government it was inhabited only by the aboriginal races, there 
 being no settlements of civilized people, not even a mission, within its borders. 
 At the time of the discovery of silver in 1859, ten years after its first settlement 
 by the whites, it contained less than one thousand inhabitants, which number; 
 two vears later, had increased to nearly 17, 000, as appears by the census returns 
 taken in August, 1861 ; the estimated population of the State being at present 
 between thirty-five and forty thousand, at which number it has remained nearly 
 stationary for the past three years. 
 
 The aboriginal races. These consist of three or four principal nations, 
 divided into many small communities or families, sparsely scattered over the 
 entire country. These nations are the Washoes, inhabiting a succession of 
 small valleys along the western border of the State, the Pah-Utahs occupying 
 the balance and greater portion of the western; while the third division, the 
 Shoshones hold the eastern part of the State. Some have considered, and per- 
 haps properly, the Pannocks, a race dwelling in the northern and northeastern 
 portions" of the State, as a distinct nation. With the exception of the last named, 
 these Indians, though often at variance among themselves, are naturally peace- 
 ful and inoffensive, being distinguished less for their warlike propensities than 
 a good natured indifference as to what is going on around them. They have 
 never manifested any great degree of hostility towards the whites, nor seriously 
 objected to the latter entering and settling in their country, their opposition 
 generally extending no further than an occasional protest against the destruction 
 of their pine orchards, upon the fruits of which they are largely dependent for 
 their subsistence. The Washoes, though the least numerous of these tribes, 
 have always been remarked for their honesty and friendliness towards strangers. 
 These Indians, though somewhat nomadic in their habits, have their favorite 
 places of abode, these being generally along the rivers or about the sinks and 
 lakes where fish and wild fowl are to be obtained. These localities usually form 
 their winter homes, much of their time during the summer and autumn being 
 spent in the mountains, where alone is found the pinon, a species of scrubby pine, 
 the nut of which forms with them a staple article of food. These people culti- 
 vate no land, depending entirely on the natural products of the country for a 
 livelihood, and as these are not numerous or abundant they sometimes suffer 
 from want. They build no houses, scarcely even a wigwam ; a few sage brush 
 or willows put up to brt-ak the force of the wind, affording them, even in winter, 
 ample protection. Few of them own horses, fire-arms, or other property of 
 value, the whole race being distinguished for extreme poverty. Formerly they 
 dressed in the skins of wild animals, as many of them still do, the skins of the 
 hare being chiefly used for this purpose. Latterly they are becoming addicted 
 to a more civilized but scarcely improved style of dress, clothing themselves 
 with the cast-off garments of the whites. The women are by nature modest 
 and chaste, and, as among most savages, have to perform the greater part of the 
 labor necessary to their own .sustenance as well as that of the men. Taken as 
 a whole, these cannot be considered a bad race of Indians, exhibiting few of the 
 savage and murderous traits that distinguish the tribes further in the interior ; 
 and though shiftless and indolent they are not averse to work where favorable 
 opportunities offer. Many of them are now employed by the whites, being found 
 very useful in various kinds of unskilled labor. Two reservations have been set 
 apart in the State tor the use of these Indians ; but as yet no thorough and sys- 
 tematic measures have been adopted for retaining them at these places or for in- 
 structing them in the arts^of civilized life, nor is it likely that much will be 
 accomplished towards that end through the agency of these reservations. Since 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 87 
 
 their intercourse with the whites these people have become demoralized, and the 
 increase of physical maladies among those of them thus exposed has already 
 sensibly diminished their numbers. 
 
 First settlements by the whites. The first settlements within the limits of 
 this State were made in 1848 by the Mormons, some of whom, in passing back 
 and forth between California and Salt Lake, observing the excellence of the 
 land, located in Carson and Washoe valleys. The following year they were 
 joined by a few adventurers, who, attracted by the gold discoveries in California, 
 had made the journey overland, but stopped on finding here the object for which 
 they had set out. From this time the population gradually increased, until, in 
 the summer of 1859, it had been swelled to the number already stated, notwith- 
 standing most of the Mormons had meantime left, having, by a mandate of the 
 church, been ordered to repair to Salt Lake. Up to this period the crossing of 
 the Sierra Nevada, in the absence of wagon roads or even tolerable trails, was 
 an arduous task ; yet quite a good many came over from California, bringing 
 provisions to exchange for the famished stock of the immigrants, and finding 
 here good pasturage, some remained and finally became permanent settlers. 
 Meanwhile a few were drawn from that State by the gold diggings or a mere 
 love of adventure, a few also being added by the overland immigration, thus 
 making up a population so considerable in a country difficult of access and 
 otherwise possessing so few attractions. 
 
 The gold discovery. This event occurred, as above intimated, in the summer 
 of 1S49, being the result of examinations made by a party just arrived on their 
 way to California across the plains. The first gold found was at a point near 
 Carson river where the emigrant road crosses Gold canon, and where the town 
 of Dayton now stands. This canon is a deep ravine coming down from the 
 high range of mountains six miles to the west, and along the eastern slope of 
 which the Comstock, the great silver-bearing lode of Nevada, is located. The 
 head branches of this ravine cut the Comstock lode at a number of points, the 
 deepest of these cuts being at Gold Hill. A portion of this lode is distinguished 
 for its auriferous character. The particles of gold having been released from 
 the masses of quartz at this place by the process of disintegration, were subse- 
 quently washed down the canon and deposited in its bed and along its banks, 
 the finer portions being carried still further down and left upon the bar at its 
 mouth ; hence the origin of these placer mines. That this is the primary source 
 of these deposits is apparent, not more from the nature of the case than the 
 character of the dust, which is so far alloyed with silver as to be worth only 
 from $10 to $12 per ounce, corresponding in this particular with the gold ob- 
 tained by crushing the surface rock at Gold Hill. The pay realized in these 
 diggings for the first few years was very good, averaging nearly an ounce a day 
 to the hand; but it finally declined (until in the fall of 1859, when they were 
 mostly given up) to less than a third of that amount. The number of men en- 
 gaged here in gold washing varied from 20 to 100 ; a majority of them, towards 
 the last, being Chinamen, who continued working in a small way for a year or two 
 after the diggings had been abandoned by the whites. The total amount of 
 gold dust gathered from these placers is estimated at between three and four 
 hundred thousand dollars. Some rate it much higher, affecting to believe that 
 the Chinese took out larger sums than they reported. At no other place, except 
 Gold canon, have placer mines of any extent or value been found as yet in the 
 State of Nevada. In Six Mile canon, a ravine running parallel to arid a short 
 distance below Gold canon, some trifling deposits were found, the following up 
 of which led to th'e discovery of the Comstock ledge. Some surface mines, of 
 narrow extent but considerable richness, were also found in 1857 near Mono lake, 
 then supposed to be within the limits of Nevada Territory, but afterwards ascer- 
 tained to be in California. For several years these paid fair and in some in- 
 stances large wages, and a town of over a thousand inhabitants sprung up at 
 
88 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 that point. The town, however, as well as the diggings, is now nearly deserted, 
 but little having been done there for the past five years. There are in the vicinity 
 several small quartz ledges, showing in the croppings touch free gold. In 1860, 
 some of these were worked by arrastras driven by water power, very good results 
 being obtained, and it is thought by many these ledges could be worked on an 
 extensive scale with profit, wood and water power both being convenient. At 
 a number of other points, as on the forks of the Carson and Walker rivers, in 
 Washoe valley, near Virginia City, and elsewhere, placer deposits have from 
 time to time been met with, but in no case have they been lasting or remarkable 
 for richness, none of them having been worked for more than a short period, and 
 all being now abandoned ; and though the most diligent research has been 
 made during the past six years in nearly all parts of the State, no mines of this 
 class, of any great extent or value, have yet been discovered. At the same time 
 there are, as is well known, in almost every quarter of the country, lodes of 
 auriferous quartz sufficiently rich to pay for reduction when worked for gold 
 alone. 
 
 Discovery of silver. Unlike the finding of gold, the discovery of silver in Nevada 
 was a fortuitous eyent, having been brought abou t in this wise : The miners working 
 up Six-Mile canon, when near its head, and a little below where the Comstock 
 lode crosses it, encountered, mixed with the auriferous earth, a black metallic 
 substance, which gave them much trouble, being, on account of its weight, diffi- 
 cult of separation from the gold. This was in the year 185S, and, although 
 they were thus led to notice this substance, being iguorarit of its value, they 
 did not inquire into its particular character or attempt to trace it to its origin. 
 It was to them simply a cause of annoyance, and, as such, to be avoided or got 
 rid of as easily as possible. Having finally, during the subsequent winter and 
 spring, worked up this gulch until they were in the immediate vicinity of the 
 Comstock lode, it became expedient to dig a reservoir to hold the water used in 
 washing, this being obtained from the ravines above; and, although a line of 
 rich surface earth had before been traced up to this point and considerably 
 worked, it was not until this excavation was made that the deposit of silver ore 
 in place was discovered and laid open. Nor did the magnitude of the event 
 come to' be appreciated and made generally known until the month of June 
 following, when intelligence of it first reached California. What little merit 
 attaches to the discovery, though claimed by divers individuals, would seem to 
 belong chiefly to one James Fennimore, or Phinney, as he .was usually called 
 on this side the mountains, and who was the first to locate a mining claim oil 
 the Comstock ledge proper. This claim, made more than a year before, covered 
 the exact point where the silver was first found, it being on the north end of 
 the original Ophir ground, and near the south line of the Mexican Company's 
 claim. Here a mass of rich silver sulphurets, mixed with free gold, came quite 
 to the surface, this rich deposit, carrying an increased quantity of gold, having 
 subsequently been found to extend for a considerable depth below,being especially 
 rich in the ground of the Mexican, or, as it was then more commonly termed, Span- 
 ish Company. Phinney, who, like most of the pioneer miners of Washoe, as the 
 country was then called, was of a generous and improvident disposition, where- 
 fore, having gotten ahead a few dollars, and being ignorant withal of the great 
 value of his ground, sold it to his companion, Henry Comstock, for a trifling con- 
 sideration. J?he latter, though comprehending better than Phinney the value of 
 this property, had so little appreciation of its real worth, that he congratulated 
 himself on being able to dispose of it shortly after for a few thousand dollars, 
 having, however, the further satisfaction of imparting his name to this remark- 
 able lode. Nearly all the valuable claims on the Comstock ledge, as far south 
 as Gold Hill, had, within a few months after the discovery of silver, passed 
 from the possession of the original locators and owners into the hands of more 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 89 
 
 intelligent or wealthy men, leaving the former class, who might so easily have 
 become millionaires, generally quite poor. 
 
 Before proceeding to a more particular description of the Comstock ledge, 
 and of the mines and mining operations generally of Nevada, it may be expe- 
 dient, as contributing to a better understanding- of what must be said in that 
 connection, to give a brief outline of the physical geography of the State, its 
 natural resources and productions, climate, agricultural capacities, &c. 
 
 2. GEOGRAPHY AND PRODUCTS OF NEVADA. 
 
 Its system of mountains, plains, and valleys. ; Viewed as a whole the State 
 of Nevada, in common with the great American basin or desert of which it 
 forms a part, may be considered an elevated plateau, having a general altitude 
 of more than 4,000 feet above tide-water. Traversing this lofty plain are 
 numerous chains of mountains, separated by valleys having a width varying 
 from five to twenty milos, and usually about equal to that of the adjacent 
 mountains measured through their bases. The course of these valleys is, as a 
 general thing, parallel to the main axes of the mountains, which have, for the 
 most part, a northerly and southerly strike. These mountains vary in height 
 from 1,000 to 5,000 feet above the common level of the country, having, 'there-, 
 fore, an absolute elevation of from 5,000 to 9,000 feet above the sea. For a 
 distance of nearly 300 miles the Sierra Nevadas form a natural barrier along 
 its western and southwestern border, the boundary line between this State and 
 California running partially upon its summit and partially along or near the. 
 eastern base of this range, which, though not here attaining its greatest altitude, 
 has, nevertheless, within the limits of Nevada, a general height of more than 
 7,000 feet, a few of the loftier peaks reaching a height of 10,000. These 
 mountains do not on this, as upon the California side, slope to the plains 
 with a long and gentle declivity, but pitch violently down, having precipi- 
 tous sides throughout their whole course. They are covered nearly every- 
 where from base to summit with a growth of terebinthine forests, consisting 
 of a variety of pine, spruce, and fir ; well adapted to make superior lumber. 
 There are also a few other scrubby trees, of but little value, and at one or 
 two points groves of tamarack. No oak or other hard wood of any size 
 is found on this slope of the sierra, nor, indeed, in any other part of Nevada. 
 The alternation of mountains and. valleys mentioned is preserved with much 
 regularity throughout the State, being most marked in the central portions 
 thereof. Sometimes the former contract or are so broken up as to transform 
 the valleys into broad plains or basins, some of which are open and unob- 
 structed, while others are covered with isolated buttes or dusters of rugged 
 hills. Sometimes, also, these mountains seem to lose all order, being grouped 
 in confused masses, or have an axis at right angles or otherwise nearly 
 transverse to the trend of the principal ranges. As in the Sierra Nevada, 
 these interior chains contain many peaks upon which, in spots sheltered from 
 the sun, the snow lies all summer; and while some of them are comparatively 
 well watered, sending down perennial streams from their sides, others contain 
 but little or are wholly without water. This is especially the case with those 
 in the more western and southern portions of the State. 
 
 Among these ranges, sometimes at short intervals, gaps or low passes are 
 met with, affording easy crossing places, some of them being so low and smooth 
 as to offer no serious obstacle to the passage of loaded wagons, and through 
 which railroads could be constructed with the greatest facility. In their geo- 
 logical structure these mountains, though varying somewhat, have many fea- 
 tures in common, the mass of them being composed chiefly of sienites, slates, 
 and granite ; limestone and porphyry are also common rocks. In places, the 
 evidences of volcanic action are abundant, though not apparently of recent 
 date,though lofty, and in many instances having their sides deeply channelled 
 
90 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 by numerous ravines, or, as they aie more commonly called, canons. The 
 mountains of Nevada are not remarkable for boldness of outline or a generally 
 rugged aspect, the once jagged peaks having been rounded into dome-like shapes 
 by the process of disintegration. In some cases, however, these still shoot up 
 into splintered and spire-like summits, presenting a contour particularly sharp 
 and striking. Most of these ranges are sparsely covered with bunch grass, and 
 also with scattered patches of pinon and other scrubby trees, three-fourths of 
 their surface being destitute of any kind of timber. Along some of the streams 
 that flow down their sides are narrow strips of alluvial soil suitable for gardens, 
 and which, sometimes spreading out at the points where these streams debouch 
 upon the plains, afford a sufficiency of arable land for small farms. The moun- 
 tains form, of course, the chief repositories of the mineral wealth of the country, 
 though metalliferous deposits of apparent value have, in some instances, been 
 met with in the valleys or out upon the plains. As the mountain chains o ten 
 continue their course for a hundred miles or more without break or deviation 
 from their general course, so also do the intervening valleys extend longitudi- 
 nally for a like or even greater distance without interruption, and with an in- 
 clination so slight as to be imperceptible by the eye. These valleys, owing to 
 the breaking up or recession of the neighboring mountains, sometimes spread 
 out into plains of great extent, while in other cases they sweep around the ends 
 of the mountain ranges and open into other valleys, being on the same level or 
 having a plain but little different from their own. In some instances these ad- 
 jacent valleys are separated only by a low ridge or swell of land, so trifling as 
 to offer no serious impediment to the construction of wagon roads or railways, 
 either of which might, if following a generally northern and southern course, 
 run for hundreds of miles over an almost perfect level. But while these valleys 
 "are longitudinally so nearly level, they all have a gradual slope from the bases 
 of the lateral mountains towards their centres, giving to their transverse sections 
 a curved or basin -like shape. Through a few of them runs a stream of water 
 supplied from the mountain rills on either hand or about its sources. Most of 
 these mountain streams, being small, sink out of sight, being absorbed by the 
 dry and porous earth as soon as they reach the margin of the valley, leaving the 
 latter without any general stream flowing above ground through its midst. In 
 cases where there is a sufficient accumulation of water to cause a stream to 
 run above ground through the valley there is usually a strip of arable or meadow 
 land along its margin, the quantity generally being proportioned to the 
 magnitude of the stream ; Carson, Reese river, Umashaw, Paradise, and Pahra- 
 nagat valleys be ; ng examples of this kind. This strip of good land is often 
 but a few rods wide, again spreading out to a mile or more in extent, while in 
 many places, as where the banks of the stream are high, it disappears altogether, 
 In some of the valleys, as Ruby, Big Smoky, Toquima, &c., there is much 
 good land, though there is no open stream flowing through them. In these 
 cases the. rivulets from the mountains, though they disappear on reaching the 
 valley, no doubt make their way underground to its centre, and percolating 
 through the earth cause these fruitful spots by a system of natural irrigation. 
 Other valleys, again, owing to an absence of these mountain streams, are desti- 
 tute of even the smallest amount of good land, or at least of such as can be 
 made available for agricultural purposes, much of the soil being rich but unpro- 
 ductive, because of its aridity and lack of means for irrigation. These valleys 
 are nearly all treeless, not even a shrub larger than the artemisia being met 
 with, except in a very few of them ; the exceptions being confined to those 
 having large streams of water running through them, such as the Carson, 
 Truckee and Humboldt, along which are a few scattered cottonwoods and wil- 
 low, the latter of very little use. Along many of the mountain streams a simi- 
 lar growth of timber is met with, as well as birch and other trees, all of a small 
 size. The more extended plains are marked by a greater degree of sterility 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 91 
 
 and dryness than other portions of the country, all of these being destitute of 
 wood and most of them but scantily supplied with grass and wholesome water, 
 much of the latter being so warm or highly mineralized as to be unfit for use. 
 These plains are, in fact, for the most part, nothing but absolute deserts. This 
 system of valleys, and plains so enclosed by mountains and sometimes connected 
 with each other, constitutes a series of basins, each having a drainage of its 
 own, but scarcely any of them an outlet to the sea. To this mode of drainage 
 Nevada, as well as many other parts of the Great Basin, is entitled for some of 
 its most peculiar topographical and geological features, this common receptacle 
 of the gathered waters becoming, according to circumstances, a lake, a meadow, 
 an alkali flat or a salt bed. 
 
 The sinks, sloughs and lakes. As stated, but a small portion of the waters 
 of Nevada are supposed to reach the ocean. That very little does so through 
 surfice channels is apparent, some holding to the rather questionable theory 
 that much of it makes its way thither through subterranean passages. How- 
 ever that may be, certain it is the surface accumulations are fry no means great. 
 But it must be considered that the fall of rain and snow is limited, while, owing 
 to the aridity of the atmosphere and earth, evaporation and absorption take 
 place rapidly. The only considerable lakes in the State are those formed by the 
 waters of the Carson, Walker and Humboldt rivers, and bearing the names of 
 these streams, respectively, together with Pyramid lake, receiving the waters of 
 the Truckee river. To Lake Tahoe Nevada can hardly lay claim, two-thirds 
 of it being on the California side of the line. There are, besides the above, a 
 number of smaller lakes in different parts of the State, the most of which are 
 not only of limited area but extremely shallow, which latter is also the case with 
 the Humboldt and Carson. Pyramid, the largest of the number, being thirty- 
 three miles long and fourteen wide, has a great depth ; the Walker, nearly as 
 large, being also quite deep. Carson lake has a diameter of about twelve miles, 
 being nearly circular ; the Humboldt being somewhat smaller. The waters of 
 these Likes are impregnated with alkaline and other salts to a degree that ren- 
 ders them unpalatable, and in the case of the Humboldt, especially at low 
 stages, scarcely fit to drink. Flowing from several of these lakes are streams 
 carrying their surplus water and discharging it into other and still more shallow 
 lakes situate a short distance below ; the former of these are, in popular lan- 
 guage, called sloughs, the latter sinks, implying that here the water finally 
 disappears or sinks, which is not really the case, the sink of the Carson, forming 
 also that of the Humboldt, having a greater area than either of those lakes, and, 
 though extremely .shallow, never wholly drying up, as some of the smaller 
 lakes often do. Honey lake, ordinarily quite an extensive body of water, in 
 seasons of extreme drought, wholly disappears. The little lakes formed in the 
 spring by the Wemissa, Umashaw, and similar streams, all dry up later in the 
 season. v 
 
 Alkali flats and mud lakes. As geographical objects these are in some 
 respects closely allied to each other, being identical locations existing under 
 different conditions ; the alkali flat is often the mud lake dried up, and 
 the mud lake the alkali flat covered with water. Where, as frequently 
 happens, the surface of a valley or plain is composed of clay or other 
 substance impervious to water, the latter, after heavy rains, will collect 
 upon these spots, and spreading out sometimes cover a large extent of 
 country. These bodies of water generally dry up in a few days or weeks at 
 furthest, though some of them that attain a greater depth remain for a longer 
 period, in some cases, until quite late in the summer. The beds of these lakes 
 being almost perfectly level, they are never more than a foot or two deep, gene- 
 rally but a few inches ; yet usually being clear and calm, and reflecting the 
 surrounding mountains with the greatest distinctness the stranger is led to 
 believe them a very formidable body of water, an illusion that is effectually 
 dissipated on seeing the wild fowl wading far out into them, or on riding through 
 
92 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES . 
 
 them and finding they rarely ever reach above his horse's knees. These places, 
 whether covered with water or not, unless the road be thrown up and trod* hard 
 during the dry season, are difficult of passage in wet weather, particularly to 
 loaded teams. When the mud lake' dries up, an argillaceous sediment is depo- 
 sited on its bottom, often impregnated with alkaline matter or other salts, which, 
 being white, and frequently hardening until it glistens in the sun, give to these 
 spots a marked and desolate appearance ; so hard do these surfaces sometimes 
 become that a heavily loaded wagon fails to cut through them, and animals 
 passing over scarcely leave a footmark behind them. In other cases, these flats, 
 or a portion of them, remain soft the year round, the water coming within a few 
 inches of the surface. In these cases a constant efflorescence of saline matter 
 is going on, the sublimated particles being deposited upon the surface and on 
 the surrounding shrubbery, if there be any near by, which is not apt to be the 
 case, the soil being so much covered with water and so mixed with agents un- 
 friendly to vegetation that the wild sage and greasewood, the least dainty of all 
 plants, fail to get a foothold upon these flats. Not even a moss or lichen, or the 
 most lowly fungus, ever lives there. While these alkali flats and mud lakes 
 are found in nearly every section of Nevada, the most extensive are met with 
 in the northwestern part of the State, where in wet seasons they cover hundreds 
 of square miles. 
 
 Its rivers and streams. Nevada, considering the extent of its territory, is 
 remarkable for its lack of streams of any magnitude. It has not a navigable 
 river scarcely more than one or two streams that in most countries would be 
 called a river, within its borders. The Ilumboldt, the longest and largest river 
 in the State, is, at ordinary stages, fordable in many places, as are all the others, 
 nearly everywhere along them. The habit, common on this coast, of desig- 
 nating so large a class of diminutive streams as rivers, is apt to give them an 
 importance on the map which they do not deserve. Reese river, though having 
 a length, traced from its source to its sink, of nearly one hundred and fifty miles, 
 is not over ten or 'fifteen feet wide, with an average depth of about two feet ; 
 other streams, popularly termed rivers, being still smaller. As a general thing, 
 the rivers have a hurried current, with occasional rapids, though nothing like a 
 cataract or even "a tolerably-sized cascade is known to exist in the State. 
 
 Flowing through broad valleys the immediate banks of the streams are apt to 
 foe low in the case of the smaller ones, only a few feet above the water. Ileese 
 river, a good type of this class, flows through a canal-like channel, with parallel 
 banks, composed of clay and sodded quite down to the water, which at ordinary 
 stages is from two to ten feet below the adjacent plain. Except far down, it 
 never dries up and scarcely ever overflows its banks. It disappears at one or 
 two points along its course, there being here no channel above ground. At 
 these places large meadows are formed, and having diffused itself throughout 
 their whole extent, the water- reappears below, sometimes at several points, and 
 being again gathered into one channel, flows on as before. It is worthy of 
 remark, however, that in its passage through this meadow the water, from being 
 perfectly limpid as above, has been turned to a milky color, though not per- 
 ceptibly altered in taste, the discoloring matter being probably a species of clay 
 containing no deleterious or offensive properties. Reese river, after running 
 with no other interruptions than these for nearly one hundred miles, begins to 
 diminish, standing only in pools along its course, which are separated, often for 
 a considerable space, by the more elevated portions of its bed or patches of 
 meadow land. The stream only at high water continues to run along this part 
 of its route, when it makes its way nearly to the Ilumboldt, finally disappearing- 
 in a tule fen that dries up in the fall and winter, the seasons of greatest drought, 
 or at least of lowest water in this country. The Wemissa, Umashaw, and 
 many other streams terminate in a similar manner ; these marshy spots, like 
 those where the larger rivers find a terminus, being commonly called sinks. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 93 
 
 The water in most of the rivers and creeks is wholesome and palatable through- 
 out their entire course, that of the mountain rills being always excellent. The 
 lower 'the stage of water and the further we go down the stream the more im- 
 pure it becomes ; the water of the lower Humboldt being, late in the season, 
 hardly fit to drink, owing to the accumulated impurities here diffused through 
 a smaller volume. In consequence of the waste from evaporation and absorption, 
 most of the larger streams lose as much water from these causes as they gain 
 from their tributaries, of which they have very few, imparting to the rivers of 
 this region the further peculiarity of being quite as large, and sometimes even 
 larger, near their sources than they are at their points of termination. The 
 Humboldt supplies a good example of this kind, it being considerably smaller 
 where it enters the lake than it is two hundred miles above, throughout all 
 which distance it can hardly be said to have a single tributary, not a stream of 
 any size discharging directly into it, even in the wet season. As before stated, 
 most of these streams, as well as the valleys through which they flow, are 
 destitute of timber, the latter, with few and inconsiderable exceptions, being 
 confined to the mountains. In the Reese River valley proper, nearly one 
 hundred miles long, there is not a stick of timber large enough for a fence rail, 
 many others, of equal extent, being quite as badly off in this respect. Without 
 trees, and containing but little verdure, these immense valleys and plains pre- 
 sent for the most part a very dreary and monotonous appearance, many of the 
 latter justly meriting the appellation of desert, so often applied to them. The 
 water in the creeks running from the mountains is always good, and, as in some 
 of the ranges these are numerous" and occasionally quite large, they become 
 objects of importance, not only as supplying the ordinary wants of the inhabit- 
 ants, but as furnishing the means for irrigation and a considerable amount of 
 propulsive power, their descent being uniformly great. The narrow strips of 
 alluvial land found along some of these mountain rills, as well as the bottoms at 
 their mouths, are generally covered with a growth of scrubby trees, consisting 
 of birch, willow, cottonwood, &c. All the lakes, as well as the larger and some 
 of the smaller streams, contain fi>h, some of ^vhich, the mountain trout, are 
 excellent. The fish taken in most of the lakes and along the lower portions of 
 the streams, however, are of an inferior kind, or the better species deteriorated! 
 through the impurities of the water. 
 
 Springs thermal, mineral, and otherwise. In the matter of springs, Nevada 
 is considerably better off than in regard to streams of running water, the former 
 in some parts -of the State being quite numerous, many of them, either as to size, 
 temperature, or the composition of their waters, justly accounted geological 
 curiosities. They occur at all attitudes and under nearly every peculiarity of 
 condition, large and small, deep and shallow, cold, hot and tepid ; in a state of 
 ebullition and quiescence, impregnated with every variety of mineral and metallic 
 substance, and perfectly pure. Sometimes they are found isolated, and at others 
 standing in groups. Some send off steam and emit a gurgling or hissing noise, 
 while others dt> neither. Some of these groups contain as many as forty or fifty 
 springs, varying from one foot to thirty in diameter, and in depth from two 
 feet to a hundred or more. In shape they incline to be circular. 
 
 The mineral and thermal springs are usually situated upon a mound or tumulus 
 formed from the calcareous or silicious particles brought up and deposited by 
 their own waters. These mounds often cover several acres, their summits being 
 raised to a height of forty or fifty feet above the adjacent plains. In some cases 
 the sides of the springs are formed of these limy or silicious concretions, raising 
 them in huge basins several feet above the level of the mounds themselves, 
 while in others they are composed simply of earth or turf. The water in most 
 of them is soft and agreeable to the taste when cold, and so transparent that the 
 minutest object can be seen on the bottom of the deepest spring; even the 
 small orifices through which the water enters being distinctly visible. Fre- 
 
94 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 qnently a hot and a cold spring are situate so close together that a person placed 
 between them rnay dip one hand into each at the same time. From most of them 
 a small stream issues, the water in many merely keeping even with the top, 
 while in others it does not rise so high. Occasionally one is met with that has 
 already become extinct, a condition to which others seem rapidly, and perhaps 
 all are gradually approaching. These fountains, both the thermal and mineral, 
 are much used by the Indians as a cleansing or curative means, and there is 
 little doubt* but some of them possess rare medicinal virtues. Several of them 
 have already become places of much resort with invalids, the sulphurous and 
 chalybeate waters being found particularly efficacious in a variety of diseases. 
 To the Steamboat springs, in Washoe county, the largest number have thus far 
 repaired, more because of their greater accessibility than their superior sanitary 
 properties. A few of these hot springs are subject to a tidal action, belching 
 forth at timts large quantities of water, followed by a subsidence that may last for 
 months or years. 
 
 A chemical analysis of the waters of Steamboat springs shows them to con- 
 tain in various proportions the chlorides of sodium and magnesium, with soda in 
 different forms, lime, silica, and a small per cent, of organic matter. Similar 
 tests made of the waters from other springs disclose nearly the same constituent 
 salts, with the addition in some cases of sulphur and iron. Some of the cold 
 springs, especially those found in the larger valleys, are quite as remarkable for 
 their depth and dimensions as the thermals. It frequently happens that the 
 streams from the mountains, after sinking, reappear in the form of springs along 
 the sides or out in the middle of the valleys. ' Some of these are of but ordinary 
 size, while others are immense pools, from twenty to eighty feet in diameter, 
 and over one hundred feet deep, some of them sending off considerable streams of 
 pure cold water. Not all the cold springs, however, are free from disagreeable 
 or deleterious minerals ; many of those found on the plains being highly offen- 
 sive and injurious. From some of them even animals, though suffering with 
 thirst, refuse to drink. 
 
 The salt beds. These constitute not only a notable feature in the chorogra- 
 phy, but also an important item in the economical resources of Nevada. There 
 are a number of these salt fields in different parts of the State ; they, like the 
 alkali flats and mud lakes, being confined to the valleys and plains in which 
 they cover the points of greatest depression, the most of them being adjacent to 
 or encompassed by a belt of alkali lands. The heavier deposits are, no doubt, of 
 lacustrine origin, occupying what were formerly the basins of inland seas or ex- 
 tended salt lakes. Their formation, it would seem probable, was brought about 
 by the subsidence of these lakes through evaporation or other more violent 
 causes, whereby the entire saline contents of their waters were collected and 
 precipitated at these points, the strata of clay interposed between the different 
 layers of salt being the result of floods occurring at various periods. Situate, 
 however, in valleys from which the waters, having no escape, spread out over 
 large surfaces and soon evaporate, leaving the salt and other solid substances 
 with which they are charged behind, the formation of these saliniferous beds 
 may, perhaps, be sufficiently accounted for by the agents and operations now in 
 action, without presupposing the existence of others about which less is known. 
 Of the considerable number found in the State, three of these beds at least 
 merit special notice, because of the abundance and purity of their product, and 
 the facility with which it can be gathered. That at Sand springs, Churchill 
 county, seventy miles east of Virginia City, extends over several hundred acres, 
 a portion of it being covered with water to the depth of a few inches. Under 
 this is a stratum of pure coarse salt nearly a foot thick, and which only requires 
 to be gathered in heaps or thrown on a platform in order to drain off the water, 
 which is soon accomplished, when it is ready for sacking. Under this top 
 layer is another composed of clay of equal, and, in places, of greater thickness 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 95' 
 
 beneath which again occurs another body of salt, but of what magnitude is 
 unknown, the ascertainment of this point being of no practical moment, inas- 
 much as the salt taken out above immediately reforms, the space soon filling up 
 with new depositions from the super-saturated water. This bed is owned by a 
 company who take out from it over half a million pounds of salt per month, 
 the mills and reduction works about Virginia City obtaining their supplies here, 
 and consuming the most of this large quantity, a little being ground up for table 
 use. The company dispose of this salt ready for sacking at $20 per ton on the 
 ground, the freight to Virginia being about $30. Having their own teams, 
 however, they are able to deliver it at the mills for $40 per ton, a sum consid- 
 erably below wBat the freight alone would be for transporting the article from 
 San Franciscor whence, for several years at first, it was wholly derived, the 
 freights at that time varying from $120 to $180 per ton. At these prices, ad- 
 ding first cost say $12 per ton many thousand tons were consumed by the 
 mills in Nevada prior to 1863, when they began packing it in from the salt 
 pools situate forty-five miles southeast of Walker lake, whereby the price was 
 somewhat reduced. These pools, like the water at Sand springs, being super- 
 saturated with salt, deposit it to a depth of several inches about their borders, 
 renewing it in a short time when taken away. After the discovery of the bed 
 at Sand springs, it being much nearer Virginia, salt ceased to be brought to 
 that place from these pools, though the mills about Aurora still continue to ob- 
 tain their supplies there. To the cheapened price of this community is the 
 present diminished cost of reducing silver ores in Nevada somewhat due, the 
 annual saving thus effected being in some of the larger establishments equiva- 
 lent to a hundred thousand dollars or more. 
 
 About fifty miles north of Sand springs, being also in Churchill county, 
 though near the line of Humboldt, is another and still more extensive salt bed 
 than that already described, its superficial area being nearly twenty square 
 miles, It does not differ, except in extent, from thcit at Sand springs ; the water 
 here also, instead of covering, coming only to within U few inches of the surface. 
 At this place there is first an inch of dry white salt on top, then six inches of 
 wet, overlying a stratum of tough mud, or blue clay, a foot and a half thick, and 
 filled with cubical crystals of salt, some of them several inches square and bear- 
 ing a strong resemblance to ice. Under this clay comes another layer of clean, 
 coarse salt, reaching downward to an unknown depth. This field is also owned 
 by a company who have erected a railway for running out, a platform for dry- 
 ing, and a house for storing their salt. Owing to its distance from the chief point 
 of consumption, Virginia City, but little of this salt has been sent to that place, 
 though the Humboldt .mills and those at Austin, in part, have drawn from here 
 their sifpply. Large as is this bed, it is surpassed by another situate in Nye, or 
 possibly in Esmeralda county, the location of the boundary between the coun- 
 ties being not yet well settled. This deposit is about one hundred and twenty 
 miles S. SW% from Austin, and seventy miles in the same direction from lone, 
 the shire town of Nye county. This bed covers more than fifty square miles, 
 over nearly all which the salt, clean, dry, and white, being the pure chloride of 
 sodium, lies to a depth varying from six inches to two feet. This is the surface 
 deposit, what there may be below never having been ascertained, nor does it 
 matter, the amount in sight being ample to supply the wants of the whole 
 world for centuries, could it but be readily furnished at the points where 
 required ; and though at present of so little avail, when railroads come to be 
 extended into these regions, there is no doubt but salt can be shipped to Califor- 
 nia, and perhaps to more distant localities with profit. Though sold on the 
 ground by the companies claiming these beds at one cent per pound, and some- 
 times for less, this salt should be afforded at a price scarcely more than the bare 
 cost of gathering it up in most instances a mere nominal sum. Upon the great 
 salmiferous field of Nye county millions of tons could be shovelled up lying dry 
 
96 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 and pure upon the surface to a depth varying from six inches to three feet, with 
 most likely still more heavy bodies below. This, like the more limited beds 
 elsewhere, is claimed by private individuals, either under some of the various 
 land laws of the United States, or enactments of the State of Nevada, or per- 
 haps by -virtue of certain regulations similar to those adopted by the mining 
 community, and which hitherto have constituted the tenure of their mining prop- 
 erties. As a means of guarding against combinations that might unduly en- 
 hance the price of a commodity so largely used and so indispensable in the re- 
 duction of silver ores, it might be expedient for the general government to take 
 measures to prevent these salt beds being so completely monopolized by private 
 parties, as is otherwise likely to be the case. Besides these more extensive beds, 
 there are numerous plains upon which the salt is deposited to the depth of an 
 inch or more by the process of efflorescence, tbe soil being damp and impreg- 
 nated with saline matters to a greater or less degree. At these spots the salt, 
 generally mixed with a small percentage of foreign matter, such as soda, lime, 
 or magnesia, is gathered by simply scraping it in heaps upon the surface, which 
 operation must be performed in the dry season, the smallest amount of rain 
 causing it to dissolve and wholly disappear. It reforms, however, with fair 
 weather, and when removed is speedily replaced by new depositions, being in 
 this respect like the heavier beds, practically inexhaustible. This admixture 
 of foreign matter does not seem to impair its value for the reduction of ores, 
 though rendering it unfit for culinary uses. From one of these plains, situate in 
 Big Smoky valley, forty-five miles south of Austin, the mills at that place and 
 elsewhere in the Reese river region obtain their principal' supplies of salt, it being 
 furnished on the ground at one cent a pound ; and as the average cost of hauling 
 to the mills is not over twenty dollars per ton, the latter get this article at a 
 comparatively moderate price. Upon these salt fields there are no signs of ani- 
 mal or vegetable life, though it is a singular circumstance, that coming up 
 through the saline incrustation, near the edge of the largest of them, is a fine 
 spring of pure cold water; similar springs being found either upon or in close 
 juxtaposition to others. The deposits of salt in this region are not confined to 
 these beds or plains; it sometimes occurs in elevated positions, the strata often, 
 in the aggregate many feet thick, being imbedded in hills and mounds of such 
 extent as to almost justify their being called mountains. One of these, situate 
 In the newly created but not yet organized county of Lincoln, in the extreme 
 southeastern corner of the State, covers an area of several thousand acres, the 
 layers being composed of cubical blocks of salt, often a foot square, nearly pure, 
 and as transparent as window glass. There are elsewhere in the State other 
 mounds of salt, the strata separated by layers of earth, similar to this, but none, 
 so far as known, of equal magnitude. 
 
 Lumber and fuel. The only timber in the State capable of making really 
 good lumber is that growing on the eastern slope and along the base of the Sierra 
 Nevada mountains. A species of white pine is found in scattered groves on 
 some of the mountains in the interior and eastern part of the State, but the 
 trees are comparatively small, not more than two or three feet in diameter and 
 forty or fifty feet high, the wood being soft and brittle. As we have seen, there is 
 but little timber of any kind in the valleys, most of them containing none at all, 
 while many of the mountains are equally destitute. The prevailing tree, where 
 there is any east of the Sierra Nevada, is the pinon a species of scrubby pine, 
 having a low, bushy trunk, from six to twelve inches through and from fifteen to 
 thirty feet high. Having a close fibre and being full of resin, it is heavy and 
 burns well even when green, being equal to most kinds of hard wood in the 
 amount of heat it gives out, and constituting a very valuable kind of fuel. 
 Mixed with these forests of pirlon there are sometimes a few juniper trees and 
 mountain mahogany neither of any service for lumber, though the latter, when 
 dry, is an excellent fuel. Along most of the larger streams, as stated, there are 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 97 
 
 a, few cottonwoods and small willows; while, in some of the mountain canons, 
 these, together with birch, ash, and cherry, are found, all, however, of a dwarfish 
 growth, and, though serviceable for fencing, not of much use for making lumber. 
 With such a scarcity of good timber the better qualities of lumber command 
 high prices in most parts of Nevada. Thus, at Virginia City, though within 
 eighteen miles of the best timber lands, the price varies from $40 to $60, accord- 
 ing to kind and quality. The further we go east the higher the price rules; 
 the same quality of lumber that can be bought at the mills in the sierra for $20, 
 in Carson City for $30, and in Virginia City for $45, per thousand, costs $1 20 in Aus- 
 tin, where, at the same time, that made from the white-pine growing in the vicinity 
 can be bought for $60, and fire-wood for a little more than half the price it is 
 in Virginia. Much of the lumber employed in the erection of mills and the 
 construction of machinery about Austin, as well as a large proportion of that 
 used on other buildings in that place, has cost from $120 to $200 per thousand, 
 it being considerably cheaper now than it was several years ago. Worthless as 
 this piiion is for the purposes of lumber, many of the houses in the smaller towns 
 in the interior are built of it a face being hewn upon two sides of the stick, 
 which is then set on end, the houses being constructed on the stockade plan. It 
 is also used, where easily obtained, for building corrals, and to some extent for 
 fencing; but, bring hard and knotty as well as of small size, it requires much 
 labor to prepare it for even the most common use. Wherever this tree is at all 
 abundant, fuel can be obtained, delivered at the mills, for from $4 to $5 per cord, 
 and sometimes a little less. In most parts of Churchill and Humboldt counties 
 the price is higher, owing to the greater scarcity of timber or the difficulty of 
 getting it down from the mountains. In Star City and Unionville, Humboldt 
 county, juniper a very poor kind of fuel costs from $10 to $12 per cord. 
 Where timber is scarce, sage-brush and other resinous shrubs these being found 
 nearly everywhere in the country are used for fuel; even some of the mills, as 
 the Shtba in Humboldt, and several others, having employed them wholly or 
 in part for generating steam, for which purpose they answer very well, save the 
 trouble of keeping the furnaces supplied, because of the rapidity with which they 
 are consumed. In Virginia City and vicinity wood now costs from $12 to $16 
 per cord, the price varying with the quality. These are about the rates that 
 have obtained, there since the settlement of the place, though at times much 
 higher have ruled when the season was inclement or the article scarce. Coal, 
 or rather lignite, has been discovered at several places in the State, yet none of 
 these deposits have as yet furnished more than a few hundred tons of fuel, nor 
 have they thus far been sufficiently developed to determine their capacity and 
 value in this respect. At Crystal Peak, on -the Truckee, near the California line, 
 a' considerable amount of work has been done in the exploration of coal-beds 
 supposed to exist at that point; and the prospect for finding there a large deposit 
 of at least a moderately good fuel is by experts considered encouraging. Beds 
 of peat that burn well have also been found at one or two places in Uie State. 
 A railroad which can now be counted on as likely to be built within the next 
 two years, connecting the Virginia mining district with the heavy forests of the 
 Sierra Nevada must tend to greatly diminish the cost of fuel and lumber, both 
 of which are required in enormous quantities in the business of raising and 
 reducing the ores, the erection of buildings, timbering the mines, &c.; the 
 sums annually expended on this account, though scarcely so large now as for- 
 merly, amounting to over $2,000,000, nearly one-half of which it is believed 
 might be saved through the aid of a railroad. When the Central Pacific rail- 
 road, now in rapid progress of construction across the sierra, shall have been 
 built down the Truckee river as it is calculated it will be within a year and a 
 half from this time it will pass a point not more than sixteen or eighteen miles 
 distant from Virginia City, which would be the length of a branch road required 
 for connecting this place with the main trunk, and through it with the heavily 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 7 
 
98 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 timbered mountains only six or eight miles west from the point of intersection 
 of the two roads. The suggestions made with reference to the propriety of 
 preventing a monopoly of the salt-fields by private individuals might perhaps be 
 extended also to the wood-lands, more especially in the interior mining districts, 
 where these lands are limited in extent, and where, although the requirements 
 for fuel will probably be great, large tracts have already been secured in the 
 nanner alluded to by private parties or companies. 
 
 MINES AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF NEVADA. 
 
 
 
 Various minerals. Not only the precious, but also many of the useful metals 
 as well as a large variety of mineral substances, are met with in the State of 
 Nevada, nearly all of them widely diffused and some of the latter in such abun- 
 dance as cannot fail to render them commodities of economic value when greater 
 facilities shall exist for transporting them to the points of manufacture or 
 consumption. Besides the saliniferous basins already described, ores of copper 
 and iron rich in these respective metals; beds of sulphur, from some of which 
 this mineral can be obtained quite pure, though generally mixed with calca- 
 reous or other foreign matter ; deposits of lignite and possibly true coal, though, 
 so far as explored, Nevada is not a strongly marked carboniferous region ; 
 cinnabar, gypsum, manganese, plumbago, kaoline and other clays useful for 
 making pottery and fire-brick ; mineral pigments of many kinds, together with 
 many of the more important salts and varieties of alkaline earths ; soda in all 
 its combinations, nitre, alum, magnesia, &c , being encountered in nearly all 
 parts of the State and frequently in great abundance. Platiiimn and tin have 
 been found in small quantities, the latter as yet only in stream-works and never 
 in place, galena, zinc, antimony, nickel, cobalt, arsenic, &c., frequently occur- 
 ring in combination with silver and other metals. Limestone, granite, marble, and 
 many other kinds of stone suitable for building purposes, with slate adapted for 
 roofing, are common and in some instances easily obtained, the work of quarry- 
 ing them being carried on above ground. The most useful material of this 
 class consists of a species of sandstone and a volcanic rock, the former of . 
 light gray and the latter of a reddish drab color, both of which occur in masses 
 quite upon the surface, and when fresh from the quarry are so soft as to be 
 easily wrought, though afterwards becoming so hard as to resist not only the 
 influence of the atmosphere, but also a high degree of heat, some of this igneous 
 rock being employed for smelting and roasting works, and even the manufacture 
 of crucibles, with success. That iron could be manufactured to advantage in the 
 interior of the State where the freights are high and the consumption of this 
 article so considerable, is the opinion of those most conversant with the subject, 
 and there is a strong probability that works of this kind, upon a limited scale at 
 least, will be established there within a short time. One of the heaviest beds 
 of iron ore yet dicovered in the State is situated in the western part of Nye 
 county, and though not far distant from an extensive body of piiion from which 
 an excellent article of charcoal could readily be made, there is but little water 
 and no good land or important mines in the immediate neighborhood; wherefore, 
 although the ore is abundant, rich, and of supposed good quality, it is much to 
 be questioned whether iron, even of the more common kind, such as is used for 
 dies, shoes, castings, &c., could be made here with profit, and consequently 
 whether this ferruginous bed is at present of any practical importance. Upon 
 some of the alkaline flats, as well as about certain springs and other localites, 
 the carbonate of soda exists so pure and in such profusion that it, like common 
 salt and other similar substances, must yet become one of the staple exports of 
 the country. At present but a very limited use is made of this article, it being 
 employed only by the laundrymen and soap makers. There is now a small 
 establishment at Carson City engaged in manufacturing sulphuric acid, the raw 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 99 
 
 material bring procured from the sulphur bed near the Big Bend of the Ilum- 
 boldt river, about the centre of Humboldt county. That other salts and mineral 
 substances, such as nitre, borax, alum, &c., will yet be found in this State in 
 such quantities as will make them of practical value, seems probable, though 
 not enough is *yet known as to the extent of these deposits to warrant the ex- 
 pression of a positive opinion on this point. Nevada is rich in organic remains 
 both animal and vetetable, some of the latter being of extraordinary size and 
 beauty. Huge fragments o/ fossiliferous wood and even the entire trunks of 
 large trees have been discovered lying upon the surface of the ground often in 
 a state of high preservation. There are springs in different places? the waters 
 of which being highly charged with silicious or ferruginous properties, are 
 constantly carrying on this fossilizing process upon animal and vegetable mat- 
 ter immersed in or otherwise sufficiently exposed to their operation. No dia- 
 monds or other precious stones have, so far as is known, yet been discovered in 
 Nevada, though opals and agates, the latter remarkable lor variety and beauty, 
 have been found at many places. Neither petroleum nor other mineral oil has 
 thus far been met with in the country, nor do the indications, so far as observed, 
 favor the supposition that they will ever be discovered in quantities hereafter, 
 the bituminous, like the carboniferous signs throughout the State, being scanty 
 and unsatisfactory. 
 
 Characteristic features of tlie Cpmstock ledge. Taken as a whole, this 
 ledge, discovered as already related, is not only by far the most valuable silver- 
 bearing lode yet found in the State of Nevada, but equals, perhaps, any deposit 
 of the precious metals ever encountered in the history of mining enterprise, its 
 productive capacity, as now being developed, surpassing, if the mass of its ores 
 do not in richness equal, those of the most famous mines of Mexico and Peru. 
 Being then so important in itself, and holding such prominence among the mines 
 of this State, a somewhat detailed description of its location, character, exploita- 
 tion, and future prospects may not be out of place. This lode is situate in 
 Story county, about twenty-five miles from the western border of the State. 
 It is found cropping out along the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a lofty em- 
 inence in the Washoe range of mountains, which form a lower spur of the main 
 sierra; with which it runs parallel, being separated therefrom by Washoe and 
 Steamboat valleys. Mount Davidson, like most of the range of which it forms 
 a part, is extremely dry and barren, containing but little water or grass, and at 
 present no timber at all, the few scrubby pines that once grew upon its sides 
 having long since dissappeared. Its bulk, like that of the Sierra Nevada and 
 most of the mountain ranges in this State, is composed of granite, though largely 
 made up of serpentine, quartz gneiss, sienite, talcose, calcareous and other pri- 
 mary rocks. Breccia, porphyry, trap, trachyte, argillaceous, and silicious, with 
 nearly every kind of igneous and sedimentary rock, are common in the moun- 
 tains of chis State, some rich argentiferous lodes having been found in many of these 
 formations. The summit of Mount Davidson is 7,827 feet above 'tide water, 
 1,600 feet above Virginia City and the Comsto.ck lode, and more than 3, 000 feet 
 above the plain of Carson river at its base. The direction and comparative size 
 of this lode, the length and relative position of the various claims upon it, and 
 its situation with reference to Virginia City and Gold Hill, the /principal towns 
 in the neighborhood, will be more readily understood by consulting the accom- 
 panying diagram, illustrating these and other points of interest connected there- 
 with. The strike of the principal or mother vein, the only one exhibited on 
 this plat, is, as will be seen, about fifteen decrees west of south, the northerly 
 and southerly extremities thereof bearing nearly due north and south. In width 
 or thickness it varies on top from twenty to two hundred feet, the most of it 
 ranging between thirty and seventy feet, with a uniform tendency to expansion 
 as penetrated downwards. The ledge, at some points along its course, as in the 
 grounds of the Savage and the Gould & Curry companies, and again at Gold 
 Hill, spreads out beyond its average width, it reaching at the latter place its 
 
100 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 greatest thickness, something over one hundred and fifty feet. In a vertical 
 direction it undergoes a similar contraction and expansion, pinching at points 
 to a few yards, or even feet, arid again extending to its usual size. Though 
 in spots appearing in high rocky projections, it does not show itself above* 
 ground throughout its entire length, there being considerable stretches where 
 no outcrop is visible. That it preserves its continuity, however, below, seems 
 probable, it having been found wherever searched after to any great depth. 
 Nor has it proven prolific in ores throughout all its. parts, there being a number 
 of barren spaces along it, as in the ground extending from the Central to the 
 Gould & Curry claim, some 1,400 feet, and at other points further south, in 
 none of which have any considerable bodies of valuable ores been found, though 
 explored to depths varying from three to five hundred feet. It is the opinion 
 of geologists that within these hitherto unproductive spaces paying ores will yet 
 be reached, though not, perhaps, until much greater depths have been attained. 
 
 In this as in most large and fruitful silver-bearing lodes the valuable ores, 
 though generally diffused throughout the mass of the gange or vein-stone, are 
 still found to be more abundant in certain portions thereof called bonanzas or 
 chimneys, which latter, as they usually have a pitch lengthwise the lode, must, 
 according to their position, often run out of the ground of one company into that 
 of another adjoining, leaving the one comparatively poor and enriching the other. 
 Under this arrangement it might happen that one of these barren spots, by a 
 bonanza striking into it at a greater depth, should be rendered productive, it 
 being, moreover, liable tp become so without reference to this system of distribu- 
 tion of ores, not by any means a feature of all mines. In its upper portions 
 the Comstock lode clipped to the west at an angle of about sixty degrees, this 
 angle in places being much larger, and at some points. approximating ninety 
 degrees. At greater depths, varying from one to three hundred feet, the ledge 
 after gradually assuming a perpendicular position is now, at the depth of seven 
 hundred feet, found pitching to the east at an angle of about fifty degrees, the 
 inclination varying somewhat at different points along its line. In the develop- 
 ment of this lode, which is now conceded by all competent judges who have ex- 
 amined it to be a regular fissure vein of the largest size, the usual contractions, 
 faults, and displacements common in this class of veins have been encountered, 
 and though causing much hindrance and extra labor, and at times giving rise to 
 no little doubt and discouragement, they have in no case destroyed the continuity 
 of the vein or caused it to be wholly lost sight of. Dykes of trap and other in- 
 durated rock have interposed at many points to check the work of exploration, 
 while elsewhere imbedded within the mass of the lode have been foi\nd immense 
 fragments of wall rock or other foreign matter barren of ore, causing much 
 trouble and tending to depreciate for the time being the value of the mines. 
 But in nearly every instance such obstacles have been overcome, these rocky 
 barriers being penetrated, and these bodies of worthless material disappearing 
 before the persistent efforts of well-applied labor. 
 
 The Comstock ledge has now been clearly traced and identified for a space, 
 measured m a straight line, of a little more than one mile and a half, throughout 
 which it has been found continuous and sufficiently rich in the precious metals 
 to render the entire body of the ore-bearing portions of the vein remunerative, 
 with the exceptions already pointed out. This .space extends from the. larger 
 section of the Ophir company's claim, on the north, to that of the Belcher, and 
 possibly of the Uncle Sam, on the south, some of the rich silver sulphurates char- 
 acteristic of the mother lode having been found in the latter, though not at the 
 depth yet reached, in large quantities. As stated, the rich ores have been found 
 in some cases, as in the Ophir and Mexican grounds, and at Gold Hill, quite 
 upon the surface, while in others it has only been reached at depths varying 
 from fifty to five hundred feet. In the Gould & Curry claim very fair, though 
 not what was then considered pay-rock, was met with in the outcropping^ of the 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 101 
 
 ledge, the millable ores not being obtained until a deptli of nearly one hundred 
 feet was reached. 
 
 In the ground of the Savage company, adjoining on the south, they were 
 not reached until a much greater depth had been attained, while in that of the 
 Hale and Norcross company, lying next, nothing worth putting through the 
 batteries was met with until their shaft had, at great expense been sunk to 
 a vertical depth of more than 500 feet. In the Alpha, Yellow Jacket, and 
 Crown Point claims, no heavy masses of millable, ores were met with until 
 they had been penetrated downward from one to three hundred feet, while, as 
 before intimated, in N the space between the claim of the Gould & Curry and 
 that of the central company, as also throughout a stretch of some hundred feet 
 adjoining the ground of the Chollar-Potosi company on the south, and perhaps, 
 also, in a like space similarly situated with reference to the Belcher ground, no 
 metalliferous deposits of magnitude or value have thus far been developed. 
 Much labor and money have been expended in efforts to t^ace the prolongation 
 of the Comstock ledge, both to the north and south, of what are considered, in 
 a productive sense at least, its present termini ; but only with the results here- 
 tofore indicated, nothing of permanent value having been struck along the 
 supposed line of its course, rfr adjacent thereto, beyond these points. Quartzose 
 ledges exist in abundance, both to the north and south within the belt the Com- 
 stock is presumed to occupy, if it have an existence outside its present known 
 limits ; but none of these, nor yet any of the numerous lateral ledges in close 
 proximity to the developed section of the mother vein, and by some considered 
 a portion of it, have yielded more than a very insignificant percentage of the 
 precious metals, nor are the present prespects of these properties such as to 
 command for them other than mere nominal prices in the mining share market, 
 many, that a few years ago sold readily at high prices, being no longer salable 
 at all. Most of the ledges running parallel with the productive portion of> the 
 Comstock, and within one or two hundred feet of the latter, have been the cause 
 of much expensive litigation, the owners of the main lode claiming them as be- 
 longing to it under the theory that they would all unite at some point, probably 
 at no great depth beneath the surface ; a view that the courts have been inclined 
 to sustain arid that experience tends to sanction. 
 
 The greatest vertical depth to which the Comstock ledge has been developed 
 is a little more than seven hundred feet, there being several shafts along it from 
 four hundred to seven hundred feet deep, with many others varying in depth 
 from two hundred to five hundred feet, while some tunnels now under way, and 
 soon most likely to be completed, will strike it at a still greater depth. The 
 Sutro tunnel already projected, with a good prospect of being finished in the 
 course of four or five years, will strike it at an estimated depth of eighteen 
 hundred feet below the croppings of the Gould & Curry company, the highest 
 point upon it. This work, according to the plan proposed, js to be twelve feet 
 wide and ten feet high, so as to admit of a double train-way. It will be nine- 
 teen thousand feet long, cost between four and five millions of dollars, and when 
 finished will enable this lode to be worked with probable profit to a depth of 
 three thousand feet or more. The proprietor of this tunnel, which it is believed 
 will soon become an urgent necessity, proposes to tax the different companies 
 upon the Comstock ledge at the rate of two dollars for every ton of ore raised 
 after the work is completed, and they are actually enjoying the benefits of 
 having their mines drained thereby. The work, though formidable, is greatly 
 inferior, both in cost and magnitude, to several others of a similar kind already 
 completed, or under way, for securing deep drainage to various mines in Europe. 
 In the year 1850 surveys were made for a tunnel in the Harz mines, Bruns- 
 wick, to be nearly fourteen miles in length, and wnich it was estimated it would 
 require twenty-two years to finish. Work was commenced upon this tunnel in 
 July, 1851, and completed in June, 1864, the time required for its construction 
 being less than thirteen years. The product of these mines is only about half a 
 
102 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 million dollars in gold and silver, per annum, and the additional drainage 
 secured by this work was but three hundred feet, items quite insignificant com- 
 pared with the annual yield of the Comstock lode, and the depth of drainage to 
 accrue from the construction of the Sutro tunnel. A tunnel some fifteen miles 
 in length, designed to drain the principal mines at Freiberg, Saxony, has been 
 in progress of excavation for several years, forty more being expected to insure 
 its completion; nor does this work deepen the present drainage upon those 
 mines to anything like the extent attained by the Sutro tunnel. Already a 
 number of extensive tunnels have been commenced, designed to intersect the 
 Cometock lode at depths varying from five hundred to one thousand feet 
 beneath the surface. Some of these, after being partially completed, have been 
 abandoned; upon others work has been suspended at different stages in their 
 progress ; while upon a few operations are still being vigorously prosecuted, with 
 the prospect of an early consummation Some of the shafts now being sunk it 
 is proposed to carry ^ to a depth of twelve or fourteen hundred feet, powerful 
 pumping and hoisting works being provided for the purpose. 
 
 ChdTacter, quantity, value, and distribution of ores in the Comstock ledge. 
 The great body of valuable ores contained in the Comstock ledge consists of the 
 black and gray sulphurets of silver, several. other varieties having been met with 
 in small quantities, more especially near the surface. Native silver is found 
 diffused throughout all parts of the vein; and while no large masses have been 
 obtained, many handsome specimens have been gathered from the various 
 claims, the aggregate value of all the virgin metal taken out being quite large. 
 Combined with this ore is a small amount of the baser metals, such as the sul- 
 phurets of antimony, lead, iron, copper, &c. These are present, however, owly 
 in limited quantities, this ore being remarkable for its freedom from these and 
 similar substances; hence one of the elements of its comparatively cheap re- 
 duction. Associated with the silver is a notable percentage of gold, the bullion 
 extracted during the earlier working of the mines containing a larger portion of 
 it than at a later period when, through improved machinery and process; s and 
 a more careful manipulation of the ores, the silver was more closely saved. At 
 Gold Hill the bullion extracted at first was worth from six to eight dollars per 
 ounce; now it is reduced to between two and three dllars, that from most other 
 points along the Comstock lode being worth still less owing to the heavy ailoy 
 of silver it contains. The deeper the mines at Gold Hill are worked the more the 
 metal tends to silver. By simply crushing and amalgamating, from seventy to 
 ninety, on an average more than eighty, per cent, of all the precious metals con- 
 tained in the great mass of the Comstock ores can be extracted, thereby dispensing 
 with the troublesome and expensive process of roasting or smelting, to which 
 only a small quantity of the extremely rich or more obdurate ores are subjected. 
 The mass of rocky matter enclosed between the walls of this ledge is not found 
 to be ore-Hearing throughout all its parts. In spots it is quite barren, the ores 
 being collected in streaks or bunches, leaving the balance so entirely destitute 
 of metal, or only so slightly impregnated therewith, as to render it not worth 
 raising. In other places the metalliferous ores are generally diffused throughout 
 the vein-stone, being here usually of a lower grade than where occurring in a 
 more concentrated form. This lode, having been found remarkably rich at two 
 or three spots quite upon the surface, and these happening to be the 'points 
 where practical operations were first initiated, led at the outset to very exag- 
 gerated notions of its probable wealth, and a consequent overrating of its pros- 
 pective value ; a circumstance to which much of the wild speculation, as well 
 as many of the misapprehensions and mistakes, that subsequently characterized 
 the management of these mines, as well as the financial operations connected 
 therewith, may be justly attributed. Under the excitement of the moment, and 
 through the general ignorance prevailing in regard to the nature of silver mines, 
 it was inferred that these bonanzas would not only be of frequent occurrence 
 and extend indefinitely downwards, but that the entire body of the lode would 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 103 
 
 become larger and more productive the further it was penetrated in that direc- 
 tion ; a supposition which, it is needless to say, subsequent experience has 
 failed to confirm, most of these rich accumulations of ore having been exhausted 
 at no great depth, and the ledge generally, though increasing somewhat in 
 thickness as descended upon, having undergone no corresponding increment in 
 the volume of the ores, or in the average yield of the precious metal s. From 
 many of the mines along the line of the Cornstock there is at present a much 
 greater amount of ore being raised than formerly, because of greater facilities 
 for hoisting, and because a much lower grade of ore is now being worked than 
 aforetime. In the earlier stages of mining at this place large bodies of metallif- 
 erous -rock were left untouched in the upper levels, being then thought too poor 
 to justify removal. Many of these, as well as thousands of tons of rejected 
 rock thrown upon the dump piles, have since been sent to the mills, and, with 
 the present cheapened means of reduction, found to pay a profit ; and thus it is, 
 that while the average yield of the precious metals to the ton of ore has been 
 steadily diminishing, the aggregate annual product of bullion from these mines 
 underwent a rapid increase until three years ago, since which time it has been 
 maintained at about the same point, the amount being about fifteen million dol- 
 lars per annum. For the first two or three years after they were opened, the 
 argentiferous ores taken from this ledge yielded from one to three hundred dol- 
 lars per ton ; the average of all worked being over one hundred and fifty dollars, 
 while some small lots carefully selected went much higher, ranging from five 
 hundred to two and even three thousand dollars to the ton. But the quantity 
 of this class was limited, and it is probable that nearly as much equally rich 
 ore could now be procured by carefully culling the entire mass taken out. 
 These rich parcels were generally sent abroad for reduction, or sold in San 
 Francisco to the dealers in metalliferous ores, who carried them to Europe 
 mostly to Swansea for treatment. 
 
 To illustrate more clearly the depreciation that has gradually taken place in 
 the value of these ores, or, rather, the manner in which, through the agency of 
 cheapened and more efficient modes of treatment, the working of those of lower 
 grade with profit have been constantly increased, we may take the case of the 
 Gould & Curry company, which fairly represents the experience of most others 
 in this particular. This company, during the four years extending from 1862 
 to 1865, inclusive, extracted from their claims the following numbers of tons of 
 third cla-s ore, being the bulk taken out, with the average results stated, viz : 
 1862, 8,427 tons; average yield per ton, $104 50; 1863, 43,907 tons; average, 
 $80 44 per ton; 1864, 55,602 tons; average, 73 48 per ton; 1865, 46,745 
 tons ; yield, $45 41 per ton. For the year 1866 the amount of ore raised will 
 probably not differ much from that of last year, while the yield per ton will be 
 somewhat less. During these four years this company took out, in addition to 
 the foregoing, fifty-two tons first class ore that averaged 81,800 to tire ton, and 
 14,103 tons second-class that averaged $234 to the ton, while one or two mines 
 are doing better. The average yield of the leading mines on the Comstock 
 ledge will not at present go much jf any above $40 per ton ; while that from 
 the more auriferous claims at Gold Hill will scarcely yield $30. With the 
 poverty of the ores the profits of the mine, of course, diminish, it costing but 
 little more to work moderately rich than it does poor ores. The total number 
 of tons of ore raised from all the mines on the Comstock ledge will reach and 
 perhaps exceed one million and a half. The amount of ore extracted from the 
 various mines depends upon their magnitude, the facilities for raising them, and 
 the energy with which they are pushed. Most of the larger claims are now 
 taking out at the rate of from twenty to fifty thousand tons per annum, and ons 
 or two at a still larger rate. The total amount of ore extracted from all the 
 claims situate on- the Comstock ledge may be roughly estimated at something 
 over one and a half million tons. 
 
104 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Cost of mining, hauling, and reduction of ores. These several items of ex- 
 pense vary considerably with circumstances. In estimating the cost of raising 
 or mining the ores it is customary to include that of constructing, hoisting, and < 
 pumping works, timbering the mines, c., as well as of the actual labor of ex- 
 traction. The cost of mining the ores on the Oomstock ledge averages at pres- 
 ent about $14 per ton, the price varying from $10 to ^20. For transporting the 
 ores from the mine to the mill the cost is at the rate about $1 per ton for every 
 mile the ore is carried, unless the distance be long, when it is less. Hauling 
 the shortest distance usual 'y costs $1 per ton. Where contracted for in large 
 lots, teamsters haul from Virginia City to Carson river, seven miles, for $4 per 
 ton. Ores treated by simple crushing and amalgamation, as most of those 
 taken from the Comstock ledge are, can be reduced at a cost varying from $10 
 to $16 per ton, the average price being about $14. The auriferous ores at Gold 
 Hill, which require but few expensive chemicals, do not cost over $8 or $10 per 
 ton. Where water-power is used instead of steam the expense is about S3 per 
 ton less, these all being reductions of from thirty to seventy five per cent, on 
 the prices that prevailed a few years ago, Where dry-crushing with roasting 
 or smelting is adopted the expense is two or three times as great as by the above 
 method. Not more than one-twentieth, if at present so large a proportion, of the 
 ores from the Comstock mines are treated by dry-crushing, though upon a larger 
 share of those taken from the ledges in the interior this plan could be adopted 
 with advantage, the most of them requiring roasting or smelting. To the above 
 rates, except in the item of hauling ores to the mills, 'which is about the same, 
 there must be added, where these several operations are carried on in the outside 
 districts, from fifty to one hundred per cent., the price of labor as well as most 
 kinds of material being that much dearer there than about Virginia City. Ex- 
 tracting the ores from some of the extremely narrow ledges in these localities often 
 costs four times as much per ton as from the claims on the Comstock lode, so 
 much dead work being required to secure a small amount of ore from the former. 
 
 Annual and total product of bullion extracted from the Comstock ledge. 
 Assuming the gross amount of ore taken from the Comstock lode to have been 
 one and a half million of tons, a rather low estimate, and supposing it to have 
 yielded at the rate of forty-four dollars per ton, the present average being less 
 than $40, we have a total bullion product of $66,000,000, reckoning to the end 
 of the present year. That this estimate of the gross product is not far out of 
 the way, the following table exhibiting the annual yieJd of all the mines in 
 Nevada tends to establish. These figures are for the most part derived from 
 authentic sources, and although they embrace the yield of all the mines in the 
 State, we have only to make a deduction of about five or six per cent, for the 
 outside districts, the balance being justly credited to the Comstock lead : 
 
 1859 
 
 $50, 000 
 
 I860 
 
 100, 000 
 
 1861 
 
 2, 275, 000 
 
 1862 
 
 ^ 6,500,000 
 
 1863 
 
 12,500,000 
 
 1864 
 
 . . 16, 000, 000 
 
 1865 
 
 16,800,000 
 
 1866 
 
 16,500,000 
 
 
 
 70, 725, 000 
 
 *The above estimate as stated is derived from authentic sources, but it differs some- 
 what from the estimate made by the surveyor general of Nevada given in section 3, clause 
 33, with which it may be compared, as well as with the total yield reported by the principal 
 companies on the Comstock lode as given in clauses 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, and 4:<i in 
 section 3. 
 
WEST OF THE ROC^Y MOUNTAINS 105 
 
 An allowance of five million of dollars would undoubtedly cover the product 
 of all the outside mines, making that of the Comstock vein to be, as above, 
 nearly $66,000,000. The rate at which this lode has been yielding heretofore 
 can, in all likelihood, be kept up for an indefinite period to come, there being 
 no example in the history of silver mining of a vein of this magnitude and 
 character being exhausted or giving out, though many have been worked steadily 
 for centuries and in some instances to depths three or four times as great as 
 that yet reached on any part of the Comstock lode. The yearly turn out 
 of these mines could easily be enlarged, as it no doubt will be hereafter, 
 when new levels shall be opened or new claims brought to a productive 
 condition, and additional works shall be supplied for raising and reducing 
 the ores. That their annual product will be augmented to twenty millions 
 or more, in the course of a few years, seems quite likely. It could even, 
 with the present me,ns for extracting the ores, be increased several millions 
 yearly were the leading companies disposed to employ a larger number of cus- 
 tom mills and to adopt the rushing and exhaustive system in vogue a' few years 
 ago ; but which, while it secured large aggregate returns, was found to be 
 attended with great waste and to tend to a rapid depletion of the mines. As a 
 return to this plan cannot therefore reasonably be looked for, the anticipated 
 increase of bullion may be expected to grow out of the causes above mentioned, 
 in conjunction with a more economical and perhaps efficient reduction of ores, 
 whereby those of a lower grade than are now worked can be treated with profit. 
 The annual yield of none of the older claims has been as large for the past two 
 years as it was for two or three years previous to that time, the deficiency being 
 supplied by several new claims that have since become productive, such as the 
 Hale & Norcross, Crown Point, and others. Thus the Gould & Curry com- 
 pany, whose mine did not begin to turn out bullion in any quantity until 1862, 
 produced that year $858,819, in 1863 $3,887,755, in 1864 $4,921,516, and in 
 1865 $2,401,060, the product the present year being about the same as last. 
 The entire amount of the precious metals taken from this mine, calculating to 
 ihe end of the year 1866, amounts to about fourteen aud a half millions of 
 dollars. From the Savage mine there has been extracted during the same time 
 about $4,500,000, the total yield for the year ending July 10, 1866, havirfg 
 been $1,256,663. The Hale & Norcross, which only lately began to yield 
 largely, is now producing at the rate of about $1,500,000 per annum. The 
 product of the Imperial mine at Gold Hill was, for the year ending May 31, 
 1865, $854,630. For the last year it has not yielded so largely, the same 
 remark being applicable to most of the formerly highly productive mines near 
 it, as well as to many others near Virginia City, such as the Ophir, Mexican, 
 Central-Chollar, Potosi, &c., from none of which has there been anything like 
 the amount of bullion extracted the last two years that there was for the two 
 years preceding, while upon one or two of them labor has nearly ceased. The 
 cause of this falling off is not so much in the poverty of the mines themselves, 
 some of which have been amongst the most prolific on the Comstock lead, and 
 are still known to be rich, as irf a lack of energy on the part of the owners in 
 failing to provide the means for draining them of water and a renewal of pros- 
 pecting operations. On some of these mines work has been suspended until 
 more powerful machinery for hoisting and pumping can be supplied, while in a 
 few other cases it has been for want of adequate means to go on, or because the 
 small amounts of good ore at one time obtainable in the mine having given out, 
 the owners have become discouraged or concluded to discontinue operations 
 until the adjacent mines have been drained and explored. 
 
 Accruing profits, dividends, losses, disbursements, fyc. Of the net profits that 
 have accrued to the owners of the mines upon the Comstock ledge, taking them 
 as a whole, it is impossible to make any accurate computation. In many of the 
 morp valuable claims but little capital was at first invested, the owners being 
 
106 RESOURCES OF THE 'STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 the original locators, or purchasing them from the latter for small and often mere 
 nominal prices. This was more particularly the case with the numerous small 
 but extremely rich claims at Gold Hill, as well as the Ophir ind Mexican near 
 Virginia City. At first there were no taxes of any kind upon the product of 
 these mines ; the body of ore was large, exceedingly rich, easily extracted 
 thousands of tons being found in the croppings above ground and the most of 
 it capable of being reduced at a comparatively small cost ; wherefore the profits 
 to the owners, or at least to such of them as had come by the^e properties 
 cheaply, were, during the first three or four years, not only steady, certain, and 
 large, but in many cases enormous ; and had better judgment been exhibited at 
 that period in working the mines, and more caution in properly securing their 
 titles, or had greater economy in the expenditure of their proceeds been ob- 
 served by the owners, much of the disaster, loss, and, in some instances, final 
 ruin that overtook both might have been avoided. For the development of these 
 mines and the working of the ores few assessments were ever required, the 
 most of them being not only self-sustaining but dividend-paying from the start. 
 Prior to the erection of steam-mills the argentiferous ores were sold and sent out 
 of the country for reduction, the auriferous rock at Gold Hill being worked by 
 arrastras, a slow method, but one that answers well where the rock is rich, and 
 simple crushing and amalgamating serves the purpose. Another advantage at 
 this early day was, the mines were mostly owned by single individuals, or two 
 or three at most, acting as partners, and not by large incorporated companies ; 
 and thus a source of much wastefulness and mismanagement, not to say pecula- 
 tion and fntud, was guarded against. So large was the 4 income from some of 
 these claims at Gold Hill during the period we are considering that they readily 
 commanded from five to fifteen thousand dollars per foot, the net monthly profits 
 derived from them varying from five hundred to three thousand dollars per linear 
 foot. In some cases persons owning but ten feet enjoyed from this source an 
 annual revenue of more than twenty and even approximating thirty thousand 
 dollars. Nor were these princely revenues confined to the claims in Gold Hill, 
 proper, (a mound of quartz some three or four hundred feet in length ;) the pro- 
 prietors of the Mexican and Ophir for a time fared nearly as well. This tem- 
 porary productiveness of the mines, leading, as has already been observed, to 
 the subsequent high prices and extravagant notions of their prospective value, 
 which in turn caused the undue excitement and over-speculation that culminated, 
 on several distinct occasions not far separated, in general disappointment ancf 
 loss. How frequently and extensive these losses have been may in some measure 
 be gathered from the following tables exhibiting the fluctuations in the prices of 
 such mining stocks as have been generally dealt in by the board of brokers, an'd 
 which, although they do not embrace all the, productive mines in the State, suf- 
 ficiently indicate the fate that at one time or another has overtaken a large ma- 
 jority of them. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 
 
 107 
 
 f 
 
 ^ 
 
 g 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 <w 
 
 s 
 .1 
 
 
 o 
 
 .$ 
 
 hQ 
 
 'I '09(1 
 
 '05 'Aox 
 
 '03 
 
 01 
 
 : LO o 10 o o o <? r- 10 o 
 
 ' -:> r7 7' ^> O r-i <T< r-liO -CO 
 
 ! f 'X O O f !-( 
 
 ' O O O O CJ O 0& 
 
 "8 
 
 a 
 
 sa 
 
 : 
 
 O r ( O O 
 
 2SS 
 
 '01 
 
 05 
 
 01 
 
 '08 
 
 '05 A* 
 
 O O C O O O 
 
 l " f 
 
 >O O 00 If? 1.O 
 
 So o o o o o 
 _-g-^ 
 
 t^cno 
 
 oooomop ooao 
 
 c o o o 1.0 i': 10 t^ LO 
 c^^^ 
 
 <?7 O 
 
 CJO 
 
 S2i i is 
 
 CO CO 
 
 CO Q 
 
 rt 
 
 '" 
 
 oooooooo 
 
 ooooooooooooo 
 
 * f 
 
 ** * -^ 
 
 . 
 
 2A fl .^ s 2 s o . 
 
 P ^a 5 ^ - c -3 C-^^'SCi 3 C a 3 3 S ^ i: -2 -^ a "3 - 
 
 ''- 
 
108 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 CO IO T}< 
 
 O O C3 {> O 1C iO 
 
 :S 
 
 10 to o c* 10 o GO m 10 o 
 
 I emif 
 
 c 
 
 '05 
 
 . - 
 
 v 
 
 
 OT 
 
 
 illl 
 
 '05 'J 
 
 LOOOOOOO 
 
 S88S588 
 
 iiS8 
 
 OT u 
 
 in o to 10 c 10 LC t^ no 
 
 o in>c ci coco ^ r 
 
 IOCOO 'OlOTfi CO 
 
 C? CJ O Ct rH CO G>J 
 
 I udy 
 
 Of Cfr-T 
 
 '05 
 
 co rn r-i 
 
 'OT 
 
 O ^ O lO Q Q m * O SO d O O C O O 3 O O ^ O O O Q O lACO O Q 
 
 M< 00 00 ro CJ TJI rH * r-i ?H t- R 25 g 35 * 35 rH 5* 55 rH i-H rf 3 
 
 
 O ' O GO O l-O 
 
 IO IO t~ IO IO 
 
 OT 
 
 IO O O O O CO CO 
 
 O O O O i-O Z> IO 
 
 
 COO -'COO -OCJO -O 
 
 t^-r- i G^i > - t* Of ^H ' ' ' 'C? 
 
 
 '05 
 
 OT 
 
 OOOOOOOOJCOO} 
 
 : :g :i 
 
 :as 
 
 OOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 109 
 
 * 
 
 0} 
 
 * 
 
 Q 
 
 S 
 
 4 
 
 V 
 tJ 
 
 
 ^ o in o o 10 
 
 CD 
 
 3R : 
 
 
 
 '05 ' A OJS[ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 : : ;::::::: 
 
 '01 'AOK 
 
 |8*888 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 '05 T>O 
 
 .1 
 
 "01 'WO 
 
 o 4f oo co co co 
 4 
 
 EllllS 
 
 M- 
 
 
 
 ^ : 
 
 SSg'j 
 
 :S^g^ : 
 
 :::::::::: :3gS2S 
 
 *05 '^dag 
 QI '^clag 
 
 o o m a o o 
 -5s- T ~ 
 
 10 JO 
 
 Ci 5 5z 5 4p o 
 
 66- *~ 
 CO CO Cl -V TT 1C 
 
 1C CO * 
 O 1C 
 
 5 8 i 
 
 
 
 r-l C>( 
 
 
 ee- "" 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 r ~ 1 "^ 
 
 a 
 
 1O O O O i-C O 
 
 C7 CO O V t- GO 
 
 co co 
 
 1 
 
 S s l 
 
 1 ^ :::::: :SSi 
 
 
 r ' r-i 
 
 
 
 iH 
 
 * i-H f i 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 . . 1 1 . 
 
 
 ^ co co ^ S io 
 
 CO 
 
 t; 
 
 ci^co 
 
 13 ci ', '. '. : : . iSisIco 
 
 
 sS- 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 :::::: ^ ^ 
 
 Ot 'Buy 
 
 9 x S S3 <? S 
 K ^ c; ^ ^ 10 
 
 o o 
 
 o ct 
 
 M) 
 
 f-i O O 
 
 Th WO 
 
 (7* CO 
 
 ifunmH 
 
 '08 ^nf 
 
 Q ^inf 
 
 10 
 
 i> o co co 5 S 
 
 "^ CO IO 
 
 s 
 
 iJ 
 
 CO i i i i . i Ci O^ GO ^ 
 
 '01 Af 
 
 pUPi! 
 
 i-a 
 
 g 
 
 O 
 
 O 1C O 
 
 *--*<?*;;;;;; ^^^^ 
 
 .00 (-i.......COCDC010 
 
 
 Ss- 
 in o 10 r~ co o o 
 
 *T O "? ^ I> LO r 
 
 1O CO I- 
 
 -i r-i O 
 
 
 "B^ 
 
 , . LO O* i 1O ^ ' 
 
 
 i-T r-T 
 
 
 
 I i-T 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 :: 
 
 ^ o^ o c o 
 
 11 ; : ; :" 
 
 55S^ 
 
 
 
 -^--^ 
 
 
 Name of com 
 
 
 : : :y 
 Illij 
 
 Real del Monto 
 
 : :tU 
 
 r ^ ** 
 
 Is^^?^ 
 
 o 2 cs ^ c 
 
 a s g .2 s 
 
 i ! in i ! I i i y j. 
 
 H a : s <3 : : : o | : .2 : : 
 
 IjlNjll l-i^j 
 Uli1iilliii||ll 
 
110 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 
 828 
 
 
 
 63 ounf 
 
 
 - - 
 
 ..... :,-,~8 
 
 
 tjgo 
 
 ILCO : : : : :..o : :- : : 
 
 ..... Voo>o 
 
 05 eunf 
 
 7.' i~ 
 
 
 : : : i : " c * 
 
 eunf 
 
 fe" 
 
 'OO '00 'O -t>O*O 
 O CO tO C^ ^f 
 <7i Ci ... . . CO 
 
 
 'oc ^K- 
 
 ~ 
 
 t- ?: 05 
 
 igg is i i is i i^ g^ 
 
 i i i i ic-jSSS 
 
 
 
 
 
 'To ^ u i\r 
 
 88 
 
 LOt^'o.'.'t^^.'-i O 
 
 ! ! 1 ! ' cJ i?: ;~ S 
 
 
 efe. 1 ^ 
 
 c '~' ^ 
 
 
 
 "01 'ftiirc 
 
 32 
 
 :,-:o 1 I |jg I i^oocj 
 
 i i i i :S8S?? 
 
 
 ew- ^. 
 
 : :::::: : 
 
 ; ; ; ; ; ,_,- ' 
 
 XB 
 
 000 
 
 iooo : : : : : :.oo : 
 
 : : : : : ?^^ : 
 
 
 &<2- 
 
 
 :::::: l- w : 
 
 
 
 . . , , . 
 
 . . . . 
 
 '03 M<IV 
 
 & ^ . 
 
 icoS : : : : :*- : : ^ S : 
 
 1 j j. i i jlllp 
 
 
 88 
 
 
 : ; : : : :oot^o 
 
 
 
 . CO 05 .'.... S . . ^ S 
 
 : : : i : i"^."'* 
 
 
 o o 
 ? o 
 
 ill i i i : !S i 1! i 
 
 
 
 s. ^ 
 
 : ** : : : : : : : : : 
 
 :::;:: ^ 
 
 Q5 'JftJU 
 
 o o o 
 
 i CD O CO ' ' O ' O rJ O ' 
 
 " O^ CO O IO O 
 
 : : : : isssfig 
 
 "01 "J^M 
 
 
 ' O O LO ' ' ' O i-O Cv' O I 
 
 :g : M : : : : i 05 ^ . : : 
 
 
 "I 'JBJf 
 
 CJ CJ C! 
 
 C". TT 00 
 
 :8 :^ : : : : :g2 :?? : : 
 
 i nTi88gs" 
 
 
 
 ! ^s, r " 1 ! '. ! i i : r- T 
 
 - 1 
 
 '03 '<PL! 
 
 s* 
 
 :& :::::: :" g : : 
 
 jj j. j.j S&Zt. 
 
 '01 "(pil 
 
 cl^?j 
 
 . . . . . . Hw * 
 
 \}\\\ :SSS8 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 1 -q^J 
 
 
 i'cl :: i :' :8 j ig^S i i 
 
 
 
 ee- 
 
 : ^ : : : " V, : ; ..o ; i 
 
 ; : i i- 1 ; ooo 
 
 
 OO CO 3 
 
 . CJ CO j j CO . . 
 
 : : : : : j"" 00 "" 
 
 '01 'nor 
 
 1-O LO O 
 
 -T O 
 St. 
 
 ' c-. o ! I I 'Co ' ' i o o I > 
 
 . . - . . c-J co 10 ic o 
 
 rH r-< 
 
 'OC 'OQ 
 
 
 :o : : : : ^j :oo TT 
 
 ; : '. : : iwo^o 
 
 
 ^- cocc 
 
 
 r- -rHCJ 
 
 
 000 
 
 :i : : : : : : :^' : i 
 
 ; : : i i i888- 
 
 
 gir 50 
 
 i^- 1 f : : I i * : : 
 
 
 "01 '8Q 
 
 .^o 
 
 :g- : : : i ig i iS 03 ^ : i 
 
 : : i : : iffii^8 
 
 
 ^_CJ ci 
 
 . ^ CJ , . 
 
 -^ CJ <C 
 
 'I 'OSQ 
 
 IQ O O 
 
 : g - 10 -^^^ : 
 
 ' ' ' : 'Soto 
 
 
 o|_coo 
 
 
 
 
 
 ...... 
 
 
 
 '03 'AON 
 
 f"-? CJ 
 
 fc 8 ^ 'CO ' ^ CC ' 
 
 
 
 00 COO 
 
 * . ... , ^ 
 
 r ~ " 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 t,g 
 
 ccocccococooc occ 
 
 oooccocooo 
 
 
 
 p, 
 
 
 ,;:=;:;:; 
 
 Name of comp 
 
 fc 
 
 j^j jKj?||ifs 
 
 iJJIIflii 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 
 
 111 
 
 Table showing t.Tte fluctuations in mining shares from June 29, 1866, to Scp- 
 
 tcmler 30, 1866 - 
 
 Name of company. 
 
 June 
 
 29. 
 
 July 
 
 10. 
 
 July 
 20. 
 
 July 
 30. 
 
 Aug. 
 10. 
 
 Aug. 
 20. 
 
 Aug. 
 30. 
 
 Sept. 
 10. 
 
 Sept. 
 20. 
 
 Sept, 
 30. 
 
 Gould & Curry per ft. 
 
 $700 
 
 $725 
 
 $720 
 
 $705 
 
 $715 
 
 $740 
 
 $700 
 
 $710 
 
 $600 
 
 $610 
 
 Ophir .do. 
 
 210 
 
 235 
 
 280 
 
 245 
 
 272 
 
 320 
 
 210 
 
 210 
 
 200 
 
 207 
 
 S'lva^e do 
 
 900 
 
 865 
 
 925 
 
 950 
 
 1 200 
 
 1 150 
 
 1 085 
 
 1 160 
 
 1 100 
 
 1 115 
 
 ('"'ollar-Potosi do. . 
 
 183 
 
 185 
 
 190 
 
 171 
 
 180 
 
 173 
 
 ] '!) 
 
 136 
 
 115 
 
 111! 
 
 1 1 ill e &, Norciws do.. 
 Slu'ba do 
 
 1,275 
 
 1,260 
 
 1,300 
 
 1,425 
 
 1, 6GO 
 
 1,650 
 
 ],600 
 
 1,750 
 
 1,680 
 
 1,800 
 
 I);riey do 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5i 
 
 
 
 *i 
 
 
 
 \Y ; do -West do 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bullion ' do .. 
 
 57 
 
 58 
 
 47* 
 
 47 
 
 25 
 
 27 
 
 20 
 
 23 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 El Dorado - do 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 24' 
 
 50 
 
 47 
 
 38 
 
 39 
 
 27i 
 
 1H 
 
 14-1- 
 
 -1 ' 
 
 4 
 
 Sierra Nevada do . 
 
 2 
 
 4i 
 
 5 
 
 41 
 
 2i 
 
 
 
 6i 
 
 N 
 
 2| 
 
 Yellow Jacket do . . 
 
 7CO 
 
 580 
 
 590 
 
 945 
 
 722 
 
 630 
 
 730 
 
 770 
 
 685 
 
 682 
 
 Baltic . do 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sacramento . . do 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lady Bryan do 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Imperial do . . 
 
 ICO 
 
 104 
 
 94 
 
 94 
 
 94 
 
 90 
 
 95 
 
 % 
 
 84 
 
 82 
 
 Crown Point . do 
 
 9UO 
 
 700 
 
 850 
 
 875 
 
 925 
 
 950 
 
 935 
 
 880 
 
 825 
 
 875 
 
 Belcher do . . 
 
 162 
 
 170 
 
 155 
 
 130 
 
 149 
 
 108 
 
 125 
 
 120 
 
 115 
 
 94 
 
 Alpha do . 
 
 206 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 95 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 115 
 
 120 
 
 103 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 Confidence do.. 
 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 50 
 
 51 
 
 43 
 
 59 
 
 4i) 
 
 55 
 
 De Soto do 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3-i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 These tables cover but a comparatively shot period and do not show the more 
 extreme and violent fluctuations that took place during the earlier periods 
 in the history of mining speculations. Thus in the earfier part of the summer of 
 1859 the Ophir ground could be bought for one hundred dollars, and the Gould 
 & Curry for three dollars per foot. In less than eight months the former had 
 risen to $1,000, and the latter to $600 per foot, and though the Guold & Curry 
 stock, owing to assessments, and the fact that no ore was being taken out, fell 
 during the summer of 1861 to $200 per foot, we find that less in than- two years 
 from that time it was selling currently at the rate of $5,000 per foot, and again 
 but one year thereafter for less than $1,000, and though it subsequently rallied 
 somewhat, selling in April, 1865, for a little over $2,000 per foot, it can at the 
 present time be bought for about one fourth that sum; nor is this an extreme 
 case, most of the other claims on the Comstock ledge having undergone similar 
 vicissitudes, while some at Gold Hill have fluctuated still more widely. At one 
 time the Empire ground could not be bought at $10,000 per foot; now it can be 
 had for a little more than $1,000. The Sheba, Daney, Wide West, Burning 
 Moscow, Real del Monte, and others that might be named, though now selling 
 for almost nominal prices, and some of them not salable at all, were once sell- 
 ing currently at $500 per foot, unon most of them expensive mills and hoisting 
 works having since been erected. Hundreds of claims that during these period- 
 ical seasons of excitement were finding buyers readily at sums varying all the 
 way from one to a hundred dollars per.foot are now no longer heard of, being in fact 
 of no value whatever. In the shares of the productive mines on the Comstock 
 ledge it is beileved no further depreciation will be likely to take place, but rather 
 that most of them will advance in price, the payment of dividends suspended 
 upon many of them during the past year being gradually resumed, and though 
 not so large as formerly, with a prospect of being continued hereafter. The 
 Hale & Norcross company are now making monthly dividens of $75 per foot ; 
 the Yellow Jacket, of $50 ; the Guold & Curry, of $25 ; and many other com- 
 panies greater or less amounts, while a few, owing to extra expenses the past year, 
 
112 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 are not making any, but expect to do so in a few weeks or months. Previous 
 to June 1, 1865, the Empire company had taken from their mine a sum total of 
 $1,500,000, of which $287,500 were paid in dividends. Including the product 
 of the present year, the Gould & Curry company have taken from their mine 
 a grand total of $14,000,000, of which $6,500,000 have been paid out-in gen- 
 eral disbursements and improvements ; a little over $3,000,000 for work done by 
 custom mills ; the balance, something over $4,000,000, having been paid to the 
 stockholders in dividends, while the assessments levied have been comparatively 
 small. The extent to which assessments have been levied upon the principal 
 mines in various parts of the State recently, dividends, dc., can readily be seen 
 by reference to the following tables : 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 ;ooj jad 
 sjaatussasse 
 
 8888558 
 
 OOgOOgO 
 
 :SSSSSS 
 
 ;g!s8*-. 
 
 88 
 
 113 
 
 8 
 
 888888 
 
 si J 2 
 
 ti Pi o S 
 
 SS 
 
 c? o 
 
 8 :888 
 
 n o cx> 
 Tt< ! to 10 1- 
 
 88 :8888883888 
 
 OO C 
 
 .^. .- . . .-s 
 
 888888 
 
 Q<0 1C JO <M 
 
 goooo ;goooo 
 
 C<0 O O lO rH O O O ^ C< 
 
 ssa'ss jsasss 
 
 litit 
 
 3838888883888 
 
 roooj^MfOr-ioo c*.!N -( cj 
 
 > *"> > -j > 
 
 jooj iad puap 
 -iAip 
 
 : : : : : :8 :::::: :8 : : :88 : :g ::::::::: :8 : 
 
 888888888 
 
 888888 
 
 8888888 88888 8888 
 
 iad pig; 
 
 88 88888 
 
 : :8 :88 
 
 :8 :88 :8 : : :8 :8 : :8 :8 
 
 mc -m > 10 -oo -o < 
 
 Cl i ( .11 . C7 l 
 
 iA ajBJodiooni 
 
 oSocrjoocootoo 
 
 niii 
 
 
 lillil 
 
 ' |-C I-H !O r-l CJ 
 
 jooj jad sQj^qs 
 
 anna ai paj jo 
 
 cr-TTjT Vcfr^co"<rf 
 
 1 
 
 !is id 
 
 
 S^P^SS^K^^^iQC 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29- 
 
114 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 ?ooj jad 
 s^uanissass'B JTJJOJ, 
 
 ooo -0*0000 o o c$ i> o c< oo 
 
 888 J?^ 
 
 
 8 88888888 88 : 8 : 88 
 
 8888 88 
 
 *j 
 
 ^ ', i 
 
 
 
 
 SS"8S?5^ 38 ! tH 8 
 
 3.3 ^ ^ S 8 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 "o ! 
 
 >> > a a o> 
 
 ce o s g o 
 
 O 
 
 Q < ,-, S S Q 1-5 ft <; sci-5 . & . ,ce!z; 
 
 8 K9 fi 
 
 1 
 
 Recent assessn 
 
 3 
 1 
 
 88 88888888 88 8 88 888 
 
 lOO TfOVCOOOQOO iCIO i 1 O OC^lO 
 ee- W^ O r-t r-( C^ C? OC^" 
 
 C3O i i-^QOCp^lQCCi-^ CiQO O tCOtt QCUOIO 
 
 4? fepls^io^ ^w ^ IS sl^S 
 :8S :::::::: ::: :8 :::::: 
 
 8888 88 
 
 -LMP^uou^ 
 
 :"";:;: i i i \ \ \ \ \\.\\\ 
 
 
 ;ooj aad pa^sy 
 
 88888888 88 8 8 8 :88 88 
 
 :8 
 
 
 :88 : : : :8 :8 8 : : :8 : : : : :8 
 
 :8 
 
 ;ooj jad pig 
 
 ; -- i i i : ; : : ; i i i ; ; ; 
 
 
 
 
 O O O*C* OOOOOiOO OOOOOOOOOOO 
 
 o 10 c o o o 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ^^^M HS 4 ^.c^^^co rfol 
 
 n ^ c* c* nm 
 
 
 
 
 ;ooj jad sajtJTjg 
 
 ft 
 
 : 
 
 auioi ni ;aaj jo 'o^ 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 
 ::::::::::: < ::::::::::: s 
 : : : 5 : : : : o : : : : d ::::; fi 
 
 i i :! i i ! i i ; ' < 1 | 
 
 IJ :| ! i i : i : ! 1 i i icil i i i i ! : 8 
 . >, . "Si: 
 
 :> =1 . : 5'ci i itti w ! i !1 !| i i i ! 
 
 ig 
 
 HUMBOLDT DISTRI 
 
 
 :| ; | =>ld ; H ; l^ild l '' 
 
 'Z :^Sg d '-S^^ :^HH : \ 
 ^03 :^ M ^^ g^gg'Sfl^l^ : : 
 
 rt55S'a-- t: ^o ! -S J 3 3 - 
 
 ll^illlllll Pillllllll 
 
 fiift,a5a:a2aDccPr' ; r- : >' < B p?fe O K rt CE f {3 Pr 
 
 ^III |i 
 
 o o C xi 
 
 O*-SJr* MOJ 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 lib 
 
 83 
 
 888 
 
 :SSS8S8 888 
 
 rHW^S* g O> 
 
 88 
 
 88 
 
 :8 
 
 
 ?)w 
 S 00 i 
 
 88 
 
 O (M 
 
 S.8S 
 
 88 
 
 MO 
 
 888 
 
 : : :8 : : : :8 : : : : : 8 
 
 :8 
 
 :88 
 
 
 i-rcfcrTc-fr-r t-'ofrf'eft 
 
 
 
 : : : :o 
 
RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 r-< * ' <O 
 
 ci rH -co 
 
 88 
 
 88 : 
 
 888S8 
 
 :88 : :S : : 
 
 888 
 
 1 
 
 8888 
 
 8 : :8 
 
 888 
 
 88 
 
 888 
 
 s 
 
 : :8 
 
 is 
 
 >> bo fcb 
 
 :8 
 
 88 
 
 
 
 jooj: .isd puap 
 -tAjp 
 
 :8 :::::! 
 
 88 
 
 : :8 : 
 
 : :8 
 
 8 :888S 
 
 Pi 
 
 88 
 
 : 
 :u 
 
 !jooj aad pig 
 
 8 : :8888 
 
 8 
 
 lOooooooooooccoooogooooooooo' 
 
 S9JBqS JO ' 
 
 
 O O O 
 
 "i-Tr-TcD'fc' 
 
 ;ooj 
 
 anra ui iaaj jo 
 
 e-Ci 
 
 OO^OOOOOOOOOO 
 Cf-T n-"cfrH"cfCM" 0" 
 
 OmOOOtiOOOOOOOOOOO 
 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 117 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 
 8 
 
 ii 
 
 888 P. 
 
 11 
 
 : ' 
 
 
 5 2 
 
 cj 
 
 2? t 
 
 ; - 
 
 s 
 
 S= 
 
 ... I 
 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 8 
 
 B : 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 S* 
 
 g 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 C CM 
 
 
 8 
 
 q 
 
 
 
 
 
 "P. 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 SO 
 
 88 
 
 .888 
 
 -5 
 
 f 
 
 
 :88 
 
 
 R 
 
 
 8" 
 
 8 : 
 
 : is : is : i 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 O rj< 
 
 ^?18 
 
 
 
 
 
 : ?j a 
 
 10 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 <M 
 
 \n 
 
 : :S : :" 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 CO O ><< 
 
 3 
 
 S 
 
 
 jlOQO 
 
 n 
 
 c^ 
 
 
 r- 
 
 i 
 
 i -s i 'r 
 
 D 
 
 - 
 
 > 
 
 || 
 
 111 
 
 ; 
 
 I 
 
 O 
 
 
 ;g| 
 
 1 
 
 fi 
 
 
 ^5 
 
 1! 
 
 HIM! 
 
 
 
 
 
 : :8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 : :8 : : : : :8 
 ! ia i i- i i is 
 
 :8 : :S : : :8 
 
 '8oc58opoS8 8888008 = 
 
 > 1O O O O < 
 
 ;88: 
 
 
 -Tn 
 
 :888; 
 
 O O O < 
 $ e o 
 
 
118 
 
 ^5 
 
 I 1 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 88 888 
 
 ;ooj jtad puep 
 -lAtp 
 
 ;ooj iad pig 
 
 88 
 
 888 
 
 
 
 saa^qs jo -OK p?;o \ rH p ,- 
 
 ;8 s: 
 
 OJ I 
 
 
 emra nr paj jo 
 
 I 
 
 : : : : : 
 
 i : : : : 
 
 
 i : : : : 
 
 
 
 ..... 
 
 . . . . . 
 
 
 1 : : : 
 
 
 : H 
 
 ; : ; ; ! 
 
 ,,':: 55 
 
 
 
 : : : : : g 
 
 : : : : : 
 
 u 
 a) 
 
 a 
 
 ; ; -3 .33 
 o-S'g^^ 
 
 : : : ;o 
 
 & : : ; J 
 
 S 
 
 ^K 
 
 silil 
 
 ji 
 
 Hill 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 119 
 
 From the foregoing tables it will be perceived that several mines upon which 
 heavy assessments have been paid are now worth nothing at all, the Baltic, 
 North Potosi, and the White & Murphy, in the Washoe district, the Antelope 
 and Wide West in Esmeralda, and the Sheba in Humboldt, being cases in point. 
 It will also be seen that in other cases of this kind though the assessments 
 per foot are much less, the total amount collected and expended upon these now 
 worthless mines is large, owing to the great number of feet they contain, the 
 Baltimore American, Amador, Buckeye, Burnside, &c., being examples of this 
 class. The Alpha is quoted as worth only $70 per foot, while the assessments 
 amount to $1,240 per foot, from which, if this quotation is to be accepted as 
 indicating its true value, it would appear that the stockholders of this mine have 
 sunk over $325,000, besides the original cost of their grounds ; a view that the 
 actual facts in this particular case will hardly justify, the company owning a 
 valuable hoisting works and the prospects of their mine being far from desperate. 
 
 The above tables contain the names of only a small portion of the companies 
 that have been organized, generally incorporated at considerable expense, for 
 the purpose of mining, or rather perhaps it should be said dealing and specu- 
 latings in mine in this State ; nor do they indicate more than one in a hundred of 
 the ledges that at some time between the summers of 1860 and 1864 were 
 supposed to possess some considerable value, and upon which more or less work 
 was during that period performed. These ledges were not confined to the so- 
 called Washoe district, meaning the central western portion of the State, but 
 were scattered all over it except the extreme northern, eastern, and southern 
 parts, which had not then been much explored. The amount of money expended 
 upon or about these ledges in various ways, the most of it in attempts at open- 
 ing them with shafts or tunnels, varied from the smallest sum to $100,000, being 
 in the aggregate very large, not less perhaps, labor included, than three or four 
 millions of dollars, nearly all of which, though not illegitimately applied the 
 prospecting of these mines being a necessary measure was practically lost, 
 very few of them having exhibited a sufficient quantity of pay ores to impart 
 to them any value. It must be remembered, however, that but few of them 
 have been opened to any great depth, leaving a chance for the finding of more 
 metalliferous ores, should they ever be more thoroughly explored, as many of 
 them undoubtedly will be. In speaking of this class of lodes on which more 
 or less labor has4>een expended, no allusion is made to the still larger class, 
 numbered by thousands, which were located under the laws of the various dis- 
 tricts, and after being held for a short time were abandoned, being forfeited for 
 want of the requisite improvements, and upon which, fortunately, no work was 
 done at all. But even this class did not fail in seasons of excitement to possess 
 at least a nominal value in the mining-share market, some of them being disposed 
 of to the ignorant or credulous for considerable sums of money. Fortunately 
 this mode of procedure is now pretty much over with, never, it is hoped, to be . 
 again reinstated. It will be seen by these tables that while the losses from the 
 depreciation of mines upon which assessments have been paid have been heavier 
 in the Washoe district, they have been quite as frequent, considering the entire 
 number, and even more complete, in the outside districts, where, so far as the 
 stock reports indicate, all values would seem to have been extinguished for this 
 species of property. Of the seventy millions of dollars extracted from the mines 
 in Nevada, it is questionable whether even one-third has been paid to the share- 
 holders in the shape of dividends not enough in many cases to cover the 
 assessments they have been called upon to pay; while it is well known the mines, 
 taken as a whole, with all improvements, would not sell for anything like what 
 they cost. Yet at present many of these properties are depressed in price far 
 below their intrinsic value, as the experience of the future will undoubtedly 
 show. 
 
120 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Extent and cost of underground work. Including tunnels, shafts, aclits r 
 drifts, and Actual stopings excavated in the business of exploitation, prospecting, 
 and ventilating the Comstock vein, it is estimated that the various companies 
 owning mines along it have executed an amount of subterranean work equal to 
 nearly forty miles in linear extent. The expense attending -this kind of work 
 depends so wholly upon their size, length or depth, the material to be removed 
 or penetrated, and other circumstances surrounding each particular case, that it 
 would be difficult to fix upon a figure indicating their average cost. The price for 
 excavating shafts and tunnels ranges from five to fifty dollars per running foot, 
 many of the larger tunnels having cost throughout more than twerfty dollars 
 per foot. These prices, as are all the other money estimates in this report being 
 based on specie values. The sinking of the larger and deeper shafts, in- 
 cluding timbering, has generally cost from twenty to forty dollars per foot, 
 The large shaft intended for both working and prospecting purposes now being 
 put down jointly by the Empire and Imperial companies at Gold Hill, 
 estimated throughout, will cost at the rate of fifty-eight or sixty dollars per foot. 
 This is, however, of extra large dimensions, being seven feet four inches by thirty 
 feet eight inches, and to be carried down 1,200 feet. It will call for twelve 
 months' time and an expenditure of about $80,000 to complete it. Short tunnels 
 and shafts of moderate depth, where the ground is tolerably favorable, can be 
 excavated for six or seven dollars per foot, and sometimes for less. In this 
 kind of work on and about the Comstock ledge there has been expended, 
 between two and three millions of dollars, exclusive of the expense attendant 
 on the removal of the ores and the timbering up of the mines. 
 
 4. MINING PROPERTY, ETC. 
 
 Number and capacity of mills, hoisting works, 8fc. There are at this time 
 170 mills for the crushing and reduction of ores in the State of Nevada. This 
 number embraces only such establishments as are now completed and ready for 
 running or nearly so, there being several, some of them of large capacity, in 
 course of construction, but not sufficiently advanced to warrant speaking of 
 them as being already in existence. These mills carry 2,564 stamps, weighing 
 from 400 to 800 pounds each, the average being about 600 pounds, and have an 
 aggregate capacity equal to 6,322 horses. Their average cost has been about 
 $60,000, or an aggregate of 810,000,000, one of them, the Gould & Curry, 
 carrying 80 stamps and supplied with two large engines, has dost, with grounds, 
 alterations, and surroundings, over $1,000,000 ; several others have cost from 
 $150,000 to $250,000, the Ophir, in Washoe valley, having cost much more. 
 Of this number 35 are driven by water and the balance by steam, a few of each 
 class using both water and steam. Of these mills 36 are in Story county, 34 
 in kyon, 10 in Washoe, 8 in Ormsby, and 1 in Douglas, a total of 89, all of 
 which are running on Comstock ore ; Esmeralda county contains 21 mills, Nye 8, 
 Lander 22, Humboldt 5, and Chtirchill 4. Some of these structures are very 
 substantial, being built of brick and granite or other stone ; some, on the contrary, 
 being cheap and fragile ; the machinery, however, is in most cases good. At the 
 time many of them were erected labor, freights, and material were much higher 
 than at present, wherefore they cost a great deal more than equally good estab- 
 lishments would now do Attached to most of these mills are shops, ore and 
 timber sheds, and, in some cases, boarding-houses, &c., the cost of which is gen- 
 erally included with that of the mill. Twenty per cent, or more of these mills are 
 not at present running, most of those lying idle being in the outside districts. 
 Those employed upon the Comstock ores are mostly kept running, except a few 
 that may be stopping for repairs. Of all the mills in Esmeralda county not 
 more than one-half are at work, nor have they been for the past two years. In 
 Lander county there aie also many unemployed, particularly about Austin. The 
 causes of these stoppages are various ; in a few cases the mills are imperfect 
 and not fit to do good work. In others they have been tied up with litigation, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 121 
 
 or perhaps been unable to run steadily for want of water. The principal trouble, 
 however, in both Lander and Esmeralda has been an insufficiency of pay-res 
 to keep them running, the ledges about Austin being so extremely small that 
 although in some cases rich, they can supply only a very inconsiderable quan- 
 tity of ore, while in Esmeralda, where the ledges are large, the good ores found 
 upon the surface appear to have run out. A number of deep prospecting shafts 
 have lately been undertaken there, and it is generally believed by those best 
 acquainted with the mines that bodies of remunerative ores will yet be found 
 at greater depths. 
 
 Most of these mills run day and night, stopping only on Sundays ; at which 
 time machinery is examined and such temporary repairs as may be needed are 
 made. They employ from five to fifty hands each, the usual number being from 
 ten to fifteen, though the Gould &; Curry mill requires over a hundred. In a 
 majority of cases the mill-owners also own mines and crush their own rock, 
 while some do custom-work, reducing ores for others at so much per ton, or 
 buy and crush it on their own account. A few crush the ores dry, though nearly 
 all adopt the wet method. Jt is generally 'calculated that each stamp will crush 
 a ton of ore every twenty-four hours. Some do less and others do more, accord- 
 ing to the weight of the stamp and the character of the ore. Besides these 
 mills there are in the State six smelting works, the most of them on a small 
 scale, and twenty- five or thirty arastras some driven by water, but the greater 
 number by horse or mule power. There are also in the State about fifty steam 
 pumping and hoisting works, many of them structures of a costly and massive 
 kind. There are also in the State a number of large foundries and machine- 
 shops, and over fifty saw-mills, mostly propelled by water, with one small flour- 
 mill now running, and another being erected. 
 
 Roads, ditches, SfC.A. number of toll-roads, several of them extending over 
 the sierra and others quite into the interior of the State, have been built under 
 the charters from the present State or former Territorial legislature. The length 
 of these roads, some of which have been very expensive and formidable works, 
 is not less in the aggregate than three hundred miles, the entire cost of their 
 construction having been over $500,000. One of these, .the Kingsbury road, 
 crossing the sierra near Genoa, has cost, with alterations and improvements, 
 $150,000 ; the amount of tolls it has taken in being more than double that sum. 
 As a general thing, however, these roads have not proved lucrative, the amount 
 of tolls -received barely sufficing to keep them in repair and pay a moderate in- 
 terest on the investment, some failing to even do this. The water ditches of 
 this State, built either for milling or irrigating purposes, and generally for both, 
 are numerous, but not, with the exception of two or three, of great magnitude. 
 The Humboldt ditch, nearly one-half built, taking water from that river and 
 conveying it to the vicinity of the principal mines, is seven feet wide on top, 
 five on the bottom, and two deep. It will be over sixty miles long, and will 
 cost when completed nearly $100,000. Preparations are now being made for 
 constructing a large aqueduct, to be built of wood, for taking the entire body of 
 water running in the west branch o Carson river from its canon and conveying 
 it to Empire City, a distance of nearly thirty miles! The work as projected 
 will cost over 8200,000. Other ditches and flumes, not of such magnitude, but 
 still quite extensive, are to be found at Empire City, Dayton, in Washoe and 
 Truckee valleys, and elsewhere throughout the State, the number of small ones 
 along the eastern slope of the sierra and among the mountains of the interior, 
 built mainly for irrigating purposes, being quite large ; and gradually, as popu- 
 lation and improvements increase, the running waters of the State will be di- 
 verted from their natural into artificial channels, to be used for irrigation and 
 propulsive power. There are about thirty saw-mills in the State, all but one 
 driven by water. With the exception of 'three or four of limited capacity in the 
 Reese river country, they are all situated in the foot-hills along the eastern base 
 
122 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 of the sierra, where water-power is abundant, and where alone any really good 
 timber is to be found. The price of lumber at these mills is about $20 per 
 thousand, the cost increasing rapidly with the distance it has to be hauled. 
 
 Number of companies formed for mining purposes ; districts erected, ledges 
 located, fyc. The number of mining companies incorporated for the purpose of 
 prospecting for locating, working, or dealing in mines in the State of Nevada, 
 amounts to over one thousand. Many of these never proceeded to actual opera- 
 tions beyond the act of organizing, and most of them cannot be said to have a 
 present existence. Besides these incorporated companies three times as many 
 minor associations, though often consisting of the same parties, were organized 
 under the laws of the several mining districts for similar purposes ; most of 
 these, like their more pretentious neighbors, having since been disbanded and 
 ceased as companies to have any existence.. Of the number of districts erected 
 or ledges located by these numerous parties during the three or four years that 
 the ruining excitement raged, no accurate statement can be made, new districts 
 being formed and after a short time disbanded, to be again followed by others 
 covering in part or perhaps the whole of the same territory ; and ledges being 
 located by the thousand, to be in like manner given up, being forfeited from fail- 
 ure to do the requisite amount of work or otherwise comply with the laws of 
 the district. In size these districts varied greatly, as they still do, being from 
 ten to a hundred miles square, and having as a general rule natural objects, 
 such as mountains, valleys, ravines, &c., for boundaries. The number of min- 
 ing districts in the State regularly organized and having a recognized legal ex- 
 istence, with records and officials, may be set down at about one hundred ; the 
 number of ledges worked sufficiently to hold them nnder the local laws of the 
 district where they are situated, may be roughly estimated at between four and 
 five thousand. Upon some of these a large amount of work has been done, 
 though upon nine-tenths of them but very little. Of- the adult population of 
 the State about two-thirds are engaged in the various branches of mining. 
 Wages of miners vary from S3 50 to $5 per day, or from $60 to $100 per month. 
 The prices of labor, like almost everything else, are from fifty to seventy-five 
 per cent, higher in this State than in California. 
 
 Taxes and legislation. The only measures adopted by the general govern- 
 ment looking to a realization of revenue from the mines on this coast are the 
 laws passed by Congress in the years 1864 .and 1865. The first of these, 
 which took effect August 29, 1864, provided for the levying of a tax of one-half 
 of one per cent, on all bullion assayed, and prohibiting, under severe penalties, 
 the sale, transfer, exchange, transportation, exportation, or working of any 
 bullion not having first been assayed. The other law requires every miner 
 whose receipts amount to over one thousand dollars per year, and every person, 
 firm or company employing others in the business of mining, to take out a 
 license for which they shall pay the sum of ten dollars. Neither of these 
 measures can be considered impolitic,, unjust or oppressive, nor are they the 
 subject of complaint by the great mass of those most affected by them. In 
 addition to these acts the legislature of ih& State of Nevada enacted a law two 
 years since, by which it is provided that from the gross returns or assayed value 
 per ton of all ores, quartz or minerals in that State, from which either gold or 
 silver is extracted, there shall first be deducted the sum of twenty dollars per 
 ton, and upon seventy-five per cent, of the remainder a tax of one per cent, 
 ad valorem shall be levied for State and county purposes, provision also being 
 made for collecting a like tax upon any of this class of ores transported from 
 the State. The revenue derived from this source for the year 1865 amounted, 
 in Story county, where the principal mines" are situated, to $40,145, to which 
 may be added two or three thousand for outside districts. The State also taxes 
 the mills, hoisting works, and all other above-ground fixtures and properties, 
 real and personal, but not the mines proper. The mineral laud law passed at 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 123 
 
 the last session of Congress, providing for the sale of mines upon the public 
 domains, though exciting gome apprehension among miners at first, and perhaps 
 somewhat imperfect in its details, is now generally approved, and will, no doubt, 
 result in benefit to both the government and those most affected by its opera- 
 tions. By enabling the present claimants to secure titles to their mines, it will 
 increase the confidence of capitalists in this species of property, and thus greatly 
 enhance its value and tend to promote its more rapid development. The only 
 title heretofore enjoyed or obtainable by these claimants has been one of pos- 
 session, held under sufferance from the general government and by virtue of the 
 local laws, rules, and regulations of the several mining districts, and which 
 latter, though generally wholesome and just in their provisions, were always 
 brief and insufficient, considering the momentous interests constantly growing 
 up under them, and not unfrequently contradictory and obscure, or otherwise 
 imperfect and objectionable. The laws of the various districts, though similar 
 in their general features, often differ in some of their provisions. They are, 
 however, so nearly alike in all essential particulars that the few examples 
 hereunto appended will serve sufficiently to illustrate their common character. 
 
 5. GENERAL VIEW OF THE MINES OF NEVADA, WASHINGTON TERRITORY 
 UTAH, MONTANA, AND IDAHO. 
 
 General view of the mines of Nevada. In considering the mines and the 
 metalliferous territory of Nevada it has been customary to divide the State into 
 several sections designated as follows, viz : the Washoe, the Esmeralda, the Hum- 
 boldt, and the Reese River districts, each of which covers a large area of country 
 and contains a number of those smaller subdivisions known as mining districts. 
 
 The Washoe legion. This embraces all the central and western portion of 
 the State, and includes the counties of Douglas, Ormsby, Washoe, Story, and 
 Lyon, which, united, contain only a*s much territory as Roop, scarcely half as 
 much as either Esmeralda or Churchill, and not one-quarter that embraced within 
 the limits of either Humboldt, Nye, or Lander county. Notwithstanding its 
 comparatively diminutive size, Story county contains more than one-third of 
 the taxable property as well as of the inhabitants of the State. The only mines 
 of any considerable and well-established value in the Washoe region, those upon 
 the Comstock lode, being also in this county, and from which is extracted more 
 than ninety per cent, of all the bullion produced in the State. 
 
 Upon the discovery of the Comstock ledge a large population was drawn over 
 the mountains, the number of inhabitants within the boundaries of the present 
 State of Nevada being somewhat larger in 1863 than at this time. Prospecting 
 that is, exploring the country for metalliferous veins was at once commenced 
 and pushed with vigor; a good proportion of the Washoe, Esmeralda, and 
 Humboldt regions having been subjected to a pretty thorough inspection during 
 the first three years following the discovery of silver. Within this time thou- 
 sands of ledges were located throughout all parts of this extensive Territory. 
 Many of these were of large size, well defined, and frequently prospected well, 
 sometimes largely, in both gold and silver upon the surface. Others were of 
 less magnitude, lacked the features of true veins, and were quite or nearly bar- 
 ren of the precious metals. In some cases free gold abounded in the croppings, 
 but the preponderating metal, so far as any existed, was silver, the most of these 
 being located as argentiferous veins. Upon a few of the larger and more prom- 
 ising a large amount of work was performed, while upon a majority but little 
 or nothing was done ; the sums expended upon them, however, could not in the 
 aggregate have been less than eight or ten millions of dollars, some estimating 
 it much higher. All this large sum of money was spent in the mere preliminary 
 business of prospecting and exploring a class of mines which, with but few ex- 
 ceptions, have thus far proved unproductive, and may be set down as possessing 
 
124 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 no present market value, many, even of those unon which large sums had been 
 expended, being now abandoned. The total amount of bullion extracted from 
 all the mines in the Washoe, Esrneralda, and Humboldt regions, apart from 
 those on the Comstock lode, will not this year amount to half a million dollars, 
 a sum considerably less than what was realized from them during several preceding 
 years. It is not to be" inferred, however, that all thctc mines will ultimately 
 prove worthless. A considerable number only require more careful management 
 and a sufficiency of means to secure for them deeper and a more thorough explora- 
 tion to render their working almost certainly remunerative and perhaps largely 
 profitable. Excluding eighty per cent, of all the ledges located as belonging to a 
 class so manifestly worthless that no work should ever have been performed 
 upon them, one- half of the remainder may be set down as possessing such signs 
 of value as would warrant a moderate expenditure to prove more fully their 
 character, while the balance may justly be considered as being lodes that with 
 judicious management and the application of a moderate sum can speedily be 
 developed into productive and paying mines, many of them being already in 
 an advanced stage of exploration, a few having steam hoisting works attached 
 to them, and a still smaller number mills also for reducing their ores. The 
 great mistakes made in these earlier efforts at silver mining, as displayed both 
 in the regions under consideration and elsewhere, consisted in locating and 
 attempting to open so many worthless ledges, and in the superficial character 
 of the work performed generally. Through this means vast sums were uselessly 
 thrown away, and by so much scattering the work applied, nothing was done 
 effectually. Had this labor been concentrated upon a few of the more promising 
 lodes, many of these would no doubt now have been yielding large quantities 
 of millable ores, whereby the annual yield of bullion would have been much 
 increased, and the useless expenditure of millions of dollars have been saved, 
 besides our actual knowledge of the metalliferous resources of the country been 
 greatly extended. These were mistakes honestly made through ignorance, and 
 are not to be confounded with those growing out of the spirit of cupidity and 
 speculation that at one time prevailed, and of which sufficient has been said 
 elsewhere. They are, moreover, mistakes that, having abundantly evinced their 
 mischievous effects, are now being generally avoided. One cause that led to 
 the expectation that this superficial style of working should suffice, was the fact 
 that the accumulations of rich ores that led to the discovery of the Comstock 
 vein were found quite upon the surface; hence it was thought that in all cases 
 bodies of pay ores should in like manner be met with, if not in the cropping?, 
 certainly at no great depth below them, a supposition contradicted by the expe- 
 rience of silver miners nearly all the world over, these rich masses upon the 
 surface being of rare occurrence. A partial excuse can also be found for this 
 indiscriminate practice of locating ledges in the additional fact that many of 
 them were as large and often much larger, and to all appearance equally as 
 valuable as the Comstock ; the difference, generally speaking, only being made 
 apparent where, after reported trials of the ores taken from different and often 
 from great depths, they were found to be valueless. In many of these ledges 
 the walls were as regular, the mass of vein-stone as great, and, judging by the 
 eye, as likely to be metalliferous as that of the Comstock ; hence, many com- 
 panies operating in the contiguous as well as in the more remote districts, 
 encouraged by the resemblance of their ledges to the great mother vein, perse- 
 vered in their efforts until large sums were expended, yet without reaching the 
 hoped-for deposits of rich ores. In many of these cases operations, after being 
 suspended for several year?, have again been resumed with the purpose that 
 they shall be carried on to a point determinate of the probable value of the 
 lode in process of exploration. At present several of these deep prospecting 
 shafts are being sunk in the Washoe section of country, and, as it is reported, 
 with the most hopeful prospects. There are, moreover, in this region many 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 125 
 
 ledges on which work has been steadily kept going since their commencement 
 four years ago, the method of opening being by means of tunnels which have 
 not yet reached the vein ; some of these are to be several thousand feet in 
 length, and will yet require a year or two for their completion ; the owners 
 remaining, meantime, in ignorance of the precise character of their ledge. In 
 Alpine county, which, though in the State of California, is situate entirely on the 
 eastern side of the sierra, and generally considered as belonging to the Washoe 
 region, there are, beyond any question, many argentiferous lodes of great magni- 
 tude and undoubted value. Upon several of these heavy works of exploration 
 have been in progress for three or four years, and which, as they approach com- 
 pletion, begin to reveal many valuable features in these ledges. Owing to the 
 protracted nature of these works but little bullion has yet been produced in this 
 county, though it is likely a handsome sum will be turned out the coming year, 
 as a number of mills and smelting works are being erected in that section. 
 
 Of the one hundred and seventy mills in the State, eighty-nine, carrying 
 1,440 of the 2,564 stamps, are in the Washoe district. These mills have a 
 capacity equal to 3,841 horse-power, and cost, in the aggregate, over five and a 
 half million of dollars, all the other mills in the State having but 2,481 horse- 
 power, and costing but $5,500,000. Here, too, are most of the water-mills, 
 thirty in number, that are running in Nevada. Of these eighty-nine mills, 
 thirty-six, carrying 625 stamps, 1,500 horse-power, and costing $3,000,000, are 
 in Story county. Two of them are driven by water ; the balance by steam. 
 There are also in this county ten arrastras driven by water, and one smelting 
 establishment. In Lyon county there are thirty-four mills, having 489 stamps, 
 1,286 horse- power, and costing $1,705,000. Eleven of these mills are propelled 
 by water. There are five arrastras in this county, and one metallurgical works. 
 Washoe county contains ten mills, 200 stamps, 610 horse-power, costing 
 $520,000 ; seven of them are driven by water, and several by water and steam 
 combined. Ormsby county contains eight mills, 123 stamps, 435 horse-power, 
 costing $375,000. Nine of these mills are driven by water, and three partly by 
 water and partly by steam. Douglas county has but one mill, five stamps, ten 
 horse-power ; cost $5,000 ; driven by water. 
 
 The Esmeralda region is generally considered as coextensive with Esmeralda 
 county, and as also covering a contiguous strip of mineral territory on the Cali- 
 fornia side of the line. It is, for the most part, an elevated, dry, and barren 
 country, containing but, little agricultural or grass land, and no timber except 
 the scattered patches of pinon, heretofore described, much of it being destitute 
 of even this. It embraces within its limits over twenty mining districts, some 
 of which contain mines of much importance. Esmeralda district, the earliest 
 settled portion of this region, contains two-thirds of all the population, they 
 being residents of Aurora, the principal town in the county. Upon the mines 
 in this district also has most of the heavy work been done, and here are located 
 three-fourths of all the mills that have been erected in thai section of country. 
 Several of these, being very extensive and complete in their appointments, cost 
 large sums of money ; but, as yet, none of them have accomplished much in the 
 way of turning out bullion, partly because some have been grossly mismanaged, 
 or their operations suspended by protracted and costly litigation, but chiefly 
 because the ledges first opened, and which were generally considered the best 
 in the district, prospecting largely upon the top in silver, and often also in free 
 gold, grew barren, or pinched out as descended upon, or suffered such interrup- 
 tion and displacement as to render it impossible longer to identify or follow 
 them. Hence, for the past two or three years most of the mills about Aurora 
 have been idle, and chiefly because they could not get a sufficiency of pay ore 
 from the mines in the vicinity to keep them running. It is the opinion of geol- 
 ogists that most of these disturbances are confined to the first few hundred feet 
 beneath the surface, and that below that point these ledges, which promised so 
 
126 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 well, and some of which really were so rich above, will again be found regular, 
 compact, and, most likely, highly metalliferous. At all events, confiding in this 
 theory, several companies have resolved to test this question by sinking deep 
 prospecting shafts on a number of the largest and most promising lodes at this 
 place, powerful hoisting and pumping works having been provided for this 
 purpose, and some of ihe shafts having been sunk several hundred feet lower 
 than any level before attained. This work is to be prosecuted till some definite 
 results are arrived at, and it is now believed by those most conversant with the 
 subject that in the course of the next year quite a number of the mills about 
 Aurora will be able to run on ore obtained from these deep workings, and that 
 the whole of them will be able to do so, running full time, in the course of a 
 couple of years more at the farthest. With the general disappointment 
 in the character of the mines at large, the .suspension of work upon 
 those esteemed as of the better class, and the stoppage of the mills erected 
 at so much cost, business of all kinds has greatly declined, population 
 has fallen off nearly one-half, and real estate has so declined that it will 
 ' not sell for one-quarter the prices readily commanded, three or four years 
 ago, the depreciation of mill and mining properties being more marked than any 
 other. Mills that cost a quarter million of dollars would not now sell for a 
 third of that sum, while mines that were selling currently, under the stimulus of 
 popular excitement and the artful machinations of speculators, at three and four 
 hundred dollars per foot would not now sell for one dollar, the most of them 
 being considered of so little value that their prices are no longer quoted on the 
 lists of mining stocks dealt in by the brokers. Some mines in this region, 
 however, of more recent location, and situate mostly in the outside districts, 
 exhibit, as before stated, many satisfactory evidences of permanency and wealth, 
 the most rioted of these being in Silver Peak and Red Mountain districts, on the 
 eastern margin of Esmeralda county. The Silver Peak mine in the former con- 
 tains a large body of argentiferous ores lying very near the surface. A ten-stamp 
 mill running upon this extracted, during the few mouths it was in operation, a 
 large amount of bullion, the entire mass of the ore yielding by the most simple 
 process over one hundred dollars per ton. This mine having been sold to an 
 eastern company, nothing has been done upon it for the past six or eight months, 
 the ten-stamp mill having been removed to Red mountain, a few miles west, where 
 it is to be run in conjunction with a small three-stamp mill put up there two 
 years ago, and which has also been running with success ; the ore at that place 
 abounding in free gold to such an extent that it merely requires crushing and 
 running over blankets. It is the intention of the Silver Peak company to put 
 up a large first-class mill the coining year upon their mine. In the, Columbus 
 district, lying between Silver Peak and Esmeralda, there are a number of un- 
 mistakably rich ledges, but they have not yet been much developed, and it 
 would be too soon to pronounce an opinion upon their probable permanency 
 No mills have yet been built at this place, though one is talked of as likely to 
 be taken in next summer. The number that could be kept running would, in 
 any event, be limited, the district being but scantily supplied with wood and 
 water. In the Volcano district, near Columbus, a great variety of rnetals and 
 minerals have been found, there being here, besides veins seemingly rich in 
 gold and silver, immense reefs of magnetic iron ore, numerous cupriferous lodes, 
 large and highly impregnated with copper ; also saline pools surrounded *with 
 heavy deposits of salt, and, according to Dr. Blatchley, generally esteemed 
 good authority, veins of true coal of the bituminous variety, two of these, 
 varying from three to four feet in width, having lately been found by him while 
 on a tour of extended research throughout the southeastern part of the State. 
 In the Montgomery, Hot Springs, and Bodie districts, lying mostly in California, 
 there are also many ledges of favorable aspect, some of them of well-ascertained 
 value, there being in the last-named district two large mills, one of which is 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 127 
 
 running successfully, and the other nearly ready for operations. In Lake 
 district, also in this county, and situate on the west side of Walker lake, a large 
 number of gold-bearing ledges were discovered in the summer of 1865, and 
 though prospecting extremely rich in this metal on the surfaces, they have not 
 yet been opened to a sufficient depth to fully establish their value as permanent 
 mines. Two small mills are in course of erection in this district, and there is 
 no doubt but they can obtain enough ore to give them profitable employment 
 for some time at least. 
 
 In view of the many promising mines scattered over all parts of the Esmeralda 
 region the long and varied experience enjoyed by the inhabitants in every de- 
 partment of. mining enabling them to avoid the mistakes of the past and to con- 
 duct the business hereafter with greater efficiency and economy it is but reason- 
 able to predict that this interest will soon undergo a revival, and the country 
 meet, in part at least, the expectations entertained of it at an early day. 
 
 The mills built in Esmeralda county, twenty-one in number, carry in the ag- 
 gregate 241 stamps, have a propulsive capacity equal to 672 horse-power, and 
 cost $1,150,000. Only two of them are driven by water. There are also ten 
 arrastras and two small smelting works in this region. These mills are distributed 
 over the country as follows : One of ten stamps and one of three at Red moun- 
 tain, three of small capacity in Hot Spring, Blind Spring, and other districts 
 south of Aurora, two in Bodie district, and the balance on Walker river and in 
 the Esmeralda district proper. 
 
 The Humboldt region. This section occupies the northwestern corner of the 
 State, covering the counties of Humboldt and Roop, and, for the sake of con- 
 venience rather than from its geographical position, also that of Churchill, lying 
 south of the former. The appearance of the country, as well as the general char- 
 acter of the mines, is very similar to those of Esmeralda; nor does the history 
 of operations here differ materially from that of the latter. The same difficulties 
 were encountered and the same mistakes made here as there. Owing to the 
 careless manner in which many of the claims were located, the obscurity and 
 imperfection of the laws, and the still more imperfect manner in which they were 
 enforced, a majority of all the titles, more particularly those to what were con- 
 sidered the better class of mines, became involved in litigation, thereby retard- 
 ing their development and destroying confidence in them generally. Millions of 
 feet of unprospected ledges were sold, sometimes fairly, but oftener through mis- 
 representation and chicanery, and the proceeds, amounting in the aggregate to 
 vast sums, were spent usually in every manner of extravagance and folly, and 
 rarely in any persistent and well-directed efforts at opening the mines. Towns 
 were built,. hotels and saloons of luxurious style were erected, real estate in 
 these embryo cities went up to enormous prices, everybody seeking to get rich 
 from speculating in city lots or "feet," as these mining properties were desig- 
 nated, but little being done meantime towards advancing the business that 
 should have first been looked after, the opening up and proving of the mines. 
 Mills were also procured and put up at heavy expense before it had been ascer- 
 tained that enough ores could be had to keep them running, this latter mistake 
 not having been committed to the same extent in Humboldt as in the Esmeralda 
 and some parts of the Reese River regions, where more than two- thirds of the 
 mills have remained constantly idle from the causes set forth. It is also true 
 that an equal proportion of the entire number of mills put up in Humboldt have 
 been doing nothing much of the time ; the principal advantage here being that 
 only a small number of mills, and these mostly of an inexpensive kind, were 
 erected. 
 
 In th Black Rock country, lying in the western part of Humboldt county, 
 many ledges claimed by the finders to be good were discovered during the past 
 year. These veins are large, and some fair tests have been obtained from them 
 by mill process, yet they are not enough opened to afford any decisive clue as 
 
128 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 to their ultimate value. A small mill lias been forwarded to the district, and a 
 more thorough trial of the ores will no doubt soon be had. These mines lie in 
 the midst of a hideous desert, and unless excessively rich can possess no present 
 ^value, the country for more than fifty miles in every direction being almost 
 wholly devoid of wood, water, and grass. 
 
 In the Pueblo mountains, sixty miles northeast of Black Rock, a district was 
 organized, and many ledges located five years ago. A small water mill erected 
 there, and afterwards burnt by the Indians, has not since been rebuilt, nor have 
 the mines showing fine surface indications been at all opened ; wherefore, 
 little or nothing is kpown as to their real character. The ores are an argentif- 
 erous galena, abounding in both silver aud lead, and may possibly require re- 
 duction by smelting. If so, this mode could be adopted with a fair prospect of 
 success, as wood and water are tolerably plentiful in the neighborhood of the 
 mines, there being also much good hay and farming land in the extensive valley 
 adjacent. 
 
 In Humboldt county proper mining operations, as well as population, have 
 diminished considerably during the past two years, nor will the shipments of 
 bullion this year equal those of either of the three years immediately preced- 
 ing. The work now being done, however, is more thorough, being confined to 
 a smaller number of ledges than before, and will no doubt prove more satisfac- 
 tory in its results. 
 
 In Churchill county there are three districts that have attracted some notice, 
 because of the supposed valuable ledges they contained. These are severally 
 named the Silver Hill, the Mountain Well, and the Clan Alpine, and to them 
 most of the work performed in the county lias been confined. There are in thi^ 
 county four quartz mills, carrying 55 stamps, and having a driving power equal 
 to that of 165 horses. The total cost of these mills was $395,000. Three of 
 them are in Mountain Well, and one not quite finished in Clan Alpine district. 
 They have produced but a few thousand dollars' worth of bullion all told, none 
 of them having been able to run for more than a few days ^t a time, from an 
 insufficient supply of pay-ore, but few of the ledges here having been opened 
 to even the superficial depths common to most other districts. In the higher 
 strata of some of them small aggregations of very rich ores have been found, 
 and the chances favor the supposition that when properly developed they will 
 afford enough ore to keep the present and perhaps additional mills running. 
 Very few additional mills, however, can ever be operated in the western half of 
 the county, owing to the limited supply of wood and water. 
 
 The Reese River region, embracing within its boundaries the extensive coun- 
 ties of Lander and Nye, covers more than one-half of the entire State of Ne- 
 vada. The geology of this region differs somewhat from that in the western 
 part of the State, limestone of the silurian epoch abounding here, and other 
 sedimentary rocks being more common. Carboniferous signs are also more fre- 
 quent. The ledges throughout this region are mostly encased in granite or 
 granitic rock, such as gneiss, sienite, &c., in limestone, and the several varieties 
 of slate, a few only being found in rocks of .volcanic origin. Most of the large 
 and well-defined veins lie in silurian limestone, a formation highly favorable to 
 the existence of deep-fissured and permanant mines. The lodes about Austin, 
 Lander county, occur whofly in granite, both walls as well as the country rock 
 being of this character. They are for the most part very narrow, varying from 
 six to eighteen inches in width on top, and expanding to two or three feet at the 
 depth of 300 feet', the greatest vertical depth to which any have yet been opened. 
 Besides being narrow, these ledges are apt to suffer much from faults, and occa- 
 sionally contract to a mere seam of quartz, or disappear altogether. Where 
 these faults have occurred the experienced miner is generally able to place them 
 again sometimes without much labor. Most of these veins run in a northerly 
 and southerly direction, and stand at an angle varying from 45 to 60 degrees, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 129 
 
 very few of them having a more vertical position. Owing to the firmness of 
 their walls very little timbering is required, though their extreme narrowness 
 compels the performance of much dead-work in the course of their development. 
 There are 36 steam hoisting works employed on the mines in the neighborhood 
 of Austin. They are ,mostly of small capacity, from 20 to 25 horse power, but 
 owing to the small amount of ore as well as water required to be raised they 
 will meet all the demands for hoisting until the mines reach a depth of four or 
 five hundred feet. The ores in this vicinity are the sulphurets and the red anti- 
 mouial sulphurets of silver, though in the top rock, and in some -instances for a 
 consiierable distance beneath the surface, these have been changed by decompo- 
 sition into chlorides, bromides, and iodides of silver. These ores, being impreg- 
 nated with antimony and arsenic, all require roasting. Though small in quantity, 
 not more than 35 or 40 tons being raised daily from all the mines in the Reese 
 River district proper, these ores are extremely rich, yielding by mill process from 
 one to two hundred dollars per ton, the average yield being nearly one hundred 
 and fifty dollars, while selected lots often go as high as four or five hundred 
 dollars., There are in the several districts immediately around Austin seventeen 
 steam mills, carrying nearly two hundred stamps, and capable of crushing and 
 amalgamating one hundred and fifty tons of ore daily. Owing, however, to an 
 inadequate supply of ore not one-quarter of these mills have been kept running 
 during the past year, nor is even so large a proportion now in operation. With 
 a more thorough exploration of the veins, however, upon which they are depend- 
 ent for their supplies of ore, it is thought an additional number will soon be 
 running, and that all will be able to do so in the course of a. year or a year and 
 a half at the furthest. The cost of reducing ores about Austin is now $45 per 
 ton; the expense of raising them is about $15 per ton. 
 
 In several of the outside districts mines of not only undoubted, but very great 
 value, some of them to all appearance not inferior to the Comstock ledge, have 
 been discovered within the past two years. The most remarkable of these is 
 the ledge known as the High Bridge, in the Philadelphia district, seventy-five 
 miles south-southeast of Austin, the entire mass of vein-stone in which, varying 
 from five to fifteen feet in thickness, pays under the stamps over one hundred 
 and fifty dollars per ton. A small five stamp mill erected at the place and run- 
 ning on this ore turns out over a thousand dollars worth of bullion per day, the 
 ore taken indiscriminately and worked in a very imperfect manner yielding over 
 two hundred dollars per ton. This is beyond dispute an immensely valuable 
 deposit of silver, and it is the intention of the companies claiming it to erect 
 one or more large mills for reducing the ore the coming summer. In the North- 
 umberland, Hot Creek, Danville, Reveille, and Pahranagat districts, all situated 
 to the east and southeast of the Philadelphia district, many ledges of great promise 
 have been discovered within the past year, some of them to all appearance quite 
 as good as the High Bridge, showing beyond peradventure that a great silver 
 producing region exists in this part of the State. Several small mills have been 
 taken into this section, and many more of large capacity will soon follow, and 
 it will be cause for surprise if the annual bullion product of the Reese River re- 
 gion, now about $1,000,000, is not more than doubled within the next two years 
 These districts, as also the Murphy ledge, fifty miles south of Austin, a decidedly 
 valuable mine, are all in Nye county, which contains a number of districts abound- 
 ing in argentiferous lodes of great magnitude and prospective value. 
 
 The Reese River region contains thirty-two mines, of which twenty-two are 
 in Lander and ten in Nye counties. These carry three hundred and ten stamps, 
 have a capacity of four hundred and twenty-five horse power, and cost $1,500,000, 
 the expense of erecting mills here being much greater (owing to cost of freight 
 and lumber) than in the western part of the State. 
 
 Oregon. The yield of the mines in this State the present year will not ex- 
 ceed $2,000,000, nearly the whole being the product of placer diggings, and 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 9 
 
130 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 mostly taken from the mines on John Day river and its tributaries. Several 
 auriferous veins have been worked with arrastras for a number of years past at 
 Althouse and State creek, in southern Oregon, paying, for the means invested, 
 very largely ; and there is no doubt but these mines, with ample facilities for 
 reducing the ores, would turn out considerable amounts of bullion annually. 
 . Some attempts were made during the present year to work the quartz lodes, of 
 which there are quite a good many in the Santian district, situated in the Cas- 
 cade mountains, but the results obtained have not thus far been encouraging. 
 
 Washington Territory. As in the State of Oregon so in this Territory, the 
 only class of mines that have yet proved productive are the placer diggings, of 
 which there is here a considerable extent; the best paying mines heretofore dis- 
 covered being those about Fort Colville and in the Pend d'Oreille country, the 
 Kootenai mines and those near the Big Bend of the Columbia, generally spoken 
 of as being in Washington Territory, being in fact in British Columbia. The 
 product for the present year from this quarter may be set down at about 
 $1,000,000, though this must be understood as embracing the yield of the last- 
 mentioned districts, that of Washington alone not reaching one quarter this 
 amount. 
 
 Utah. This Territory is known to abound in many of the useful and, it is 
 believed, also in the- precious metals. Coal of fair quality and in considerable 
 quantities has been found in various parts of the Territory, and both lead and 
 iron have been produced for many years past by the Mormons living in the 
 southern counties. That so little is known of its wealth in the precious metals 
 is owing to the fact that the leaders of this people discouraged the searching 
 after them, it being contrary to the policy of the church to have its subjects 
 engage in mining pursuits, wherefore but little was known of the mineral re- 
 sources of Utah until the soldiers stationed at Salt Lake brought them to light. 
 No placer mines of any extent have yet been found in this Territory, but a 
 number of large lodes heavily charged with argentiferous galena have been 
 opened at Rush valley, a short distance southwest of Salt Lake City, and, being 
 tested by the smelting process, proved rich in both lead and silver. A number 
 of furnaces were erected here two years ago, since which they have been kept 
 part of the time in operation, and with suitable appliances it is thought a con- 
 siderable amount of silver bullion might be produced from these mines. With 
 the influx of gentile population Utah is destined to be thoroughly explored, and 
 whatever mineral riches it may contain to be brought to light ; and we may 
 reasonably look for some important discoveries to follow in that section before 
 long. At Egan canon several rich silver-bearing lodes were located over two 
 years ago. Three mills have since been put up at this point, two of which have 
 produced quite a large amount of bullion. 
 
 The principal silver-bearmg lode at this point, known as the Gilligan Ledge, 
 has been tested to the depth of three hundred feet, and is considered to contain 
 one of the richest veins in the State of Nevada. It has a width of eight feef, 
 and has produced by ordinary process of mill- working at the rate of $345 per 
 ton for fifty tons.. The average of ores rates at something over $100 per ton. 
 ' This valuable mine 'belonged, until recently, to a San Francisco company, 
 consisting of seven private individuals, who worked it on their own account, 
 under the superintendency of Mr. John O'Dougherty, who, by a careful sys- 
 tem of operations, not only developed the mine, but built a five-stamp mill with- 
 out expense to the company. It is one of the few mines in the county which 
 has paid its own expenses from the first crushing of the ores. 
 
 During the past summer the mill has been idle, owing to the departure of ths 
 superintendent, who went east for the purpose of procuring capital sufficient to 
 erect a mill of the first class, with capacity to work all the ores that can be ob- 
 tained from the ledge. 
 
 The Steptoe Company, of New York, have also large interests here, and own 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 131 
 
 a number of ledges, which, however, have not yet been developed sufficiently 
 to furnish an absolute test of their value. 
 
 A consolidation has been formed between the Social or Gilligan company and 
 the Steptoe, which will probably result in mutual benefits. The Steptoe com- 
 pany have capital, and have already made provision for the erection of a large 
 mill ; the Social company have a developed ledge already tested, and unques- 
 tionably productive. 
 
 The consolidation owns, in addition, some fine copper mines on the line of the 
 proposed trans- continental railway.. No work of any importance has yet been 
 done upon them. 
 
 Egan canon is situated one hundred and sixty miles from Salt Lake City, 
 and already forms the nucleus of quite a thriving little mining town. The over- 
 land stage and telegraph lines pass through this canon on the route to Salt 
 Lake. Preparations are being made for the vigorous working of all the valuable 
 mines in this district, and it is believed they will yield profitable results during 
 the coming summer. 
 
 Montana The productive mines in this Territory have thus far mostly con- 
 sisted of placer diggings, the principal of which, being situated east of the sum- 
 mit of the Rocky mountains, arts, without the province of these reports. The 
 ( amount of gold dust taken out the present year has been large, but in the 
 absence of any authentic data no accurate computation can be made thereof. 
 According to the public press of that region it will reach the sum of 815,000,000, 
 though this is probably a rather high estimate. During the past summer a 
 large number of quartz lodes have been taken up and op'ened, some ten or fifteen 
 mills, varying in capacity from five to twenty stamps, having meantime been 
 brought in and some of them gotten in operation. The quartz is easily worked, 
 and yields largely, the product being chiefly gold. All the goods and machinery 
 destined for the eastern part of Montana are freighted up the Missouri or across 
 the plains. Most of the gold dust and bullion produced in this Territory is sent 
 east, very little of it reaching California. Those best acquainted with the 
 country have a high opinion of its mineral resources, and believe it will in a few 
 years rival Idaho and Nevada, if it do not surpass them, in its product of the 
 precious metals. 
 
 Idaho. The product of the placer mines in this territory has been gradually 
 diminishing for the past two years, though this foiling off, if it have not already 
 been, will soon be more than made up by the yield of the quartz mines, which 
 are beginning to be worked quite extensively. The product from both sources 
 the present year will probably not fall short of $10,000,000, some estimating it 
 much higher. It should be observed that there are no means of arriving at 
 accurate estimates t>f the precious metals taken out in this Territory, many of 
 the millmen not caring to make known the results of their operations, and large 
 quantities of dust being brought out of the country in private hands. Of the 
 total sum produced, from one-fourth to one-fifth is taken from the placers, of 
 which some virgin diggings of considerable extent and value have been found 
 the past summer; and as ditches have been constructed for bringing water into 
 the mines on quite an extensive scale, and hydraulic washing is being intro- 
 duced wherever practicable, the probability is that the present quota from this 
 source will be kept up for some time to come. There are now twenty -four 
 quartz mills completed and running in this Territory, with eight others in course 
 of erection. They carry a total of nearly four hundred stamps, cost in the 
 aggregate $1,000.000, and. have a unite.d capacity equal to five hundred horses. 
 Besides these mills, about one-fourth of which are driven by water, there are a 
 large number of arrastras running in the Territory, the most of which are also 
 propelled by water. Of the quartz mills eight are supplied with one hundred 
 and" thirty-four stamps, are situate in Atturas county, ten in the Owyhee dis- 
 'trict, and the balance in the counties adjacent; the whole being in the southern 
 
132 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 section of the Territory. The Poorman ledge, so-called, situate in the Owyhee 
 district, is, perhaps, for its size the richest deposit of silver ores ever discovered, 
 immense* masses of pure sulphurets, and even pieces of virgin silver weighing 
 many pounds, having been extracted from it. Unfortunately, it is now closed 
 up by litigation, and has not for several months produced any bullion. There 
 are also several other rich silver-bearing claims in this vicinity, though the mines 
 of Idaho consist mainly of auriferous quartz, of which there are great quantities 
 that will yield by the most cheap and expeditious modes of working from $20 
 to $30 to the ton. Considering the abundance of these ores, the facility with 
 ^rhich they can be treated, and the ample supplies of wood and water in the vicin- 
 ity of the principal mines, it may be fairly concluded that the bullion product of 
 Idaho will in a few years be more than doubled, and that the yield of her mines 
 will hereafter be steady and rapid. 
 
 A REPORT OF DR. BLATCHLY, MINING ENGINEER, TO J. ROSS BROWNE, 
 SPECIAL COMMISSIONER FOR THE COLLECTION OF MINING STATIS- 
 TICS. 
 
 SOUTHEASTERN NEVADA. 
 
 This portion of the State of Nevada, owing to the hostility of the Indians, 
 was almost totally unexplored until last spring. About that time, observing that 
 the Indians in the vicinty of the mining towns were able to feed and clothe 
 themselves much better than those who lived out in the mountains, they changed 
 their tactics, and instead of opposing exploration, offered every facility in their 
 power to promote it, and nearly all of the mineral discoveries in this region have 
 been made by means of their assistance. 
 
 The volcanic rocks which so greatly predominate in the northern and western 
 portion of the State are not found to any considerable extent In the southeastern. 
 Hence, there is a^much larger amount of metalliferous country accessible in the 
 same compass than in other portions of the State. 
 
 These volcanic rocks are the despair of the experienced prospector, for he 
 knows full well that they enclose neither metal nor mineral of any value in this 
 country, and where they abound water is generally wanting. Their geological 
 age is comparatively recent, and undoubtedly more than one-half of the metallif- 
 erous veins in the State of Nevada are covered by rocks of volcanic origin. 
 
 In this part of the State limestone predominates, but granite, slate, and sand- 
 stone occur at intervals. All of these rocks enclose valuable metalliferous veins 
 in equal abundance. 
 
 This limestone affords better exemplifications of the geology of the sedimen- 
 ta^y rocks than any other sections west of the Rocky mountains yet discovered. 
 With the slight and hasty examinations already made, the Silurian, triassic, and 
 Jurassic have been positively determined, and considerable evidence has been 
 found of the existence of the Devonian and carboniferous epochs. In the terri- 
 tory of the United States no finer field exists for the researches of a geologist. 
 
 Trap dikes of porphyry and greenstone are abundant, and enormous veins 
 of quartzite of three or four hundred feet in thickness can be traced for forty or 
 fifty miles. 
 
 Compared with the veins found in California, Oregon, Idaho, and the other 
 portions of Nevada, the metalliferous veins in this portion of the State are large, 
 and usually can be traced on the surface for a long distance. 
 
 As this country has been but recently explored, all of the ores so far obtained 
 have been taken from near the surface; consequently, only surface ores have 
 been obtained. These consist of chloride and carbonate of silver, associated 
 with small amounts of native silver, and nearly all contain gold. Besides the 
 precious metals, ores of copper, lead, iron, antimony, and arsenic are abundant, 
 and when railroads traverse the country will be of great value. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 133 
 
 So far as observed all of the geological formations contain valuable metallifer- 
 ous veins, from the azoic up to the triassic. 
 
 As this portion of the State is about two hundred miles east and west by 
 three hundred north and south, and contains k great number of districts, each 
 of which has a very considerable extent, and contains a great number of metalli- 
 ferous veins, it will be impossible in a brief space to do more than briefly notice 
 some of the most important districts. 
 
 Silver bend, or Philadelphia. This district, which was discovered by an 
 Indian, is about seventy- five miles southeast from Austin. It was one of the 
 first discoveries in this part of the State, and its mines have been more developed 
 than those in the other districts. 
 
 One of the principal veins is the High Bridge, which crops to the surface for 
 the .distance of about a mile, and has been opened at a number of different 
 point&, and at one to the depth of about fifty feet. It appears to be composed 
 of a number of different strata, all of which contain rich ore ; their aggregate 
 thickness varies from five to twenty feet. 
 
 The country rock is slate, and it has .every indication of being a true fissure 
 vein, and consequently will be found deep and permanent. It contains a large 
 amount of good milling ore at the surface. 
 
 A small ten-stamp mill has been erected for reducing the ore, and the average 
 yield is about one hundred dollars per ton, the mill saving about sixty per cent, 
 of the silver contained in the ore. Its daily production is a trifle over one 
 thousand dollars, provided it was fully opened ; with suitable mills for the 
 reduction of its ores the production of bullion could be increased tenfold. 
 
 The Silver Champion has produced richer ore than any other vein in the 
 district. It is smaller than the High Bridge, and has not been opened but to a 
 small extent. Besides this, there are a number of other veins in this district 
 of great promise, as the Green and Oder, Silver Top, Minerva, and many others. 
 
 The metalliferous veins are found in slate and limestone, the greater number 
 being in the slate, while the veins in the granite, so far as they have been 
 examined, are entirely barren. 
 
 Northumberland district. This district is about twenty miles north from 
 Silver Bend, and on the same slope and same range of mountains. Here the 
 metalliferous veins are found in slate and granite. 
 
 Rich ores are found near the surface, and when opened, there is no doubt 
 that it will prove to be a valuable district. 
 
 Wood and water are moderately abundant, sufficient for the wants of the dis- 
 trict for years to come. 
 
 It is singular tliat the granite at Silver Bend should enclose only barren veins, 
 and at this district, which is only twenty miles distant, and in the same range 
 of mountains, with granite apparently of the same lithological character, should 
 contain some of the richest veins in this district. This shows the fallacy of 
 the notion that some particular rock is, in all cases, more favorable for enclosing 
 metalliferous veins than another of azoic or sedimentary rocks experience 
 showing that, in Nevada, all of the rocks, except the volcanic, contain valuable 
 mines. 
 
 Hot creek. This district was named from a group of hot springs, the waters 
 of which uniting form a creek of some magnitude, retaining its heat for a long 
 distance below. This furnishes an abundant supply of water for the use of the 
 district. Along the banks of the stream the warmth of the water induces a 
 growth of vegetation of tropical luxuriance, and many plants grow here that 
 are not found in other parts of the State. 
 
 The country rock is chiefly limestone, with small amounts of slate and granite 
 traversed by numerous trap dikes. 
 
 The metalliferous veins are large, rich, and numerous, and many of them show 
 large amounts of valuable ore at the surface. 
 
134 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 As this is one of the most recent discoveries, but tittle work lias been done 
 in developing and proving the mines. But the results of, the workings of a 
 number of tons of ore from different mines have been very satisfactory. 
 
 A small mill is nearly completed and will soon be in running order, and from 
 the richness and abundance of the ores, and the experience of the managers, 
 there is no doubt that the enterprise will be successful. 
 
 Wood is very abundant near the mines, being mostly nut pine, which is excel- 
 lent for fuel, but very indifferent for lumber. 
 
 Reveille district. This district is about forty miles southeast from Hot creek, 
 and about the same distance northwest from Pahranagat. This is a more recent 
 discovery than Hot creek, which it greatly resembles, having the same country 
 rock, with veins of equal or larger size, containing the same ores, and the district 
 is probably of equal value. 
 
 Pahranagat district. This is the only mining district in the State that was 
 discovered by Mormons or people from Salt Lake. It was found about a year 
 before any other district in this part of the State. It is situated in the south- 
 east corner of the State, about two hundred miles from the head of navigation 
 on the Colorado river, according to what is believed to be the best authorities, 
 although many others make the distance much less. 
 
 The mineral belt is long and narrow, and contains a great number of veins in 
 a small compass. They are usually of fair size and well impregnated with ore, 
 and when developed will no doubt prove valuable. 
 
 The country rock is the same as in Hot creek and Reveille, and the general 
 characteristics are the same. The laws of this district are very liberal to the 
 original discoverers, but almost entirely exclude later prospectors. They re- 
 quire no work on the mine except to pile a heap of stones, and that holds the 
 mines perpetually. Hence no work has been done, and none probably ever will 
 be done, by a majority of the present holders. A New York company have 
 recently commenced operations, and no doubt will thoroughly prove their mine. 
 
 Sil-ver Peak This district is about one hundred and twenty miles south from 
 the city of Austin. The country rock consists of granite, slate, and limestone, 
 the greater number of veins being in the slate. They are usually large, and 
 contain both gold and silver, besides copper and lead. 
 
 A mill has 'been erected and run for a considerable time, but the workings 
 were not very satisfactory, owing to the large amount that was lost in the tailings. 
 
 The Vanderbilt and Pocatilla are the two most noted veins in this district. 
 They are of large size, and with a mill capable of saving the gold and silver 
 would yield a fair profit. , 
 
 A large number of other districts have been formed in this' part of the State, 
 as the Danville, Palmetto, Red Mountain, Pawdit, Columbus, and Volcano. 
 From all of these specimens of rich ore have been obtained, but their true value 
 can be determined only after they have been fully developed. 
 
 In Columbus district a few of the veins have been partially opened, and ore 
 worked from them with most satisfactory results. In another year a mill will 
 probably be erected, and with proper management ought to be successful. 
 
 Volcano district has veins which contain gold and silver, but is remarkable for 
 cropping of larger copper veins than any other yet found in California or Ne- 
 vada. These veins* have not been opened, but the outcrop is of enormous mag- 
 nitude, and the ore, besides copper, contains a small amount of silver. When 
 this country has proper railroad facilities this copper ore will be of great value. 
 
 Although this mining region has been too recently discovered to admit of 
 definitely proving its value by working on a large scale, still sufficient has been, 
 learned to prove that it contains vast deposits of ore rich in gold and silver. 
 
 Salt is found abundantly in nearly allot' the valleys, in marshes, or as an incrust- 
 ation on the soil at the bottom of the basins. From these sources? is derived all 
 the salt that is used in the reduction of the silver ore throughout the State, the 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 135 
 
 annual consumption for this purpose in the State being very great. But at 
 Pahranagat salt is found in a mine in vast quantities. It is in large transparent 
 crystals, and also beautifully colored, green, blue, &c., as in the Cordana mine 
 in Spain. This variety is much purer and stronger than that found in the val- 
 leys. This latter variety was deposited by evaporation, and contains much 
 soda and other impurities. 
 
 Coal has been found at Volcano and Pahranagat and near Salt Lake, and 
 from the geological structure of this part of the State it is highly probable that, 
 when full explorations have been made, coal will be found in abundance, and 
 of good quality. That found near Salt Lake has been worked to a considerable 
 extent, aud has been pronounced to be of excellent quality. At Pahranagat 
 and Volcano no work has been done to prove the quality or extent^ except what 
 has been done by nature. This is a very fine field for exploration in a country 
 like this, where, in the course of a few years, fuel will be a very important con- 
 sideration. 
 
 As this region has been until recently infested by bands of hostile Indians, 
 rendering it dangerous for small parties of prospectors to remain long in the 
 country, considerable irregularities have been observed in the formation of new 
 districts and in the framing of laws. 
 
 At SnVer Bend a district was formed, and called the Philadelphia district, 
 with laws and regulations as is usual in such cases. From a variety of causes 
 the founders of the district were obliged to leave, when another set of prospect- 
 ors came in, formed another district, and claimed the mines by virtue of their 
 laws. The result has been vexatious and expensive litigation. 
 
 At Tahranagat the laws exclude new comers, and do not require the owners 
 to do any work on the mines. 
 
 A general law by Congress regulating the formation of new districts, and 
 making them a matter of record, so that after a district is once organized^ its ex- 
 istence can be easily proved, would prevent troubles of this nature from arising 
 in the future ; also a clause setting forth precisely the conditions under which 
 a claim becomes forfeited. In many of the mining districts, if no work is done 
 on a claim for the space of one year the claim is considered to be abandoned. 
 This clause in mining laws is pretty general, but in many courts it has been 
 decided that miners by their laws have a right to prescribe the mode of posses- 
 sion, but not the mode of disposition. As the mines in each district differ, arid 
 in one it is advisable to claim ground on each side of the vein, and in others 
 it is not, these points can be better regulated by the miners themselves than 
 by any general law, but in the formation of districts, and provisions for the 
 forfeiture of a claim, some general law is requisite. 
 
 ' A. BLATCHLY, 
 
 Mining Engineer. 
 
 AUSTIN, NEVADA, November 26, 1866. 
 
 r 
 
 [From Governor McCornrick's message, October 8, 1666.] 
 ARIZONA. 
 
 Finances. The total territorial indebtedness, as audited to this time, amounts 
 to twenty-one thousand and fifty-one dollars and forty-one cents, and there is a 
 balance of two hundred and forty-nine dollars and fifty cents in the treasury to 
 the credit of the general fund. Of this indebtedness, fifteen thousand five hun- 
 dred and ninety dollars are payable in gold, being the amount of bonds (and 
 interest on the same to January 4, 1867) issued under the act of the first 
 assembly, approved November 9, 1864, and entitled "An act to provide for the 
 contingent expenses of the territorial government." In view of the fact that 
 until the present year but two of the counties were fully organized, and that 
 
136 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 now, although all contribute to the revenue, the total receipts, owing to the 
 limited amount of taxable property in the Territory, are small, this is no more 
 than a reasonable debt. Compared with that of neighboring Territories, con- 
 taining a larger population and far better sources of revenue, it is insignificant, 
 and will be complained of only by those singular individuals who expect the 
 wheels of government to move without cost. 
 
 Still I would advise that no expenditure of the territorial funds, however 
 earnestly it may be asked, or necessary it may seem, be authorized by your 
 honorable bodies without the most careful consideration ; and if you can impress 
 upon the counties the importance of economy in their affairs, it will be well to 
 do so. In the matter of promptly and thoroughly collecting the revenue they 
 should be urged to increased vigilance, not only for their own benefit but for 
 that of the Territory at large. 
 
 Some seven thousand dollars of the gold bonds before referred to will become 
 due in a little more than a year from this date, and although another legislature 
 may meet before, that time, it is not too early to make provision to insure their 
 payment, and thus to sustain the territorial credit. 
 
 There is a balance of about live hundred dollars in the treasury from the special 
 fund created by the sale of territorial mining claims, which I would suggest be 
 assigned to the general fund; also, that all further receipts from such sales be 
 so disposed of. 
 
 The Treasury Department having made the Territory an internal revenue 
 district, and appointed an assessor and collector, we may soon expect to be called 
 upon to contribute directly to the national revenue. I had hoped, in view of our 
 comparatively small population, and the drawbacks with which we have to con- 
 tend, that we should escape other than territorial taxation for the present. But 
 - it becomes us, as loyal citizens of the great republic, cheerfully to do our part, 
 however humble it may be, towards cancelling the sacred debt incurred in pre- 
 serving the national integrity. 
 
 The mines. If there is less excitement over our mining interests, there is 
 more confidence in their excellence, and a strengthened belief that their develop- 
 ment will surprise the world. Ten quartz mills will have been erected in this 
 county alone before the close of tiie present year. Those already in operation 
 afford a gratifying evidence of the value of the gold ores, and as the lodes are 
 sunk upon they show permanence and size. The appearance of sulphurets and 
 refractory elements at a certain depth may involve the necessity of more elabo- 
 rate machinery, but no obstacles will, I think, be sufficient to baffle the enter- 
 prise of our miners, who, depending more upon their own energies and capital 
 than upon help from f abroad, are determined to know no such word as fail. 
 
 The rare advantages of wood, water, and climate are more than sufficient to 
 offset the costs of living and the heavy expense of transporting machinery here, 
 and I believe, as I have often asserted, that there are few localities upon the 
 Pacific coast where quartz mining may be so economically, agreeably, and 
 profitably pursued. 
 
 Those of the silver mines below the Gila, and on the Colorado, that arc 
 judiciously worked, with scarcely an exception, show great wealth, and fully 
 maintain the traditional reports of the metallic opulence of the country. 
 
 The considerable capital now devoted to the development of the copper lodes 
 on the Colorado and Williams Fork is but an earnest of that which this im- 
 portant work will soon command. The uniform richness of the ore, the quantity 
 of the same, and the facilities for its extraction and shipment combine to make 
 the mines among the most desirable of the kind upon the continent. 
 
 Mining laws.- The act of Congress to legalize the occupation of mineral 
 lands, and to extend the rights of pre-emption thereto, adopted at the late ses- 
 sion, preserves all that is best in the system created by miners themselves, and 
 saves all vested rights under that system, while offering a permanent title to all 
 
WEST OF THE ROOKY MOUNTAINS, 137 
 
 who desire it, at a merely nominal cost. It is a more equitable and practicable 
 measure than the people of the mineral districts had supposed Congress would 
 adopt ; and credit for its liberal and acceptable provisions is largely due to the 
 influence of the representatives from the Pacific coast, including onr own intelli- 
 gent delegate. While it is not without defects, as a basis of legislation it is 
 highly promising, and must lead to stability and method, and so inspire in- 
 creased confidence and zeal in quartz mining. 
 
 As, in the absence of necessary legislation by Congress, the act gives au- 
 thority to the legislature of any State or Territory to provide rules for the loca- 
 tion and working of mines to their complete development, it will be your duty 
 to prepare such rules, either by amending the present mining law of the Terri- 
 tory so as to conform to the law of Congress, or by its repeal, and the substitu- 
 tion of an entirely new statute. Whatever your preference in this particular, I 
 would suggest that care be taken to make the required rules as intelligible and 
 comprehensive as possible, and that the recording and preservation of titles, 
 both for the security of the miner and the capitalist, and to obviate future litiga- 
 tion, be intrusted only to the most responsible officers. It is also important that, 
 excepting in districts where active hostility on the part of the Indians absolutely 
 prevents, the actual occupation and improvement of claims be made a requisite 
 to their possession, unless pre-empted under the congressional law. The lack 
 of such a requirement hitherto has seriously retarded the development of our 
 mineral resources and the general prosperity of the Territory, and proven dis- 
 couraging to new comers, especially in the counties on the Colorado river, where 
 hundreds of lodes, taken up in years past by parties now absent from the Ter- 
 ritory, are unworked, and yet, under the existing law, no one has a right to lay 
 claim to them, be he ever so able or anxious to open them. 
 
 Agriculture. The valleys of the Territory, more extensively cultivated this 
 year than ever before, have produced an abundant harvest. The yield of corn, 
 vegetables and small grain is such as to prove that henceforth we need not look 
 abroad for food ; and I make no doubt that if assured that their crops will be 
 bought and promptly paid for, and they are properly protected from Indian in- 
 cursions, our ranchmen will, during the ensuing year, by the favor of Heaven, 
 raise all the breadstuffs that may be required to subsist the military force in the 
 Territory. Here in central Arizona, even in the mountain districts, where com- 
 paratively little was expected in the way of agricultural success, the pursuit of 
 the husbandman is likely to be one of the most profitable. The heavy rains of 
 the present season indicate that irrigation will seldom be necessary, and the fer- 
 tility of the soil is remarkable. f It seems as though everything planted attained 
 the most luxuriant and complete growth in the shortest possible time. The 
 grains, vegetables, and melons taken promiscuously from any of the ranches, 
 and raised without fertilization of any kind, or other than the simplest care, 
 would command a premium if placed in competition with the products of the 
 richest and most expensive farms and gardens of the Atlantic States. 
 
 Land district. By the seventh section of the act of Congress approved July 
 22, 1854' the pre-emption privilege was extended to lauds, whether settled upon 
 before or after survey, within the region of country comprehended by the present 
 Territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Hitherto pre-emption declarations, in 
 virtue of this act and that of July 2, 1864, have been filed with the surveyor 
 general, but Congress having made Arizona a land district, they will, so soon as 
 the district is organized, be received here. 
 
 The congressional mining law provides that wherever, prior to the passage * 
 of the act, upon the lands heretofore designated as mineral lands, which have 
 been excluded from survey and sale, there have been homesteads made by citi- 
 zens of the United States, or persons who have declared their intention to be- 
 come citizens, which homesteads have been made, improved, and used for agri- 
 cultural purposes, and upon which there have been no valuable mines of gold, 
 
138 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 silver, cinnabar, or copper discovered, and which are properly agricultural 
 lands, the said settlers or owners of such homesteads shall have a right of pre- 
 emption thereto, in quantity not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres ; or said 
 parties may avail themselves of the provisions of the homestead act of Congress, 
 approved May 20, 1862. It further provides that upon the survey of the so- 
 called mineral lands, the Secretary of the Interior may designate and set apart 
 such portions of such lands as are clearly agricultural lands, which lands shall 
 thereafter be subjeet to pre-emption and sale as other public lands of the United 
 States, and subject to all the laws and regulations applicable to the same. 
 
 This favorable action, and the establishment of a land office, whereby all delay 
 in perfecting titles will be obviated, must encourage our people in the cultivation 
 of lands in immediate proximity to the mines a matter of the first importance 
 to the prosperity of our mining interests. 
 
 SECTION 5. 
 
 1. Copper resources of the Pacific coast. 2. Various copper districts. 3. Geological forma- 
 tions in which copper is found, &c. 4. Reduction of ores, quantity, &c. 
 
 1. THE COPPER RESOURCES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 Introductory remarks. The comparatively recent date when the importance 
 of these resources first attracted any attention ; the extent of territory over which 
 they have been traced ; the absence of any correctly compiled statistics con- 
 nected with them in either the State or federal offices j the indisposition .of influ- 
 ential parties to give any information, under the plea that it would expose the 
 secrets of their business, and the efforts of others to make mines in which they 
 are interested appear of greater or less value than w r ell-known facts would war- 
 rant ; the vague and unreliable nature of most of the articles which from time to 
 time appear in 'the local papers on the subject, as well as many minor impedi- 
 ments, render it exceedingly difficult to convey a clear idea of the proportions and 
 actual value of these resources in a hastily compiled report. Even were the 
 fullest details of information available, many interesting facts must unavoidably 
 be crowded out of such a report. Sufficient maybe presented here, however, to 
 demonstrate the extent and value of the copper mines of the Pacific coast, and 
 to prove that under a more judicious system of development they may be made 
 much more profitable to their owners as well as'to the federal government, and 
 that an important means towards the accomplishment of this end will be attained 
 by the collection and proper arrangement of statistical and general information 
 on the subject. 
 
 The discovery of copper on tlie Pacific coast. The existence of copper on the 
 Pacific coast was well known for many years before California became a State 
 in the great American republic. The ores of this metal are known to have been 
 found in Mexico, at various points, in great abundance for centuries past. In 
 the territory within the limits of this State they were found as far back as 1840, 
 near the Solidad pass, about ninety miles north of Los Angeles. 
 
 The first officially recorded discovery of copper in California, since it has be- 
 come a State, was made by Dr. J. B. Trask, who acted as State geologist from 
 '1851 till 1854. During that time, in the course of his travels, he found copper 
 in nearly every county in. the State the first discovery being made near a 
 place then called Round Tent, in Nevada county. 
 
 As but little attention was paid to the report of these discoveries, and the notes 
 and specimens of the ores collected by Doctor Trask were soon after lost or 
 destroyed, they exercised but little influence. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 139 
 
 In the summer of 1855 public attention was again called to tlie fact of tlio 
 existence of copper in this State, by the disco very of a body of beautiful ore 
 at Hope valley, Amador county, by an old prospector known as Uncle Billy 
 Rodgers. The ore from this place, being rich in garnets, attracted great atten- 
 tion. About the same time a party of prospectors in Eldorado county found 
 a large body of green and blue carbonates on a side of a hill a few miles from 
 Placerville, and, attracted by the brilliant colors of these minerals, collected sev- 
 eral sacks full of them and sent them to Pan Francisco, where, by assay, they 
 were found to contain 40 per cent, of copper, and worth about $140 per ton. 
 
 These discoveries were mentioned in nearly all the papers published in the 
 State at the time, but were soon forgotten in tlie more exciting search for gold 
 which occupied almost everybody's attention, and the now great copper resources 
 of the Pacific coast remained without an effort being made for their development 
 till November, 1860, when Mr. Hiraai Hughes, returning from a trip to Washoe, 
 whither he had gone to search for silver, while prospecting for that metal among the 
 foot-hills that margin the valley of San Joaquin, without being aware of the fact 
 discovered the gossan or cap of a copper lode, on what is now known as Quail 
 Hill No. 1 an insignificant mound among the Gopher hills, in the southwest- 
 ern portion of Calaveras county, about 35 miles southeast from Stockton, and six 
 miles from Central ferry, on the Stanislaus river. This gossan, which presented 
 much .the appearance of a body of iron-rust held together by a frame-work of 
 quartz, was found to be very rich in gold, and it was for this metal that Hughes 
 worked his claim. Soon after, while making further explorations for " iron- 
 rust," he discovered the croppings of what is now known as the Napoleon mine, 
 about three miles southwest of his first discovery. As there was less gold, and 
 considerable of what was then, to him, an unknown mineral, in this place, he 
 sent a lot of the ore to San Francisco, where it was pronounced 30 per cent, 
 copper ore, and worth about $120 per ton. As soon as this fact became known 
 there was a great excitement, and everybody began prospecting for "iron-rust," 
 and as the indications of copper were to be found almost at every point among 
 the Gopher hills, hundreds of claims were speedily marked out and recorded 
 the favorite direction being along the course of the lode on which the Napoleon 
 was located, as this was easily traced for miles; the most important "exten- 
 sions" on the original lode being the Josephine on the west, the Lotus, Mag- 
 nolia, and Collier on the east. But as none of these mines except the Napoleon 
 ever produced mucji marketable ore, work on all of them very soon ceased. 
 Hughes and his partners, after partially developing the Napoleon mine, which 
 contained 2,700 feet on the lode, in 1862 sold eleven-eighteenths of it to a com- 
 pany for $22,000. This company, in October, 1862, was incorporated under the 
 title of the Napoleon Copper Mining Company, which, after taking out of the 
 mine and shipping about 4,000 tons of good ore, sold the mine, in 1864, to Mar- 
 tin & Greenman, dealers in ores, of San Francisco, who at present own and 
 work it. 
 
 Notwithstanding the great amount of prospecting that followed Hughes's dis- 
 coveries, it was not till some time in June, 1861, that the lode on which the 
 mines at Copperopolis are located was discovered, though it is only about six 
 miles from the Napoleon, and the locators of the Union, Keystone, and other 
 mines were all old residents and miners in the vicinity. W; R. Reed, Dr. 
 Blatchly, and Mr. McCarty located 11,250 feet of the Copperopolis lode in 
 July, 1861. This location embraced the ground now owned by the Union, 
 Keystone, Empire, Calaveras, and Consolidated companies. Many interesting 
 and instructive facts might be here introduced to exhibit the ignorance of the 
 parties who first discovered these important mines as to the value of their prop- 
 erty. The following will be sufficient to illustrate this curious fact : 
 
 J. W. Bean, esq., who built the first hotel at Copperopolis, had been mining 
 for years among the Gopher hills and in the vicinity of Salt Spring valley; 
 
140 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 and though such was the abundance and beauty of the specimens of copper ores 
 all around him that he collected nearly a cart-load of them as curiosities to 
 decorate his rude cabin, he afterwards threw them away as useless. In 1855 
 he had collected so many of these specimens that his partner would not have 
 any more of them brought into the cabin. 
 
 Mr. Hughes, whose blindly-directed enterprise led to the discovery of the 
 value of the copper resources of the Pacific coast, had also been mining for 
 years among the Gopher hills ; and although his observant attention had been 
 attracted to the peculiarities of the rocks that form these hills, he had no idea 
 of the stores of wealth that lay scattered so lavishly all around him till he^had 
 made a trip to Washoe during the excitement which followed the discovery of 
 silver there. When in that Territory, being forcibly struck with the great re- 
 semblance between the rocks near the Cornstock lode and those that he was so 
 well acquainted with about the Gopher hills and Salt Spring valley, and not 
 being successful over there, he returned to the old familiar field of his labors 
 and commenced prospecting for silver, and did not know for many months after 
 his return that he had acquired a fortune by discovering a copper mine. So 
 with Mr. McCarty. one of the present owners of the great Union mine. He 
 had lived in Salt Spring valley nearly ten years, mining and ranching by turns. 
 As early as 1852 he had sunk a deep prospect-hole on the ground now belong- 
 ing to the Keystone company, and threw away the rich copper ores as -worth- 
 less, while seeking for gold, which he never found. So with Mr. Hardy, an- 
 other of the original locators of the Union. This gentleman, a keen, intelli- 
 gent man of business, who was for a long time the superintendent of that mine, 
 and afterwards became a senator for Calaveras county, resided for years within 
 two miles of where Copperopolis now stands without having any idea of the 
 immense wealth that lay stored up for him in the hard, sterile banks of the little 
 creek that meandered past his homestead. 
 
 The limits of this report will not admit of any further digression on this very 
 interesting history. 
 
 As soon as the magnitude and importance of the discovery made by Mr. 
 Reed and his party became known, the rush of prospectors to the locality be- 
 came tremendous, and in a few days claims were staked off extending for nearly 
 twenty miles in all directions along the lode, or rather lodes, (for there are more 
 than one of them,) across and parallel to them. Large sums of money were in 
 many instances expended in the purchase and development of claims which 
 were located miles away from all indications of lode whatever. 
 
 One of the effects of this great excitement was the creation of the now 
 thriving town of Copperopolis, the first house in which was built by Mr. Reed 
 in September, 1861. In less than two years -after it contained a population of 
 nearly 2,000, which supported three schools, two churches, a weekly newspa- 
 per, four hotels, with stores and workshops of all kinds sufficient for 'an active, 
 thrifty community. It now has three lines of stages running to and from it 
 daily, and has a costly railroad in course of active construction to connect it 
 with the navigable waters of the San Joaquin river, which, when completed, 
 will more than double its wealth and population. 
 
 To give the names of all the claims that were located in an around Salt 
 Spring valley during the first great excitement would serve no useful purpose, 
 as most of them, after the expenditure of more or less labor, have either been 
 abandoned altogether or are held till labor and transportation shall become 
 cheaper or copper ores become more valuable. The most important mines 
 in the valley at present the only ones that are being developed are the 
 Calaveras, Empire, Union, Keystone, Consolidated, and Kentucky, which range 
 from south to north in the order in which they are here written, and the In- 
 imitable, which is located on the east side of and parallel with the Union. The 
 developments in this and other mines located parallel with the original claims 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 141 
 
 leave little room to doubt that there are at least two some persons say four 
 distinct lodes, or very large consecutive bodies of ore, identical in composition, 
 independent of the main lode. The question of whether there is one or more 
 lodes promises to be as fruitful a point for the lawyers to settle as a similar * 
 question was among the owners on the Comstock lode, in Nevada. 
 
 The thousands of persons from all parts of the State who were attracted to 
 the Salt Spring Val}ey mines by the reports of their value, thus becoming ac- 
 quainted with the general appearance of copper ores, on returning to their seve- 
 ral districts soon discovered these ores almost everywhere, so that before the 
 close of the year 1861 a well-defined belt of copper ore, containing several dis- 
 tinct lodes, was traced and partially developed from a point about thirty miles 
 north of Los Angeles, at La Solidad, through Mariposa, Merced, Fresno, Tuo- 
 lumne, Stanislaus, El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Yuba, Trinity, Sierra, Plumas, 
 and Shasta counties, to a point about twenty miles west of the town of Yreka, 
 in Siskiyou county, where it enters the State of Oregon in a northern spur of 
 the Siskiyou mountains, the most western branch of the Sierra Nevadas. As 
 will be more fully explained in another portion of this report, there is a most 
 remarkable uniformity in the direction and dip of the lodes in this great copper 
 belt, as well as in the geological formations in which they are found, in the 
 character of their ores, and in several other features, all which point to a simul- 
 taneousness of origin over very large tracts, many portions of which have been 
 much disturbed and shifted by subsequent subterranean action. 
 
 Other extensive deposits of copper ores have been discovered in the coast 
 range, particularly around the base of a spur of Mount Diablo, at the low divide 
 in Del Norte county ; in Hope valley, Amador county ; at Whiskey Hill, in 
 Placer county, and at several other points which it is not necessary to particu- 
 larize at this time. 
 
 The results of all these discoveries were the location of thousands of claims, 
 some of them of considerable importance, in nearly every county of the State, . 
 and the incorporation of a countless number of copper mining companies, whose 
 certificates of stock were bought and sold at the public boards and by private 
 merchants by thousands ; and for about a year the development of the copper 
 resources of the Pacific coast was prosecuted with great zeal. But a few months' 
 experience taught those most deeply interested in the business that, with un- 
 skilled and expensive labor, uncertain and costly transportation, and a great dis- 
 tance from a market for the final disposal of the ore, it is unprofitable to work 
 the richest and most extensive copper mines in the world. 
 
 The excitement attending the discovery of so much copper in California, as 
 may well be supposed, soon spread through the adjoining States and Territories, 
 and it was not long before many important lodes were discovered in Oregon, Ne- 
 vada, Colorado, Sonora, and Lower California. As it will be quite impossible 
 to even mention all these discoveries in detail, only a few of the most important 
 will be referred to at this time. . 
 
 In 1860 a miner named Hawes, who had long been working in that vicinity, 
 having his attention attracted to the quantity of metallic copper found in the 
 sluices of the miners who were engaged at Placer mining for gold, commenced 
 a search, and soon discovered a valuable lode of copper ore in 'a small gulch 
 about six miles from' Waldo, Josephine county. On (his lode was subsequently 
 located the Queen of Bronze mine, the most important copper mine in Oregon. 
 Soon after the discovery made by Hawes, other parties found an extensive cop- 
 per district on the Illinois river, near the junction of that river and Fall cre-: j k, 
 about eighteen miles north-northwest from Waldo. Another district was about 
 the same time discovered at Ilockland, in Josephine county, in which more than 
 twenty mines of importance were subsequently located. 
 
 Copper has also been found in Wasco county ; on the John Day river, and 
 at several other points in the State of Oregon. The districts in Josephine 
 
142 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 county being near the dividing line between that State and California, and the 
 lode having been examined from Waldo to near Crescent City, Del Norte 
 county, in the latter State, where an extensive district known as the Alta has 
 since been developed, leaves no room to doubt that they are all located on the 
 game great belt of copper ores referred to above. 
 
 The largest masses of metallic copper found on this coast have been obtained 
 from these Oregon mines. One piece reported to have weighed half a ton was 
 taken from the "Diamond" mine ; another piece weighing four hundred pounds 
 was taken from the " Cruikshank " mine, and a great many pieces weighing from 
 one hundred to three hundred pounds each have been found in this vicinity. 
 
 In 1862 several valuable deposits of copper ore were discovered on Williams's 
 fork of the Colorado river, in Arizona Territory, near where Aubrey City has 
 been since located. Butjt was not till November, 18G3, when Mr. Robert Ry- 
 land, of San Francisco, commenced work on the "Planet" mine, at this place, 
 that the true value of these Arizona copper mines was ascertained. There are 
 undoubted proofs of the existence of exceedingly valuable copper mines in this 
 Territory, at various points convenient to the navigable waters of the Colorado 
 and its tributaries. Mr. Pompelly, a scientific geologist and mineralogist, who 
 subsequently was appointed mineralogist to the Japanese government, macle an 
 extended examination of the mineral resources of Arizona, and ki the published 
 report of his observations he refers particularly to the extraordinary richness 
 and extent of the copper resources of the Territory. Other parties, who have 
 travelled extensively through it since Mr. Pompelly, fully corroborate all that 
 gentleman reported on this subject. Important mines have been discovered, and 
 districts organized at many points in the Territory, among which are the Irataba 
 district, about twenty-five miles southwest from Fort Mohave j the Freeman 
 district, about sixty miles south of Williams's fork ; the Chimewawa district, on 
 the west bank of the Colorado, nearly opposite La Paz ; the Salaza district, 
 about thirty-five miles northeast of La Paz, and the Castle Dome district, about 
 thirty miles north of the Gila. The formations in which the copper is found 
 in this Territory are altogether different from those in which it is found in Oregon 
 and California. The ores themselves are also quite distinct, and far more valu- 
 able than those found in these States. The details of these peculiarities will 
 be given hereafter. 
 
 About the time the Colorado mines were discovered, a singular but quite ex- 
 tensive lode of copper ore, containing considerable metallic copper and silver, 
 was discovered near Loretto, in the province of Comondu, Lower California. 
 Several tons of exceedingly rich ore, which averaged sixty per cent., were brought 
 to San Francisco in 1862, from the N " Favorita " mine, also in Lower California. 
 
 In 1864 a number of valuable deposits of copper ores were discovered in va- 
 rious places in the State of Nevada. Among the most important of these dis- 
 coveries are the "Peavine" district, near the Hennep pass, but a short distance 
 from the line of the Central Pacific railroad. The completion of this road to 
 the neighborhood of this district has given it much importance of late, the 
 railroad company offering to deliver the ore in Sacramento at nine dollars per 
 ton. Other copper mines have been located on Walker's river, in EsmeralcU 
 county, and on the south fork of the Carson river, in Ormsby county, and at 
 other points in this State, the ores from which will be profitable to ship as soon 
 as the completion of the Pacific railroad shall afford the means for sending them 
 to. a market. 
 
 The above hurriedly compiled notes, though giving the merest outlines of the 
 extent of the copper resources of the Pacific coast, are sufficient to convey an 
 idea of the magnitude and importance of these resources, which, under a judi- 
 cious system of encouragement by the federal government, may be made to pro- 
 duce many millions of dollars annually. 
 
 The locality of the most important mining districts It will be impossible 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 143 
 
 under this heading to mention any except those in which well-known mines are 
 located, and of these only to give the merest outline description. To avoid 
 expansion, as the materials are very abundant, only those from which ores 'are 
 known to have been exported will be referred to. These are the following : 
 
 The Copperopolis, Table Mountain, Napoleon, Laucha Plana, Campo Peco, 
 and Copper Hill, in Calaveras county. 
 
 The Newton, Cosumnes, and Hope Valley, in Amador county. 
 
 The La Victoire and Birdseye, in Mariposa county. 
 
 The Buchanan, in Fresno county, 
 
 The Osos, in San Luis Obispo county. 
 
 The Solidad, in Los Angeles county. 
 
 The Genesee Valley, in Plumas county 
 
 The Alta, in Del Norte county. 
 
 The Mount Diablo, in Contra Costa county. 
 
 The Rockland, in Oregon. 
 
 The Peavine, in Nevada. 
 
 The Favorita and Sauce, in Lower California. 
 
 The Williams Fork, in Arizona. 
 
 Copperopolis mines. The Copperopolis mines are located in Salt Spring 
 valley, in the southwestern portion of Calaveras county, about thirty-five miles 
 nearly east from Stockton, at the head of navigation on the San Joaquin river. 
 This valley is large, beautiful, and well sheltered, and very fertile, producing 
 all descriptions of fruits, grain, and vegetables in the greatest perfection. Its 
 peculiar excellence in these respects has caused it to be more or less under cul- 
 tivation since the settlement of California by the Americans. It is bounded on 
 the east by the Bear mountains, a lofty branch of the foot-hills lying between 
 the Stanislaus and Calaveras rivers, which nearly divide Calaveras county into 
 two parts. On the west it is bounded by a range of low broken hills which 
 skirt the eastern side of the valley of San Joaquin. It extends nearly to the 
 Calaveras river on the north. The most famous copper mines on the coast are 
 located on the west of this valley, near the head of what is called Black creek, 
 a small tributary to the Stanislaus. 
 
 The lode on which the Union, Keystone, Empire, Calaveras, and Consolidated 
 mines are located passes through this valley in the direction of north 30 west. 
 It has been more or less developed for about fifteen miles, and found to curve 
 slightly towards the north, at its western extremfty. 
 
 There are other lodes in this valley on which are located many mines known 
 to be of great value, though they have not been as extensively developed as 
 those on the main lode. It is claimed that there are four of these lodes, which 
 range from a few feet to six miles in distance from the main one, but all follow 
 the same direction. This cupriferous belt has been traced with comparatively 
 slight interruptions from this valley to the American river, its general course 
 being about north 15 west. 
 
 The most important mine in the valley is the Union. This contains 1,950 
 feet on the main lode, which was originally divided into thirteen shares of 150 
 feet each. But at present it is nearly all owned by Meader, Lalor & Co., mer- 
 chants of San Francisco, Mr. McCarty, one of the original locators, being the 
 only one retaining any portion of their claim. 
 
 The owners of this mine never formed themselves into an incorporated com- 
 pany, as nearly all other mining companies generally do. Probably no necessity 
 arose to compel them, as no assessments were ever levied on their shares, the 
 mine paying well from the very commencement of their operations. It gave 
 them a dividend of $11,000 per share in December, 1862, and during the year 
 1863 the dividends amounted to 820,000 per share, clear of all expenses. It 
 is not possible to tell how much the mine has paid since, in consequence of 
 
144 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Header & Co having purchased it soon after the last dividend in 1863 was 
 declared, and they have their own reasons for* not making its revenue public. 
 It is alleged that in the winter of 1863 that firm paid Mr. Reed, the locator of 
 the mine, $65,000 in cash for 975 feet. In 1864 Mr. Hardy, another of the 
 original locators, it is stated sold his interest in the mine to the same firm for 
 $650,000. 
 
 There is but little doubt that this mine contains the largest body of yellow 
 sulphurets of copper ever discovered. Some scientific gentlemen have expressed 
 doubts as to whether this body of ore is a true vein, or merely a local surface 
 deposit, as it does not present some of the characteristics of veins of similar ore 
 found in other counties. The fact that it has been explored to the depth of 
 upwards of 500 feet without any symptoms of its giving out, and that it has 
 been examined for many miles consecutively, presenting the same general 
 appearance throughout, is, to say the least, a stronger proof in support of the 
 opinion that it is a continuous, regular vein, than any theory can be that it is not. 
 
 The work on this mine is carried on by means of three shafts, which have 
 been sunk from 300 to 500 feet on the lode, from which several levels or drifts 
 have been run along its course. For the purpose of hoisting the ore there is a 
 fourteen horse-power steam-engine at the mouth of each of the two outer shafts. 
 
 At the main shaft, from which the mine is drained, there is an eighty horse- 
 power engine, which is used for both pumping and hoisting. Another shaft is 
 in progress, and nearly completed, which is being sunk for the purpose of 
 striking the lode at a depth of between 400 and 500 feet, at a point where it is 
 known to dip considerably to the east. All the other shafts having been 'com- 
 menced on the lode, passed through it on reaching a limited depth, going further 
 from it as the depth increased, involving an increased expense in running 
 tunnels to strike it at each succeeding level. 
 
 The dimensions of this body of ore have been ascertained with tolerable ac- 
 curacy, for a length of nearly 600 feet, and to a depth of upwards of 400 feet, 
 by shafts and levels which have been made in it. Near the surface, for, say 
 150 feet in depth, the lode varied in proportions very much, ranging from one 
 foot to twelve feet in width. At the depth of 200 feet in the main shaft it. was 
 nearly 21 feet wide; at 250 feet deep, it was nearly 30 feet wide; and continued 
 of nearly tlie same width to 300 feet in depth, when it became less uniform, 
 and began to decrease in proportions, till at the depth of about 400 feet at the 
 north, near the Keystone line, it had decreased to about 6 feet in width, while 
 for 200 feet north from the main shaft it is nearly 28 feet wide. As the Key- 
 stone company have recently struck the lode on their ground, within 100 feet 
 of the dividing line between the two mines, at a depth of 360 feet, where it is 
 10 feet wide, it is presumable that its contraction in the Union, at nearly the 
 same level, is not permanent. 
 
 It would be difficult to obtain correct information as to the product of this 
 mine, from its opening up to the present time, as its proprietors seem averse to 
 furnishing particulars/ It is known, however, that the exports of ore from this 
 State amounted to 5,553 tons in 1863, and to 10,234 tons in 1864, at least one- 
 half of which was obtained from the "Union." The company's books show 
 that from the 10th March to the 31st December, 1865, 25,542/tons of ore were 
 actually shipped from the mine. As the firm owning it state that the average 
 of all its ores shipped is 15 per cent., and estimate it to be worth $75 per ton, 
 it follows that its products for 1865 exceeded $1,500,000 in value. The ship- 
 ments for 1866, as will be seen by reference to the table of exports, will exceed 
 those of 1S65 the quantity shipped being only limited by the number of 
 vessels available for carrying it away. The above figures will convey a slight 
 idea of the importance of developing such a fruitful source of national wealth 
 as is presented in the copper mines of the Pacific coast. 
 
 The Union company employ about 250 men about the mine, in the various 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 145 
 
 departments of its operations. None of the companies at Copperopolis employ 
 any Chinese coolies. 
 
 The Keystone is next in importance to the Union, which it adjoins on the 
 north. It contains 3,300 feet on the lode. It is owned by an incorporated 
 joint-stock company, the shares in which are one hundred and fifty in number. 
 It was on this claim that the first work of development on the lode was done, 
 in what is still called the discovery shaft, on the north end of the claim, and 
 Which is still used by the company in their operations. 
 
 The shareholders in this mine have not been as fortunate as those of the 
 Union. The Keyston ehas never yielded them a dividend since its discovery ; 
 on the contrary, it has cost them $100,000 in assessments over and above the 
 receipts from its whole product of ore, which up to October 1, 1866, amounted 
 to 5,719 tons, worth, at $75 per ton, 8428,925. The enormous expenses in- 
 curred in the development of this mine ha^ve probably been caused by mis- 
 management, and costly, useless experiments for concentrating the low grade 
 ores, of which the mine produces very large quantises. 
 
 The best informed among the stockholders in this mine estimate that it hag 
 produced sufficient ore to defray all the expenses of working. The $100,000 
 collected as assessments have been expended in experiments and machinery. 
 The company have very fine and powerful hdisting, pumping, and concentrating 
 machinery. The latter is only used during the winter and spring, when there 
 is an abundance of water available. The ores in the Keystone are identical 
 with those in the Union, but they are not found in as large a body, or as com- 
 pact. The lode in this mine has at no time exceeded ten feet in width, and it 
 is usually so much divided by the containing slate that the cost of its separa- 
 tion by hand-labor causes it to be not very profitable to the company. At the 
 depth of 260 feet in the main shaft the lode was only six feet wide, and con- 
 tained a body of iron pyrites nearly a foot thick through the centre of it for 
 nearly 150 feet in length, and it was further divided by seams of slate into 
 irregular masses from one inch to six inches thick. 
 
 The greatest depth reached on this mine is about 400 feet. Quite recently, 
 in the sixth level, at a depth of about 360 feet in the Houghton shaft that is, 
 the shaft nearest to the dividing line between this mine and the Union a body 
 of ore nearly ten feet thick was- struck while drifting within 150 feet of this 
 dividing line. In this body of ore there is only about four feet sufficiently rich 
 to pay for shipping ; the remainder is so divided by the containing slate, or con- 
 tains so large a proportion of iron pyrites, as to fall below the average of 12 per 
 cent , the present lowest grade of paying ore. 
 
 There are six shafts in this mine, only two of which, the discovery shaft and 
 that nearest the Union, are in use the cost of sinking and timbering the others 
 being nearly a total loss to the compnny. In fact, the first two years' work done 
 on the mine was wasted through the inexperience of those who were intrusted 
 with its management. 
 
 The annual product of the Keystone, according to the books of the company, 
 has been as follows: 
 
 1862 . . 596 tons of 2, 376 pounds. 
 
 1863 7 . . . . 758 tons of 2, 376 pounds. 
 
 1864 1, 506 tons of 2, 376 pounds. 
 
 1865 1, 743 tons of 2, 376 pounds. 
 
 1666, (til! October 1,) 1, 386 tons of 2, 376 pounds. 
 
 Total production 5, 719 tons. 
 
 The company employ about one hundred men in the various departments of 
 their works. 
 
 The Empire mine is located next to the Union, on the south. It contains 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 10 
 
146 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 1,800 feet on the same lode. It is owned by an incorporated company, the 
 majority of the stockholders in which are capitalists who reside at New York. 
 This company have expended a very large amount of money in developing their 
 mine. The greater portion of this expenditure, as has been the case with the 
 Keystone company, has been wasted through incompetent management. Great 
 improvements in this respect have been made recently, and the prospects of the 
 company are promising. The explorations now in process show considerable 
 good ore, and there are indications of an increase in the dimensions of the lode. 
 
 The ore in this is similar to that in all the other mines on the lode ; but in 
 the croppings on this claim there was considerably more quartz than there was 
 upon any other claim on the lode. In this quartz, which was of a milky white- 
 ness, there was metallic copper, crystallized in leaf and fern-like forms, which 
 were exceedingly brilliant and beautiful when first taken out of their stony 
 matrix. 
 
 The Calaveras is located next south of the Empire, on the same lode, of 
 which it contains 3,000 feet. The croppings on this claim were exceedingly 
 rich, but the lode has not proven to be so below the surface. Several shafts 
 have been sunk and many drifts and cuttings made without finding any body 
 of ore of importance. The company are not working this mine at present. 
 
 The Consolidated is located on -the same lode, north of the Keystone. It 
 contains 3,000 feet. 
 
 The Webster is the name of another important mine in this valley. It is 
 located about one and a half mile east of Copperopolis, on a massive body of 
 ore nearly twenty-eight feet wide. This ore is of a different character to that 
 in the main lode, and is much less valuable ; for, though quite solid and compact, 
 it does not average more than eight per cent., in consequence of the larger per- 
 centage of iron it contains. 
 
 The Inimitable is another important mine in this valley, located on a dif- 
 ferent lode altogether. This mine is situated parallel with the Union, and but 
 a few feet apart from it, on the east side. So close are these two mines together 
 that the owners of the Inimitable had some intentions of suing the Union com- 
 pany for damages for taking out some of their ore on some of the lower levels, 
 which they claimed was on the Inimitable's ground. The Napoleon mine, which 
 is located four miles south from Copperopolis, is on the eastern end of alode which 
 runs through this valley, parallel with the main lode, but about six miles apart 
 from it, which has been located upon for nearly fifteen miles. The Scorpion, 
 Swansea, Massachusetts, Pacific, and other valuable mines, are located on this 
 parallel lode. These lodes are easily traced to near the banks of the river, 
 where they all disappear, and are not again visible till near the town of Monte- 
 zuma, in Tuolumne county, six miles from the other side of the river. Gopher 
 Hill, where the first discovery of copper was made, is supposed to be the ex- 
 treme west of the main lode. 
 
 The above is not by any means a complete list of the mines in Salt Spring 
 \alley. There are scores of others, but these are the most important. 
 
 At present about one thousand men are employed in various capacities among 
 the mines in this district, the larger proportion of whom are foreigners, chiefly 
 English and Irish. No Chinese are employed about the mines except as cooks, 
 washermen, and servants. 
 
 The Table Mountain mine is located about five miles southeast from Coppero- 
 polis, and about one mile from the Stanislaus river. It is the last claim on the 
 main lod* on this side of that river. It contains 2,150 feet on the lode, which 
 is here about six feet wide, and much divided by the containing slate. This 
 mine is owned by a joint-stock comply of twenty-one shareholders. It has 
 been considerably developed, and about one thousand tons of ore have been 
 shipped from it. 
 
 The Campo Seco, Lancha Pluna, and Copper Hill mines are located on a 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 147 
 
 continuation of the main Copperopolis lode, where it makes its appearance 
 between the Calaveras and Mokelumne rivers. All these mines were discovered 
 in 1861, shortly after the discovery of the Union and Keystone mines. They 
 have been extensively developed, and the lode has been well tested by shafts 
 and drifts. It presents the same peculiarities as were noticed at Copperopolis. 
 Jt is quite large on the Campo Seco claim, being twenty feet wide at one hun- 
 dred feet deep. It is scarcely as large in the Lanclia Plana, and in the Copper 
 Hill it is only about six feet. The character a^id composition of the ores are 
 identical with those at Copperopolis, and they are contained in the same de- 
 scription of rock, and present many other features of similarity. Large quanti- 
 ties of ore. have been shipped from these mines; but the present low price of 
 ores, which is lower than it has previously been for the past fifteen years, leaves 
 so small a profit after paying expenses that the companies are storing most of 
 their ores in anticipation of an improvement in the market. . About one hundred 
 and fifty men aie employed among these mines, about forty of whom are Chi- 
 nese, who perform much of the labor .aboye. ground, such as separating and 
 bagging the ores, &c. 
 
 Quite extensive concentrating works are being put up on the Campo Seco 
 mine. The company "intend to concentrate most of their ores into about fifty 
 per cent, matte or regulus. 
 
 The Napoleon mine is located about four miles south of Copperopolis, in 
 what are called the Gopher hills, a range of low, broken hills, very irregular in 
 form and direction, on the east of the San Joaquin valley. They are the first 
 hills met with after leaving Stockton and travelling east. As has already been 
 mentioned, this was the first copper mine opened in California. As such, Mr. 
 Hughes, who discovered both the Napoleon and the Quail Hill mines, claimed 
 the latter as a silver or gold mine. 
 
 The Napoleon contains 2,700 feet on two well-defined lodes of ore, similar in 
 composition to those at Copperopolis. It was located in November, 1860, and in 
 October, 1862, was owned by an incorporated company ; each foot in the mine 
 representing a share of stock. In 1863 these one-foot hares were selling at 
 $100 each. 
 
 In consequence of the country through which the Napoleon lode traverses 
 having been much disturbed by subterranean forces, it is extensively dislocated. 
 The " faults," as the miners call these dislocations, are so numerous that all the 
 other mines on this lode had to cease operations because they could not trace 
 it far enough consecutively to obtain any extensive body of ore. This misfor- 
 tune has happened to the Napoleon. At the depth of about 400 feet the lode, 
 after narrowing from twenty to less than six feet, finally was lost altogether by 
 a shift in the containing rock. The company have been engaged for more than 
 a year in attempting to rediscover it. They have sunk a new shaft nearly 400 
 feet deep, some distance to the south of the old one. The prospects are that 
 they will meet with a large body of good ore in this new shaft. 
 
 The Napoleon is located on the eastern extremity of a lode which has been 
 traced to San Domingo gulch, twenty-five miles distant, where the Noble mine, 
 owned by Pioche & Beyergue, French merchants of San Francisco, is located 
 on it. The Napoleon commenced shipping ores in May, 1863. 
 
 The following statement, compiled from the books of the company, furnishes 
 full particulars of the product of the mine : 
 
148 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES. 
 Shipment of ores from tlie Napoleon copper mines. 
 
 Date. 
 
 First class. 
 
 Second class. 
 
 Concentrated 
 ore. 
 
 1863. 
 May . .. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 36 826 
 
 / 
 
 Founds. 
 45 302 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 
 137 930 
 
 108 420 
 
 
 July 
 
 185 498 
 
 61 OJ4 
 
 
 August . . . ... .__-.. 
 
 73, 037 
 
 98, 172 
 
 
 September .... . . 
 
 250 234 
 
 230 873 
 
 
 October 
 
 232 100 
 
 507 8iO 
 
 
 
 187,480 
 
 284 9v>0 
 
 
 December. . . . ...... 
 
 69 060 
 
 i 234 110 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 1,172,165 
 
 1,507,621 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1864. 
 January ___ ................. ..I. ...... 
 
 42 240 
 
 170, 930 
 
 
 February . . . .... 
 
 44 330 
 
 367 020 
 
 
 March. 
 
 91 9GO 
 
 386 680 
 
 
 April . ........... .................. 
 
 30, 470 
 
 334 940 
 
 
 May 
 
 28 970 
 
 205 740 
 
 
 June 
 
 17 160 
 
 232 100 
 
 
 July 
 
 49, 720 
 
 252 070 
 
 
 August . .... .... . 
 
 6 820 
 
 159 750 
 
 
 September ,. 
 
 
 134,410 
 
 420, 835 
 
 October . 
 
 
 238, 370 
 
 190,540 
 
 November .. . ...... 
 
 
 192 216 
 
 164 025 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 351,570 
 
 2,674,226 
 
 775, 400 
 
 
 
 
 
 1865. 
 March, . ..... ......... _ 
 
 
 8 100 
 
 
 April 
 
 20 250 
 
 115 950 
 
 
 May 
 
 
 78 150 
 
 158, 600 
 
 , 3 
 
 June 
 
 
 48 450 
 
 132,000 
 
 July 
 
 
 
 323 120 
 
 August . ............ ..... 
 
 
 
 159, 460 
 
 September 
 
 
 6 420 
 
 170, 305 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total . .... 
 
 20, 250 
 
 257 070 
 
 943, 485 
 
 
 
 
 
 Grand totals .. . 
 
 1,543,985 
 
 4,501,917 
 
 1 , 718, 885 
 
 
 
 
 
 Seven million seven hundred and sixty-four thousand seven hundred and 
 eighty-seven pounds altogether, or nearly four thousand tons. 
 
 In September, 1865, the company sold the mine to Martin & Co., dealers in 
 ores, of San Francisco. Since it has been in the hands of this firm, for reasons 
 explained above, the yield of ore has nearly ceased. The total shipments from 
 the mine since the purchase have not exceeded 150 tons, of which about one- 
 half has been second class, and the other concentrated ore. 
 
 With reference to the classification of the ores in the above table, as the same 
 method for that purpose is followed in all mines producing the same description 
 of ores, it may be as well to explain that method in this part of the report. 
 
 The heavy costs for labor, bags, transportation, commissions, &c., causing all 
 ores below 10 per cent, to be valueless on this coast, none are shipped below 
 that grade ; but as there is a considerable advantage gained by separating the 
 ores which vary more than 5 per cent, in richness, the plan generally followed 
 is to class all above 15 per cent, as first, and from 10 per cent, to 15 per cent, 
 as second. There is some difference in the grade of the ores from the various 
 mines. The Union ores are the lowest. The owners of that mine, being ex- 
 tensive shipping agents, have facilities for shipping ores of less value than will 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 149 
 
 pay to ship from any other mine. The average of all the ores shipped from 
 the Union does not exceed 15 per cent. From the Napoleon they were above 
 16 per cent., causing a difference in value of nearly $5 per ton. The Keystone 
 ores are about 1 per cent, higher than the Union. 
 
 The concentrated ores above referred to were prepared by the following very 
 economical process : A pit of about two feet deep was cut in the soft soil, about 
 twenty feet square, in which was laid as evenly as possible about four cords of 
 dry pine wood; over this was piled, in the form of a truncated cone, one hundred 
 tons of ore. There was nothing more done, except to ignite the wood, which 
 soon set the sulphur in the ore on fire, and it continued to burn for six or seven 
 weeks, when the greater portion of the sulphur having been evaporated, the fire 
 went out and the ore was concentrated about 6 per cent , or 10 per cent. ; poor 
 second class was converted into 16 per cent., or first class. 
 
 The machinery used on this mine consists of a small six-horse power steam- 
 engine, for hoisting and pumping. There are usually about thirty hands em- 
 ployed on this mine, about one-third of whom are Chinese. 
 
 Quail Hill, No. 1, where Hughes made the first discovery of copper, is about 
 three miles east from the Napoleon mine, arid about seven miles west from Cop- 
 peropolis. Quite a town, called Telegraph City, has sprang up between these 
 two discoveries of Hughes's. 
 
 2. VARIOUS COPPER DISTRICTS. 
 
 Forest Hill district. The most important mines in Amador county are the 
 Cosumnes, in the Forest Hill district, near Jackson, the county seat, and the 
 Newton, on the same lode, about three miles to the west, near lone valley, a 
 beautiful and fertile valley, separated from the great valley of the Sacramento 
 by low, irregular hills, as Salt Spring valley is divided from the valley of the 
 San Joaquin. The Cosumnes was located in January, 1862. A company to 
 work it was incorporated in February, 1863. It contains 5,000 feet on the 
 main lode and the same quantity on the Oriental lode, which runs parallel and 
 clQse to it. This Oriental lode, which is quite extensive, was discovered by the 
 llev. J. B. Fish, in January, 1863. It appears that the reverend gentleman 
 was returning from a trip to Copperopolis, when he observed the cfoppings of 
 the lode as he was riding past, the location being near the road. Getting off 
 his horse, he satisfied himself that what he saw was copper ore, and located the 
 claim for himself and friends. The parson's mine has produced nearly one hun- 
 dred tons of good ore. 
 
 The Newton was located early in 1863, by Dr. J. Newton, of Jackson, in the 
 names of himself and six members of uptown family, who at present control it. 
 Dr. Newton was the first person in this county who worked a copper mine in it. 
 
 Quite a town, called Copper " Centre, has sprung up between these two dis- 
 tricts. Two years ago it was one of the most active copper mining c.amps in 
 the State hundreds of claims having been located on the two copper belts, 
 which can be traced fur miles on both sides of the original claims. One of these 
 belts is about six miles northeast of the other, and follows the same course as 
 the parallel lodes at Copperopolis north about 50 east. These lodes also dip 
 from 10 to 20 to the east, as do those at Copperopolis; are in the same geo- 
 logical formation, and the ores are so much alike in appearance and composi- 
 tion that the best judges cannot tell one from the other. There is no doubt 
 but that the Amador county mines are located on the same lodes as the mines 
 at Copperopolis. There are many valuable copper mines in this vicinity, but 
 though the great distance from a market, and the want of capital and experi- 
 ence of those who own them, work on all except the Cosumne%and Newton 
 has ceased. Probably these would also have remained undeveloped had not 
 Header & Co., copper merchants of San Francisco, become interested in them. 
 
150 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 A great deal of work lias been done on the Newton, which has been suffi- 
 ciently tested by shafts and drifts to prove that it is of great value, and this 
 value would be fourfold greater if there were proper means for bringing the ore 
 to tide-water. The lode on this mine is not so large as it is at Copperopolis, but 
 the ore is less divided by the containing elate than it is in the Keystone. At 
 one hundred feet deep the lode here was only three and half feet wide. It in- 
 creased considerably as the depth of the shafts increased. Most of the ore from 
 this mine will average 15 per cent. In 18G4it shipped about one hundred tons 
 per month, averaging 16 per cent. 
 
 On the Cosumnes ground the lode is about ten feet wide at one hundred and 
 twenty-five feet deep, and averages about 16 per cent. This company shipped 
 about two hundred and fifty tons per month during 1864, averaging ]2 per cent. 
 
 Hope valley. The Rodger's mine, in Hope valley in this county, is located 
 a few miles west of Carson canon, on the borders of the State of Nevada, only 
 a few miles from some of the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevadas. It was dis- 
 covered in 1855, but has never .been worked to any extent, though the ore is 
 very valuable and of great beauty. It is not a regular lode, but a sort of 
 chimney, which makes its appearance, about two feet wide and nearly perpen- 
 dicular, in the face of a lotty bluff of solid, hard, white granite, at the eastern 
 end of the valley. The only sign of this body of ore is confined to its exposure 
 in the face of the bluff, and for about thirty feet on the top of it. A great deal 
 of prospecting has been done in the vicinity, in the hope of finding a continua- 
 tion of it, but in vain. The ore is accompanied on the south side by a body of 
 hard, grayish, crystaline limestone, the only sign of that mineral for many 
 miles around the whole country being composed of bare, rugged cliffs and 
 peaks of felspathic granite. On the north side of the ore there is a seam, of 
 about a foot wide, of dark brown quartz, of a peculiar cellular structure. There 
 is a great abundance of brilliant lime garnets in this ore, which", together with 
 the peculiar combination of sulphurets, oxides, and carbonates of which it is 
 formed, render it exceedingly interesting for cabinet specimens ; though it is 
 very doubtful whether it will ever pay to extract it for commercial purposes. 
 
 Mariposa county mines. The existence of important lodes or deposits of 
 copper ores of considerable commercial value in Mariposa county was known 
 for several years before any attempt was made to turn them to profitable ac- 
 count. The croppings of a series of large bodies of the ore are seen protruding 
 through the surface all through the county, from where it unites to Merced 
 county on the one side to where it joins Fresno county on the other. It was 
 not until the summer of 1S63 that any attention was paid to copper mining in 
 this county. The distance from a market and want of roads, as well as the 
 broken and disturbed condition of the^eological formation in which the ore is 
 contained, prevented men of experience and capital investing time or money in 
 their development. 
 
 There are two extensive districts in which copper mining is carried on in this 
 county. One is on the south side of it, on the Chowchilla river, near the divid- 
 ing line between this county and Merced, This is called the Hamilton district. 
 It embraces mines in both these counties. The other is the Hunters' Valley 
 district. This- is located west of the Bear Valley mountains and south of the 
 Merced river. The La Victoire, the most important copper mine in Mariposa 
 county, is in this district. 
 
 A good many companies are working in the Hamilton district; but thus far 
 the developments have not been of much importance, as no shaft of any con- 
 siderable depth has been sunk, and no permanent lode has been discovered. 
 There is but little doubt that the mines in this county are located on portions of 
 the great cuj^iferous belt referred to in the introductory remarks to this report 
 as passing through the State; but the shifting and dislocation to which it has 
 been subjected since its formation have so broken it up that it is exceedingly 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 151 
 
 doubtful whether any permanent mine will be discovered in the southern district 
 of this county. Some activity has been imparted to this district during the 
 past year by the erection of several smelting furnaces on a small scale, which, 
 operating on the silicates, oxides, and carbonates of the metal, which are found 
 in great abundance for miles around, make large quantities of regulus and black 
 copper from 60 per cent, tg 96 per cent, of fineness. The owners of these fur- 
 naces pay a fair price of all the ores of a suitable character the miners can 
 bring. This will account for the activity in the district and for the shallowness 
 of the explorations, as the ores cease to be of the class required at a few feet 
 below the surface. 
 
 One of these furnaces has been erected on James's ranch, and another, about 
 six miles distant, on the border of Fresno county, at Buchanan Hollow. From 
 this latter place about one hundred arid fifty tons of copper, in bars ranging 
 from 80 per cent, to 96 per cent, of metal, have been exported from San Fran- 
 cisco to New York by Coffee & llisdon, the proprietors of the works. 
 
 The furnaces at James's ranch are constructed on the French plan, intro 
 duced on this coast, on the Queen of Bronze mine, in Oregon, by M. De Hierry, 
 a French metallurgist of considerable ability. They are capable of operating 
 on about eight tons of ore in twenty -four hours. The class of ores operated on 
 have averaged about 12 per cent., the greater portion of which has been ob- 
 tained from the Green Mountain and Lone Tree mines, near the works. 
 
 The company obtain plenty of pine wood charcoal at $70 to $80 per ton. 
 All the smelting is done, with this description of fuel. About a ton of this 
 charcoal is required to produce a ton of marketable regulus. There are about 
 a dozen men employed at each of these works. 
 
 The furnaces used at Buchanan Hollow are what are known as Haskell's 
 water-lined, a brief description of'which will be found under the head of " Pro- 
 cesses," &c. They are of about the same capacity as those mentioned above, 
 and consume about the same quantity of the same description of fuel. There 
 are several of this latter description of furnaces in use in this State ; one on 
 the Cosumues mine, in Amador county ; another on the La Victoire mine, in 
 Mariposa county, and several others are in an advanced state of construction in 
 various localities. 
 
 About six miles south of these smelting works at Buchanan Hollow there are 
 several of the best mines in this county ; among them is the Bachman. In the 
 shaft on this mine, at a depth of sixty feet, the lode is ten feet wide, composed 
 of yellow sulphurets, identical in appearance and composition with those found 
 at Copperopolis and Campo Seco, and accompanied with all the characteristics 
 of the lodes in those districts, and affording many facts to prove a connection 
 in the origin of all of them. 
 
 Near the smelting works on James's ranch there is a series of lodes, traceable 
 for about ten miles, and ranging N. 24 W., corresponding very closely with 
 those already noticed in Salt Spring valley. In a shaft sunk on the Dozer 
 lode, one of this series, at a depth of eighty feet it was found to be six feet 
 wide, composed of nearly solid yellow sulphiiret. But, as was explained above, 
 the disturbance of the containing rock does not hold out a reasonable hope of 
 the permanence of any body of ore in the district. 
 
 Mr. Haskell, the proprietor of the Buchanan lode, has recently sold it and 
 the smelting works above described to a firm at Stockton for $22,000. This 
 will afford a basis on which to estimate the value of the best mines in the dis- 
 trict. 
 
 The <4 La Victoire" mine, in Hunter's valley, is a most valuable propc^'y, 
 being second in importance to scarcely any copper mine in the State. It- is 
 located in a section of this county which has not been affected by those dis- 
 turbing causes which have broken up the lodes in all the other sections. It 
 also possesses the very great advantage of having an immense body of very 
 
152 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 good ore above the level of the surrounding country, wliich enables the com- 
 pany to extract it without the use of expensive hoisting and pumping machinery. 
 The lode runs through a hill several hundred feet in length and nearly three 
 hundred feet high, cropping out on the very summit of it, and traceable, un- 
 broken, through its entire length, at an average width of nearly five feet. The 
 proprietors, who are mostly Frenchmen, have sunk shufts on the lode at both 
 ends of the base of this hill to the depth of nearly two hundred feet, without 
 discovering any material difference in its appearance, the only important change 
 being that, while the lode dips to the east at an angle of 45 at twenty-five feet 
 below the surface, at the base of the hill, at one hundred feet lower, it dips at an 
 angle of 68 ; but, as it increases nearly a foot in thickness at the point where 
 the dip changes, it is evident that the change has not been the effect of disloca- 
 tion. A great deal of very rich ore has been taken out ef this mine, much of 
 it containing sufficient gold to pay for working it for that metal only. 
 
 It may be, proper in this connection to state that the copper bars made in this 
 county by the furnaces described above contain a very large per cent, of gold. 
 Some of it, assayed by Kellogg & Hueston, of San Francisco, was found to 
 contain as high as $450 to the ton. Much of this copper contains $50 in gold 
 to the ton; none of it less than $20. 
 
 There is a small smelting furnace on this mine, but it is not in use. For the 
 past year but little work of any kind has been done on the mine in consequence 
 of disagreements among the owners, one portion of whom are playing the game 
 of " freeze out " upon the others. 
 
 There are several other good copper mines in this district, but those who own 
 them do not appear to have either the means or disposition to develop them, and 
 capitalists from abroad are afraid to invest very extensively in such mines in 
 this county till they have been better examined. 
 
 San Luis Obispo county mines. The Osos mines in San Luis Obispo county 
 were discovered in the spring of 1864. They are situate about eight miles 
 west of the Old Mission of San Luis Obispo, on the Osos ranch, near the south 
 end of a wide belt of cupriferous ores that is traceable for more than twenty 
 miles to the north, among the range of mountains which lay between the town 
 of San Luis Obispo and the Old Mission of Santa Marguerita. This belt of ore, 
 on which there are a great number of mines, presents very much the same pe 
 culiarities as are mentioned in the description of the Hamilton district, in Mari- 
 posa county. The disturbance of the lode by subterranean causes has broken 
 it up to such an extent as to render it unprofitable to mine. The Osos district, 
 as is the case with Hunter's valley, in Mariposa, appears to have been less 
 affected by these disturbing causes. A shaft one hundred and ten feet deep has 
 been sunk on the Osos lode, wliich was from four feet to twelve feet wide. One 
 hundred tons of ore, averaging eighteen per cent., have been shipped from this 
 mine direct to Boston and Swansea, and there are several hundred tons more 
 ready for shipment. Ex-congressman Phelps is extensively interested in these 
 mines. 
 
 Los Angeles county mines. The Solidad district, in Los Angeles county, is 
 located about thirty miles due north from Los Angeles. The knowledge of the 
 existence of copper in this locality was published by M. Duflot de Mofras 
 nearly twenty years ago, as it was somewhere in the neighborhood that 
 placer mining for gold was carried on as far back as 1840. Mr. Bidwell, mem- 
 ber of Congress for California, saw these early gold miners at work, and prob- 
 ably saw the croppings of the copper lode, which are quite extensive and con- 
 spicuous for a long distance. In 1854 a Frenchman named Maris discovered 
 the mines in what is now known as the Solidad district, but the discovery at- 
 tracted no attention till the excitement about copper, which followed tbe dis- 
 covery of the mines at Salt Springs valley, in 1861 and 1862, when great ac- 
 tivity in prospecting raged in this locality, and a great amount of work was 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 153 
 
 done during the following two years. At present, and for more than a year 
 past, none of the claims have been worked. Among the few important mines 
 'in this district are the La Solidad, Copper Hill, and Occidental. On the first 
 named, at the depth of one hundred feet, the lode was found to be about seven 
 feet wide. This is the deepest shaft in the district. 
 
 The geological formations and ores in this district are precisely the same as 
 those already described in San Luis Obispo and Mariposa counties, and the 
 same disturbing causes have broken up the lodes, which range in the same direc- 
 tion within a few degrees. 
 
 Plumas county mines. The copper mines in Genessee valley, Plumas 
 county, are the highest on this coast, the valley in which they are located being 
 a small basin of a few miles in circumference, embosomed high up among some 
 of the loftiest peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, which are clustered together in the 
 northeast of this county. This portion of Upper Plumas contains some of the 
 most magnificent scenery to be found on the coast. Immense granite ridges are 
 seen rising bare and bleak two and sometimes three thousand feet above the 
 densely wooded ridges at their base, while below, canons thousands of feet deep 
 form courses for the waters, which look like silver threads as they go meander- 
 ing through the black gorges that lead them to unite with the waters of the 
 Feather river, thtmsands of feet still further below. Nature appears to have 
 performed some of her mightiest labors in this locality. Subterranean fires 
 have piled up the molten rocks thousands of feet high, for the highest peaks are 
 composed of lava, while the floods of water have worn the frightful canons 
 which furnish the bed for the present insignificant streams. Amid the very 
 centre of so much ruggedness, caused by nature's greatest forces, Genessee val- 
 ley forms a beautiful contrast, with its grassy fields and the curling smoke of its 
 smelting furnaces and other evidences of the power of man. The belt of copper 
 ores already referred to passes through this valley in a course ranging north twenty- 
 five degrees west. As may well be imagined, in such a country, the lode has been 
 extensively dislocated ; but by examining the unshifted bodies of the containing 
 slates, which may be traced for many miles, as well as the form and composition 
 of the lodes, it is proved that this is part of that great belt. The chief copper 
 mines, the Cosmopolitan, are located about five miles from the village of Tay- 
 lorville, and three-fourths of a mile from a ranch which was originally located 
 in the valley by a Mr. Gifford. They were discovered in the beginning of 1862. 
 The inaccessibility of the place and the broken character of the country pre- 
 clude the possibility of this ever becoming a very important copper mining' lo- 
 cality. Nevertheless, parties interested in these mines have erected smelting 
 works which have cost upwards of $30,000, and made several tons of good 
 regulus by a process invented by a farmer named J. C. Chapman, who never 
 had any knowledge or experience in copper smelting till the discovery of these 
 mines. As long as the parties interested in this enterprise could obtain plenty 
 of oxides, carbonates, and silicates of the metal, which were quite abundant and 
 very rich at the commencement of their operations, they obtained regulus suffi- 
 cient to pay expenses ; but as soon as they reached the sulphurets in the lode 
 the works had to stop, as they were not adapted to operate on this class of ores. 
 At the present time they are not in operation. These works were put up by 
 Bolinger, Blood & Co. 
 
 At a depth of sixty feet the lode on the Cosmopolitan mine was found to be 
 about fourteen feet wide, containing about ten per cent, of metal. It lies be- 
 tween the granite and limestone on this claim. The metamorphic slates and 
 serpentine, which accompany the copper all through this i^tate, are here a few 
 hundred feet to thfe south. 
 
 Del Norte county mines. The Alta district, in Del Norte county, is situated 
 on what is known as the " low divide," an extensive plateau on the summit of a 
 lofty range of mountains which divide the valley of the Illinois river from the 
 
154 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Pacific ocean. These mountains run through, the northern portion of California 
 and the south of Oregon, for more than one hundred miles, and cross the western 
 branch of the Sierra Nevadas at nearly right angles. 
 
 Altaville, the centre of this district, is about fifteen miles northeast from 
 Crescent City, Del Norte county. There are a great number of mines in the 
 district ; many of them have been extensively worked, and probably one thou- 
 sand tons of good ore has been shipped from them since their discovery, in 1'860. 
 Among those which have shipped ore are the Alta, Union, Pacific, Lady Belle, 
 Chrysopolis, Comstock, Diamond, Express, Pearl, Copper Hill, Excelsior, and 
 a number of others. The Alta was the first mine worked in the district, and is 
 the only one worked at present. 
 
 The mines in this district are not connected with the great copper belt so fre- 
 quently alluded to in this report. This runs several miles to the east, where 
 the Siskiyou mountains connect the counties of Yreka, in California, with Jose- 
 phine, in Oregon. The ores in the Alta district are quite distinct in deposition, 
 appearance, and character from those found in the mines on the great belt. 
 The deposits are separate and distinct ; of probably the same age and origin, as 
 they are similar in other respects t^ those found around the base of Mount 
 Diablo, and in the coast range further south. The first forty-two tons of ore 
 shipped by the Alta company averaged forty-five per cent., and sold in San Fran- 
 cisco for $7,000 cash, the cost of their extraction and delivery not exceeding 
 $2,000. They were red oxides, chiefly, of which there was a large body nearly 
 three feet wide and fifty feet long, near the surface, but this was soon exhausted, 
 as there is no well defined lode on the ground. In fact it is doubtful whether 
 there is a consecutive body of ore of fifty feet in length in the whole district. 
 The croppings of what are supposed to be lodes nearly a dozen of them are 
 seen ranging nearly north and south for many miles, but the body of ore beneath 
 these croppings is so irregular in position, owing to the distortion of the serpen- 
 tine in which they are contained, that it is almost impossible to tell in what 
 direction the average of them do lie. 
 
 The Alta Company have sunk a shaft on their mine to the depth of nearly 
 four hundred feet without finding a regularly defined lode. They meet with 
 bunches of ore, chiefly yellow sulphurets of a very low grade, varying in size 
 from a mere film to ten feet thick, but not sufficiently connected to make the 
 mine profitable to work under the existing state of the copper market. This 
 mine is exceedingly well situated for obtaining its ore cheap, if a large body of 
 it should be found, as drifts could be run into the hill at a great depth at com- 
 paratively little cost. 
 
 The Rockland district is located about fifteen miles east of the Alta district, 
 above described, and about thirty miles from Crescent City, Del Norte county, 
 California. The mines in this district are located on the great copper belt, 
 which may easily be traced in the vicinity for nearly -twenty miles, in the direc- 
 tion of N. 28 W., the general trend of this belt, by which it may be followed 
 from where first noticed, north of Los Angeles, to about twenty-five miles west 
 of this district, which is a few miles within the limits of the State of Oregon. 
 There are several other districts within this State in which important copper 
 mines have been located on this belt ; but time will not admit of any reference 
 being made to them. The Queen of Bronze, near Waldo, Josephine county, 
 the most valuable copper mine in Oregon, is located on this belt, about sixteen 
 miles west from this point. Extensive smelting works have been erected on 
 this latter mine, and thousands of tons of ore have been exported from these 
 mines, which, as has been already stated, have been discovered since 1860. 
 
 There are some peculiarly interesting features connected with the copper 
 mines of this district, which have a tendency to throw considerable light upon 
 the subject of the action of volcanic forces on metallic ores, because in this 
 vicinity an enormous volcanic dyke, nearly one hundred feet wide, approaches 
 
WEST OF THE ROCEY MOUNTAINS. 155 
 
 the copper belt at an obtuse angle, witliin a hundred feet, and it is within this 
 point of proximity that the large masses of metallic copper mentioned above 
 were discovered. Another point in the same connection may be here mentioned. 
 The age of the rocks containing the copper, throughout the whole extent of the 
 great belt, has been tolerably well ascertained to be between the triassic and 
 tertiary eras, and as this volcanic force, which has caused the conversion of the 
 ores into metals from one end of it to the other, must ha^e been exerted sub- 
 sequently, the opportunity here afforded to examine the largest and most clearly 
 denned dyke on the coast is very important. 
 
 Mount Diablo district. The principal copper mines in the Mount Diablo 
 district are .located about the northern base, and up the side of a spur of Mount 
 Diablo, called Mount Zion, and along the north side of Mitchell's canon, near 
 the town of Clayton, Contra Costa county. The first discovery of these mines 
 was made in 1860, and considerable work was done on several of them for about 
 two years, in efforts to discover the lode, but without success, as there is no 
 lode in the mountain. The copper found here is not connected with the great 
 cupriferous belt, but exists in detached bunches and masses, as is the case in 
 tlie Alta district, in Del Norte county, described above. The croppings of the 
 patches of ore here run north and south, as they do at Del Norte. Some 
 metallic' copper has been found on' the north side of Mitchell's canon, but in 
 every case, after reaching a few feet below the surface, the ore, when found in 
 bodies sufficiently large to take out, has been found of a very low grade ; ten 
 tons of selected ore shipped by the Keokuk company did not yield more 
 than eight per cent. It is doubtful whether the mines in this district will 
 ever pay to work. 
 
 Pcavine district. The Peavine district was discovered in 1864. It is located 
 a few miles east of the Henness pass, in Washoe county, Nevada, one portion 
 of it being within three miles of the line of the Central Pacific railroad. The 
 district embraces an era of ten miles square, in which there are a great number 
 of claims of considerable importance. The ores in all these mines are entirely 
 distinct from those found in California, as well as the containing rocks. They 
 are usually much contaminated with quartz, but they contain a large per cent, 
 of gold and silver. The completion of the Central Pacific railroad to within a 
 few miles of'nie district has given considerable impetus to prospecting, and a 
 great number of companies are preparing to take out ore, the railroad com- 
 pany having informed those interested that it would carry ores to Sacramento, 
 from any point in the Henness pass, for $9 per ton. The ores of most of these 
 mines being silicates, carbonates, and oxides, are very easily concentrated, a 
 fact which the owners of the Bay State mine appear to be aware of, as they are 
 putting up a small furnace, on Haskell's plan, to operate on all the ores they 
 can purchase,, as well as what they can obtain from their own mine. No ores 
 of any consequence have been shipped from this district, in consequence of the 
 distance to a market ; but in 1864 a, Doctor Landszwertmade a number of large 
 bars of fine copper from them, which were exhibited at the State fair, at Carson 
 City, in that year. These bars contained $150 per ton in gold, and about $250 
 per ton in silver, according to the doctor's assay. 
 
 Lower California mines Of the copper mines in Lower California but lit- 
 tle of an authentic character is known. The Sance mine, as described by Mr. 
 W. Thompson, an old Cornish miner, who was superintendent of it for three or 
 four years, is located near Loretto, a place in the province of Comondu, about 
 thirty miles from the coast, where there is a good harbor. The lode is de- 
 scribed as being from eight to ten feet wide, enclosed between walls of slate and 
 granite. It has been extensively explored by shafts and levels, and about five 
 hundred tons of ore have been shipped to Europe, where it sold for about five 
 hundred dollars per ton. This ore, specimens of which have been brought to 
 San Francisco, is of a very peculiar character, being a sort of talcose gangue, 
 
156 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 containing flattened scales of metal of various sizes, from several feet in length 
 and breadth, to small specks like fine gold dust. Many of the larger masses of 
 this copper are covered with an incrustation of metallic silver, the only simi- 
 lar combination of these two metals found on this coast, though the combination 
 of metallic copper and silver is quite common at the Lake Superior copper mines. 
 This mine has not been worked for nearly two years. 
 
 Arizona mines.jjpke mines in Arizona, from which ores have been sent to 
 San Francisco, are located on both banks of Williams's Fork of the Colorado 
 river, where, there is but little doubt, will very soon be one of the most im- 
 portant copper mining districts on this coast. The existence of the deposits of 
 ore now in course of development at this point was well known for several 
 years before the discovery of the mines in California. A quantity of the ore 
 from some of the mines about Mineral Hill was sent to Boston, as early as 1858, 
 and examined by Doctor Jackson, the distinguished mineralogist of that city, 
 who pronounced them of extraordinary richness. But a variety of causes, 
 among which the want of means for transporting the ore was the chief, pre- 
 vented any advantage being gained by the discovery till 1862 when the owners 
 of the Planet mine shipped about one hundred tons of their ore to San Fran- 
 cisco, where it sold for a price that left a profit of upwards of $1 00 per ton over 
 and above all expenses for its extraction and transportation, the land carriage 
 from the mine to the river, about twenty miles, having been done by pack-mules. 
 A good road has been cut to connect the mines with the river since that time. 
 
 There are nearly fifty good mines in this district on both banks of the river. 
 The Planet is the most important on the south, and the Mineral Hill on the 
 north. The greatest activity has prevailed among these mines during the past 
 year, and about 1,500 tons of ore have been shipped from them all collectively ; 
 the principal shippers being the Planet, Great Central, Mineral Hill, Philadel- 
 phia, Mountaineer, Mammoth, Copper Hill, and Occidental. Ten times the quan- 
 tity shipped might have been sent had there been means for taking it away. Gen- 
 tlemen just returned from fehese mines state that there are upwards of 1,000 
 tons of ore that will average 40 per cent., now lying on the river bank ready 
 for shipment. The steamers and two or three schooners employed in the trade 
 are wholly inadequate for the purpose. 
 
 Some of the mines in this district have been extensively exp%redjby means 
 of shafts, tunnels and drifts, and in nearly every case the body of ore has in- 
 creased in importance in proportion to the extent to which it has been devel- 
 oped. The Mineral Hill company have run "a tunnel on their mine for the 
 length of 350 feet, out of which, while cutting, they took nearly 1,000 tons of 
 ore of an average of 30 per cent., the whole work from the surface being in 
 a body of ore. The ore in none of the mines in the district is found in a regu- 
 lar lode, as in the mines in California, but the whole country appears to be 
 formed of the ores of iron and copper, the hills for miles around being col- 
 ored red by the iron, or green and blue in patches where waters containing car- 
 bonate of lime in solution have percolated through the copper. 
 
 In running the tunnels and drifts through this extraordinary material, the 
 miners run considerable risk of injury by being crushed by heavy masses of 
 ore, which, having been held in place by large quantities of powdery oxide of 
 iron, drop out when they are undermined in cutting the drifts. When such 
 blocks fall out, in some cases hundreds of tons of this dry powder, which is 
 nothing more nor less than iron rust, will come rushing down and block all fur- 
 ther work till the opening can be timbered up. 
 
 The great body of ores found in the district being black and red oxides, sil- 
 icates and carbonates, all of a character that admit of conversion into regulus 
 by the application of heat alone, and by a single process, several of the compa- 
 nies have erected extensive smelting works. Martin & Greenman, who are 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 157 
 
 largely interested in the Mineral Hill mines, are putting up works that will cost 
 nearly $100,000 when completed. 
 
 Some of the ore taken from this extraordinary hill are so exceedingly rich in 
 gold, that a 10-stamp battery is being erected to crush the ore and work it for 
 the gold, by the ordinary processes adopted for saving gold from quartz ; the tail- 
 ings will be afterwards smelted for the copper they contain, nearly 40 per cent. 
 . The gangue rock of nearly all these Arizona ores is composed of spathic 
 iron, heavy spar and quartz ; the ores found in California "being free from gangue 
 rock, though they are generally mixed with the containing slate or serpentine. 
 
 Knowles & Lightner, another firm, extensively engaged in these Arizona 
 mines, are also putting up smelting works on their ground. The Great Central 
 company have a set of such works in active operation, and turning out large 
 quantities of good regulus of about 80 per cent. 
 
 Most of the labor done about these mines is performed by natives, Mexicans 
 and Chinamen. Not more than one-fourth ef the workmen are Americans or 
 Europeans. 
 
 Aubery City is located on the north side of .the fork, and would soon become 
 quite an important place of business if sufficient tonnage could be obtained to 
 carry away the ore that could be furnished by the mines in its neighborhood. 
 
 3. THE GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS IN WHICH COPPER IS FOUND. 
 
 Peculiarities of formations. There are peculiarities about the geological for- 
 mations in which the copper ores are found on this coast, which derive an inter- 
 est from the great extent of country over which they can be traced. "For in 
 stance : Not a single important body of such ore has been found on this coast, 
 either among the coast range, the foot-hills, or among the Sierra Nevadas, ex- 
 cept in the immediate vicinity, if not actually in serpentine or other magnesian 
 rocks or matamorphised slates. This is the case in all the districts above de- 
 scribed, the only exception being at Hope valley, Amador county. For the 
 hundreds of miles over which the great belt of copper ores can be traced, it is 
 never found except in one or the other of these rocks, and invariably without 
 any gangue rock, except this containing slate or serpentine. This great belt of 
 copper ore is never formed except in the immediate vicinity of the auriferous 
 slates and quartz. As has already been mentioned, all the copper found on this 
 coast contains a large per cent, of gold, and many of the most important aurif- 
 erous quartz lodes contain a considerable per cent, of copper ore. In some sec- 
 tions of the State the gold itself is so much alloyed with copper that it is not 
 more than half as valuable as that obtained from other sections. The numerous 
 fossils that have been discovered in both the auriferous slates and in the vicinity 
 of the great copper belt, prove that both formations belong to the same geologi- 
 cal era. It may therefore be reasonable to suppose that the same causes which 
 produced the one, at the same time produced the other. The nature of these 
 causes has not been sufficiently studied to be of any practical use ; though the 
 subject involves many important practical and scientific points, such as the 
 compilation of facts and the observations of practical men in the department 
 you have just inaugurated may throw .much light upon. 
 
 The costs of working tlie copper mines. The cost of working the copper 
 mines on this coast is, under the present system, a great impediment to the 
 development of this source of national wealth. Expenses of. copper mining are 
 much influenced by three conditions : the convenience of the mine to the market 
 for its product, the kind of labor employed, and the position of the mine in 
 reference to facilities for working it. 
 
 The mines at Copperopolis, which are most favorably located with reference 
 to the convenience for sending their ores to market, pay, on an average, about 
 $8 per ton to carry their ore from the mine to the ship which carries it to the 
 
158 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 furnaces, about $15 per ton as freight charges by these ships, and about $4 per 
 ton for bags in which to carry it; or $27 per ton for carrying the ore to the 
 nearest market, a sum riearly equal to the average value of all the copper ores 
 obtained from the mines in England and the continent of Europe. Such mines 
 as are located further inland, or in localities removed from main travelled thorough- 
 fares, have to meet additional costs for transportation. 
 
 This expensive transportation compels a closer examination of the ore than 
 would otherwise be necessary, and this work has all to be done by hand, in 
 order to select only such of it as may be sufficiently rich to warrant the expense, 
 requiring considerable skill on the part of the laborers employed. This opera- 
 tion costs, at a very low estimate, $1 per ton for such ore as may be selected, 
 and causes a waste, in some classes of ore, amounting to ten per cent, by mixing 
 the crumbled rich ore among the slate and refuse, which is thrown on the dump 
 pile, for want of already means for its separation. 
 
 The costs for bags alone, unavoidable under the present system, has been the 
 cause of the stoppage of the work on several good mines. These bags are aii 
 enormous tax on the copper resources of this coast. There are no means, under 
 this system, of avoiding this expense, as shipowners will not carry the ore to 
 New York or Boston unless it is in bags. Occasionally, a cargo of one grade 
 ore has been shipped to Swansea in bulk ; but as it is very rarely that an entire 
 cargo belongs to one party, or is of one grade, it is very rarely that this method 
 of shipment is adopted. These bags are scarcely ever returned, and conse- 
 quently are nearly a total loss. Meader & Co., who are largely connected with 
 the shipping busiuess, secure the return of a small portion of their bags, but as 
 they have undergone the wear and tear of a six months' voyage round the Horn 
 in a damp hold of a ship, and been subjected to the rough handling in scores of 
 movings, they are of comparatively small value when returned. 
 
 The class of laborers employed, and the wages paid for their services, are 
 another material condition greatly influencing the costs of copper mining on this 
 coast. The average wages of copper miners, American or European, in Cali- 
 fornia, except at Copperopolis, is about $3 per day. The Keystone and Union, 
 the two largest companies at that place, pay $2 60 per day to all their laborers, 
 whether they work above or below ground. Other companies in the valley pay 
 $3 per day for drifters, and $2 50 per day for all other laborers. Many of the com- 
 panies in other portions of the State employ Chinamen almost exclusively for 
 all work done above ground, who work for $1 per diem. As these Chinamen, 
 under proper supervision, do as much work, and as well as any other class of 
 laborers, it follows that those companies that employ them effect an important 
 saving of expense. The owners of the Copperopolis mines have not introduced 
 this class of labor in that locality lest it might create disturbances among the 
 miners, of whom there are about eight hundred in the valley. These men, as is 
 usual with their class, have an intense hatred to the Chinese, a feeling which is 
 not by any means allayed by the knowledge that their presence and employment 
 would insure a reduction in the rate of wages. It is quite probable the intro- 
 duction of Chinamen to work on these mines would create considerable disturb- 
 ance. But it is scarcely to be expected that proprietors of mines costing mil- 
 lions of dollars, the returns on which depend on the economy with which they 
 are worked, will be deterred from availing themselves of the services of the 
 cheapest labor in the market, through fear of the acts of any class of citizens. 
 It being so much to the interest of the State that every facility should be 
 afforded to those engaged in developing its mineral resources, any interference 
 on the part of individuals or combinations to prevent the introduction of cheap 
 labor for that purpose would be severely punished. 
 
 The mines in Oregon and in the northern portion of California pay from $2 
 to 83 per day for laborers. 
 
 At the mines in Arizona most of the work is done by Mexicans, who are 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 159 
 
 satisfied with about $30 per month and a certain quantity of provisions There 
 are a good many Chinese employed at these mines, who are paid $30 per month 
 and board themselves. The Americans and Europeans employed are paid from 
 $50 to 60 per month in addition to their board. 
 
 The position of the mine, the facilities it possesses for working, is another im- 
 portant condition connected with the costs. Mines located in the lower level of 
 broad valleys, such as those at Copperopolis, where they have to hoist every- 
 thing taken out of the mine and to lower everything put into it by machinery, 
 and to pump the seepage water of an extensive district from a sump-'hole five hun- 
 dred feet in depth, labor under the greatest possible disadvantage. The costs of 
 engines, their wear and tear, and the expense of their superintendence and re- 
 pair, imposes a cost of more than $5 per ton on all the ores extracted from these 
 mines. It is a fair estimate to calculate that every ton of ore taken from the 
 Union and Keystone mines costs $16 per ton as it reaches J p surface. This 
 calculation includes the division of all the expenses attending the conduct of 
 the business of the mine by the quantity of ore actually shipped. These figures, 
 explaining the costs of working the copper mines when compared with those 
 showing the value of their products, show why so many good mines have stopped 
 work during the past year. 
 
 The present price of fifteen per cent, ore at Swansea and New York is less 
 than $50 per ton. To obtain this it costs the mines at Copperopolis 
 
 For extraction from the mine , $16 
 
 Freight to San Francisco .' 8 
 
 Freight to Swansea or New York 15 
 
 Bags 4 
 
 Sorting 1 
 
 Total.. 44 
 
 This does not include any allowance for loss by broken bags or carelessness 
 in handling after shipment, or expenses for commissions, &c. It must also be 
 remembered that not one-half of the ore extracted from these mines will average 
 fifteen per cent. It is known that Meader, Lalor & Co. have shipped thousands 
 of tons of ore which did not exceed twelve per cant. These Copperopolis mines, 
 exporting nearly three-fourths of the ore, furnisn unmistakable data on which to 
 base a calculation of the very slight margin of profits that arise from copper 
 mining on this coast as at present conducted. 
 
 There are some mines, such as La Victoire, in Mariposa county, and those in 
 some of the northern counties and in Oregon, in which the costs of extraction 
 of the ore does not exceed $4 per ton, as they are worked by tunnels and re- 
 quire no hoisting or pumping. But the cost of transportation is much greater 
 from all these mines than it is from Copperopolis, and the quantity of fifteen-per- 
 cent, ore costs more for selecting. The quantity of carbonates, silicates, and 
 oxides obtainable in any locality in California and Oregon is so unimportant 
 as not to come within range of calculations concerning the costs of regular 
 mining. 
 
 It cannot be possible that this present condition of affairs connected with the 
 copper resources of the Pacific v coast is without remedy, as the annexed table 
 will show. The mines on this coast within five years of their discovery, in spite 
 of every disadvantage of inexperience in the work of. their development and 
 want of knowledge of the nature of their ores, have exported nearly eighty thou- 
 sand tons of ore, valued at the very lowest estimate at upwards of $5,000,000 A 
 national source of wealth so productive in its infancy will not be left to die of 
 inanition for want of the fostering care of the general government. As will be 
 explained anon, to smelt the ores on this coast, with the present price of fuel 
 
160 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 and the metal when made, would be but a partial and temporary remedy, the 
 nal success of which is involved in doubt. The recommendation of the chair- 
 man of the national revenue commission on this very point explains the only 
 effectual plan that will secure the extended development of the copper resources 
 of this coast. The following is a copy of the commissioner's recommendation 
 referred to : " The commission therefore recommend that all excise duties on 
 domestic copper be repealed ; and that the duties on imported copper ores and 
 copper be advanced to a moderate extent, or sufficient to relieve the copper 
 m.ning interests of the United States from the depressing effects of the internal 
 taxes upon their supplies, and to give to it as good a -standing in our own mar- 
 kets, with reference to foreign competition, as they had before the present taxes 
 were imposed." 
 
 4.-REDUCTION OF ORES. 
 
 Processes in use for smelting and concentrating the ores. Numerous plans have 
 been proposed and tested for the purpose of smelting and concentrating the cop- 
 per ores found on this coast, none of which, for causes to be stated, have been 
 entirely successful, though several of them have been partially so. A detailed 
 description of all these various processes, and of the furnaces and apparatus 
 used, while it might be both interesting and instructive, would be out of place 
 in this report. Most of these plans which have been tested, on the large scale, 
 have possessed some novel principle, which might be of advantage if employed 
 in combination with old established processes, by those who possess the neces- 
 sary skill, experience, and judgment to admit innovations upon systems under 
 which they may have been educated. This seeming digression is intended to 
 explain the principal cause of the failure of some of the most costly works that 
 have been erected for the purposes to which this portion of the report refers. In 
 not a few cases, those having charge of these works appeared to labor under 
 the impression that it was so absolutely necessary to follow the old patterns in- 
 troduced from their native land, that some German, French, and Cornish opera- 
 tives seemed to attribute their failure to the fact that the laborers employed, 
 and the materials used, did not understand the German, French, or Cornish 
 language. 
 
 Early in 1862, works of an experimental character were erected at Antioch, 
 on the banks of the San Joaquin river, near the base of Mount Diablo, for the 
 purpose of testing the adaptability of the coal obtained in that vicinity, for 
 smelling purposes; many persons, supposed to be authorities on the subject, 
 expressing the opinion that such coal was unsuited for the purpose. 
 
 These works were erected under the direction of Mr. Thomas Price, an ex- 
 perienced Welsh copper miner, who has for several years been acting as agent for 
 the Swansea smelters* for the purchase of copper ores on this coast a gentle- 
 man of considerable scientific attainments and a first-class practical chemist and 
 metallurgist. It may be proper to state further, that this gentleman, whose 
 opinions on this subject of fuel should have much weight, is also professor of 
 chemistry at the most famous college on this coast, and superintendent at the 
 assaying and refining works of Kellogg, Hueston & Co., the most extensive 
 private establishment in that business in the United States. 
 
 These works put up by this gentleman at Antioch consisted of a reverberatory 
 furnace and roasting kiln, built on the plan of those in use at Swansea, but on 
 somewhat smaller scale, and with a slight change in the form of the grate, to 
 adapt it to the fuel. The furnace has a base of thirteen feet six inches long, by 
 nine feet four inches wide, with a chimney-stack, for the purpose of creating 
 sufficient draft and carrying off the fumes, sixty rfive feet high. All these works 
 were built of the best available materials. 
 
 As stated above, this furnace was built as an experiment, chiefly to test the 
 
WEST OF THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 161 
 
 adaptability of the Mount Diablo coal for smelting purposes to ascertain the 
 quality and quantity of heat it generates. 
 
 It would occupy too much space to enter into any extended details of the 
 nature of this coal ; but it may be necessary, to make the subject plain to those 
 who have never paid any attention to the study of such matters, to state that 
 in a reverberatory furnace the fire in its passage up the chimney strikes the 
 roof, and is forced down upon the ore by means of a " bridge," built between 
 it and the burning fuel. In all flames, no matter how generated, there is one 
 portion more intensely hot than the others. This is called the " reducing flame" 
 because of its action in reducing ores, under certain conditions, into metals. All 
 coals, do not produce a flamo of the same nature or length, and the operation of 
 the reverberatory furnace depends, in a great measure, upon its being so con- 
 structed that the " bridge " is placed so that the reducing portion of the flame 
 is caused to strike the ore at the proper point. 
 
 After this explanation it will not require any technical or scientific knowl- 
 edge of the principles of combustion to understand that a furnace to use fuel, 
 which burns with a short flame and little smoke, requires great modifications in 
 its construction when it is to be used to burn fuel which produces a long flame 
 and much smoke. The experiments at Antioch settled this point clearly, if not 
 satisfactorily, to those interested, and proves, for general information, that fur- 
 naces built on the plan of those used at Swansea, in which the short-flamed 
 Welsh coal is used, are not adapted for the use of the long-flamed coals of the 
 Pacific coast. But the question whether this long-flamed coal could not be 
 used for smelting purposes, in a suitably constructed furnace, remains still un- 
 settled Mr. Price states this Mount Diablo coal could be economically used 
 for that purpose in a properly constructed furnace, but thinks no attempt should 
 be made to proceed any further than in the conversion of the ores into regulus. 
 The price of all descriptions of coal being so much higher on this coast than a 
 better article can be obtained in other countries, the refining of the metal can be 
 more profitably done in those countries. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the company, which expended nearly $50,000 
 in making these experiments at Antioch, did not carry them out to a full con- 
 clusion, by permitting Mr. Price to make such changes in the form of the fur- 
 nace as his skill and experience inay have suggested. But in California, where 
 money commands from 18 to 24 per cent, interest, such experiments are not 
 considered profitable. 
 
 The first bar of metal from the Antioch smelting works was received at San 
 Francisco on the 14th of September, 1863, and created almost as much interest 
 as the first bar of bullion from Washoe. During the time these works were in 
 operation they produced about 200 tons of matt, or regulus, of an average of 
 about 50 per cent., the balance being iron, sulphur, silica, &c. This was obtained 
 from about 2,000 tons of ores from various parts of the State, but chiefly from Cop- 
 peropolis, of an average of about 10 per cent., which the company advertised to 
 purchase at the following prices : 
 
 7J per cent $15 per ton of 2,376 pounds. 
 
 9 per cent 17 per ton of 2,376 pounds. 
 
 10 ' per cent : . 19 per ton of 2,376 pounds. 
 
 11 per cent 21 per ton of 2,376 pounds. 
 
 12 per cent 25 per ton of 2,376 pounds. 
 
 None were accepted below 7j per cent. 
 
 The coal used in the operations cost about $7 per ton delivered on the grounds 
 of the company. One ton of thia coal, it was estimated, would reduce two tons 
 of ore, after the furnace had become thoroughly heated ; but in consequence 
 of the difficulty in obtaining good materials for lining it the furnace was not 
 kept steadily heated. The best imported fire-bricks, in consequence of the ac- 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 11 
 
162 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 tion of the sulphur in the ore, would not endure more than about fifteen days. 
 Work had consequently to be stopped within that period, and everything cooled 
 off, in order to re-line the furnace. This entailed a great loss in the cost of fuel 
 and labor, as well as of metal, and as the works were only calculated to opeiv 
 ate on about eight tons of ore in twenty-four hours, these stoppages absorbed 
 all the profits. 
 
 A Mr. Henry Davis, another practical Welsh copper smelter, who had been in 
 charge of an extensive smelting establishment in Chili previous* to his arrival on 
 this coast, has made a number of experiments at the works at Antioch since 
 they were closed by the original owners. This gentleman also expresses the 
 opinion that the Mount Diablo coal, used in a properly constructed furnace, 
 oculd be profitably employed in the reduction to regulus of such ores as will not 
 pay to ship in bulk. 
 
 The smelting works erected at the Union mine, at Copperopolis, are on a more 
 extended scale than those at Antioch. They cost nearly $75,000, and consist of 
 two cupola blast furnaces, and other buildings, which were erected under the 
 superintendence of M. Desermeaux, a French engineer, on the plans introduced 
 on this coast by M. D'Heirry, a very skilful French metallurgist, who has 
 erected similar works on the Queen of Bronze mine, in Oregon. The whole estab- 
 lishment consists of four large kilns for roasting the ores to deprive them of a portion 
 of their sulphur, two large blast furnaces on the most approved German plan, with 
 a powerful blast set in motion by a 20-horse power steam engine. The kilns are 
 each capable of roasting 500 tons of oie at a batch, which required from 7 to 12 
 weeks to burn, according to the weather and the care taken in laying them. 
 After burning in these kilns the ore was placed in the blast furnaces, which are 
 capable of operating on eight tons of such materials, each, in twenty-four hours. 
 The only flux used in any of the operations was a portion of the slag from pre- 
 vious meltings, or silica in the form of quartz. The ore came from the furnaces, 
 after the first operation in them, in the form of two qualities of regulus, the one 
 containing about 80 per cent, of copper, the other about 40 per cent. This 
 regulus was afterwards broken up and re-melted three or four times, in order to 
 deprive it of all the sulphur, and to oxidize the iron as much as possible. No 
 attempts were made to refine this matt into tough copper. The costs for fuel in 
 these operations were exceedingly heavy, as charcoal, costing from 37 to 50 
 cents per bushel, had to be used This, together with the necessity for hand- 
 ling the materials so many times by expensive and unskilful laborers, rendered 
 the operations so unprofitable that the works were discontinued after a few 
 months' trial not before some 5,000 tons of ores, averaging about 8 per cent., 
 had been converted into regulus, which sold from $200 to $250 per ton, show- 
 ing that these waste ores may be rendered valuable if they can be operated 
 upon by some cheap process. 
 
 The smelting works at the Cosmopolitan mine, at Genesee valley, Plumas 
 county, cost about $30,000. These are constructed on the plan described by 
 Piggott, in his work on copper, somewhat modified by Mr. J. C. Chapman, one 
 of the proprietors of the mine, under whose directions the works were built. 
 The blast here is generated by two double-action piston bellows, four feet in 
 diameter, set in motion by a large water-wheel. No ores have been operated 
 on at this place except oxides, carbonates and silicates, and as long as plenty of 
 such ores were attainable, this company was able to obtain respectable 
 quantities of good matt and inferior copper ; but when the supply ceased, they 
 had to close up their establishment, as it was not adapted to operate on sul- 
 phurets. 
 
 At these works the molten materials were not drawn off into rough bars and 
 reinelted, as at Copperopolis, but they were run into a sort of cauldron built in 
 front of the furnace, in which they were kept sufficiently liquid to allow the 
 copper to fall to the bottom by its superior specific gravity ; and as the slag, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 163 
 
 being the lightest, floated on the surface and cooled 'quickest, it was scraped 
 off and thrown away; the copper, on cooling, readily separating from the reg- 
 ulus which was allowed to cool above it. The latter was remelted and the 
 former was ready for market. The fuel used at these works was pine wood 
 charcoal, costing about thirty-seven cents per bushel. 
 
 Other smelting works, of a novel and very economical and useful character, have 
 been erected on the La Victoire mine, at Hunter's valley, Mariposa county ; at 
 the Buchanan mine, in Merced county; at the Campo Seco mine, in Calaveras 
 county, and at several other mines in various portions of the coast, on a plan 
 introduced by Mr. Nathaniel Haskell, a California mechanic, and called by him 
 the " water-lined cupola furnace." These furnaces are capable of reducing 
 twenty tons of oxides, carbonates, or silicates to good regulus in twenty -four 
 hours. 
 
 The peculiar feature of this useful invention is a " water lining/' which may 
 be described by stating that the cupola consists of two parts, one within the 
 other, like the divisions of an onion. These parts are formed of stout iron boiler 
 plates, strongly riveted at the joints. Between the two there is a space of 
 about six inches ; this is. kept constantly filled with cool 1 water, by means of a 
 tank above. This cool water saves an immense quantity of heat that would 
 otherwise be lost by radiation, and, as a matter of course, affects a correspond- 
 ing saving in fuel. No fire bricks are used in these furnaces, which, besides 
 being a great saving in the consumption of this costly article, affects an addi- 
 tional saving by requiring no time, labor, or heat to be lost in replacing these 
 bricks every few days, as they become destroyed by the heat. A very power- 
 ful and even blast is kept up in these furnaces by a large cylinder bellows, set 
 in motion by a small steam-engine. One of these furnaces, used at the Bu- 
 chanan mine, has produced upwards of 100 tons of good marketable copper during 
 the past year, which has sold at San Francisco for from $300 to $320 per ton of 
 2,000 pounds. That at the La Victoire mine, has only recently been put into 
 operation, but is producing 80 per cent, of regulus at the rate of 24 tons per week. 
 
 It may be quite proper to state that these furnaces are not adapted to operate 
 on ores containing a very large proportion of sulphur, unless they have been 
 thoroughly calcined, and are combined wilh a large proportion of other ores or 
 suitable flux. The sulphur has a very damaging effect on the iron of the cupola 
 when both are heated to the necessary temperature to melt the ore. 
 
 These furnaces will be of great benefit to the owners of mines containing large 
 bodies of oxides, silicates, and carbonates, which* are of too poor a quality to 
 ship to market in bulk. They are very cheap and portable, the cupola, blast, 
 engine, and boiler only costing about $3,000, and all combined only weighing 
 about five tons. 
 
 In 1862 a lady, a Mrs. Hall, invented a novel description of furnace for 
 smelting copper ores, by means of jets of superheated steam being passed into 
 the cupola during the time the fuel and ore were in an incandescent state. To 
 the cupola of this furnace was attached an apparatus for condensing the fumes, 
 previous to their passage into the chimney. This invention was very much 
 lauded at the time by Colonel Charles Harazthy, in a letter published over his 
 own name in the papers at San Francisco. 
 
 The concentrating works erected by the proprietors of the Keystone mine at 
 Copperopolis are on the principle adopted by some of the large copper mining 
 establishments in Cornwall, England. The ores in these works are operated 
 upon by water. The object sought to be obtained is the separation of the 
 gangue rock by means of the difference in the specific gravity and hardness in 
 it and the ores. There are conditions in which this process is quite simple, 
 cheap, and effective. It is so where the ore is contained in a silicious gangue, 
 or in hard spar, in a locality where there is an abundant supply of free water, 
 constantly running, and where there are plenty of cheap laborers to be had 
 
164 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 who understand the details of the operations. But a none of these conditions 
 exist at Oopparopolis, the experiment, which cost about $50,000, if not an 
 absolute loss, has been only so far successful as only to be of use, at a very 
 heavy expense, during a few months in the winter, when the rains fill the com- 
 pany's reservoirs. And then, in consequence of the ore being free from gangue 
 rock, and the containing slate, from which it is sought to separate it, being of 
 nearly the same specific gravity and hardness, it is not possible to save more 
 than three-fourths of it, at a cost of more than it is worth. 
 
 These works have been erected in the best manner and of the best materials, 
 under the directions of Mr. Pawning and his brother, two thorough, practical 
 machinists. In the operation of these works the ore is brought between two 
 heavy iron rollers, where it is crushed as fine as possible, and afterwards led, 
 by means of an endless belt, on to five "jiggers," or shaking tables, which are 
 each contained in a large tank of water. The motion of these tables causes all 
 the lighter particles to float off in the stream of water passing through the tanks 
 These fine particles are collected in "settlers," dried and saved. The coarser 
 grains which do not float off are 'retained in sieves arranged beneath the tables, 
 and are returned to the rollers to be reduced to the proper fineness. The ma- 
 chinery of this cumbrous contrivance is set in motion by a sixty-five horse- 
 power steam engine. 
 
 Many other companies concentrate their ores, to a slight extent, by the process 
 described in the description of the Napoleon mine, given in another portion of 
 this report, with such modifications as the judgment of the parties carrying on 
 the work may suggest, or the necessities of the case may compel. 
 
 The above will probably not be considered a flattering account of the various 
 processes that have been introduced for concentrating and smelting the copper 
 ores found on this coast. But the many failures therein recorded are not of a 
 character to discourage so energetic a people as those of the Pacific coast. 
 
 The want of success is in so many instances so clearly traceable to the want of 
 skill and experience on the part of the operators that it is evident a plan for pro- 
 fitably working the lowest of these ores will be devised when experience shall 
 have taught those engaged in the business the defects and advantages of the 
 various processes now in use. 
 
 The few observations contained in this division of the report should be suffi- 
 cient to convince any reasonable person that the manufacture of refined copper 
 on this coast, with profit, is an impossibility under the present state of affairs. 
 
 In reviewing the above remarks on these processes, it will be observed that 
 the furnace erected at Antioch was erected as much to test the coal as to smelt 
 the ore. It was made of only sufficient capacity to operate upon eight tons of 
 ore in twenty-four hours. This was a serious error and a material source of 
 loss. 
 
 The furnace should have been made of a capacity sufficient to have operated 
 upon at least ten tons. Twelve or fourteen tons would have been better, as it 
 requires nearly the same quantity of fuel and the same amount of labor to 
 operate upon eight tons of ore as it would to operate on ten or twelve tons. 
 
 The furnaces at the copper mines in Chili, which are built on the same general 
 plan, and operate upon ores very similar to those found on this coast; and use a fuel 
 very much like that used here, are constructed of a capacity to work from twelve 
 to fourteen tons of ore in the twenty-four hours. 
 
 The Chilian copper smelters have no better indigenous coal than is to be 
 found on this coast. They are compelled to import the greater portion of the 
 coal used in their works from England. As good an article, and at as low a 
 price, may be obtained here from Sydney, if it is absolutely necessary to im- 
 port any coal at all. 
 
 In California, in consequence of the absence of readily available quantities 
 of oxides, carbonates, and silicate ores, and the preponderance of ores contain- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 165 
 
 ing a large percentage of .sulphur, smelting will always be more expensive than 
 it is where a different class of ores are used, because it is necessary to put such 
 sulphur ores through the preliminary process of roasting, which is costly, slow, 
 and sometimes causes much loss. The object of this process is to expel the 
 sulphur, arsenic, antimony, phosphorus, or other deleterious element that the 
 ore may contain, and to oxidize the iron as much as possible. But if this pro- 
 .cess be carried too far, or the ore contains a very large proportion of the 
 sulphuret of iron, or when the heat becomes excessive, a fusion takes place, 
 which makes the separation of the metal from the sulphur much more difficult. 
 This action in the roasting process caused the loss of many thousands of dollars 
 to the proprietors of the Union mine, by requiring the regulus produced at their 
 smelting works to be roasted three or four times to expel the fused sulphur 
 from it. 
 
 With Sydney coal, which may be landed at San Francisco at $9 per ton, 
 the reduction of low grade ores to 50 per cent, regulus could be made a very 
 profitable investment for capital. The necessary works, if erected on sufficient 
 scale to afford a market for, say, 8 per cent, ores, would give an immense im- 
 petus to the development of the copper resources of the Pacific coast ; because, 
 without some such market, all the ores of that standard will be valueless for 
 many years to come, and they form about seven-eighths of all the ores on this 
 coast. 
 
 To prove that such works would yield a large profit on the capital invested, 
 the following calculation is here given : 
 
 Costs attending the conversion of ten tons of 10 per cent, ore into 45 per 
 cent, regulus : 
 
 Ten tons of ore, at $16 per ton $160 00 
 
 Roasting in heaps, at $1 per ton 10 00 
 
 Six tons of Sydney coal, at $9 per ton 54 00 
 
 Labor of four men 15 00 
 
 Incidental expenses 10 00 
 
 Total costs. . 249 00 
 
 Per contra : 
 Ten tons of the above ore produced two* and three-quarter tons of 
 
 regulus of 45 per cent. This is worth $4 per unit, or. $495 00 
 
 Deduct freight and expenses attending export 100 00 
 
 Leaving balance 395 00 
 
 From this deduct cost of ore and reduction 249 00 
 
 There is a clear profit of 146 00 
 
 This profit would be fully 20 per cent, larger if one thousand tons of ore 
 were operated upon. 
 
 The Bristol copper mine, in Connecticut, when under the management of Mr. 
 H. H. Sheldon, the present superintendent of the Keystone mine, at Copper- 
 opolis, paid a very large revenue to its proprietor from ores that did not exceed 
 3 per cent, in value, on an average. Such a person, after a reasonable amount 
 of experience on this coast, will certainly be able to devise a plan by which 
 ores of three times that value may be worked to a profit. 
 
 Among the principal causes of the failure of the smelting works tried on this 
 coast have been 
 
 1st. The uniform character of the ores operated on. 
 
 2d. The want of experienced and steady, skilled laborers. 
 
 3d. The misconstruction of the furnaces. 
 
166 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 At Swansea the smelters have the advantage of purchasing ores of all or 
 any classes, as all are brought there from many different districts. With 
 this assortment of ores at their command, they can arrange the charges of their 
 furnaces to suit their fuel. On this coast there are no established means for 
 obtaining such a wide selection of ores as will admit of their being combined so 
 as to be worked with advantage. Most of the smelting works which have been 
 tried on this coast operate on the ores from generally the one mine on which 
 they were erected, and these are generally of one class. 
 
 The furnaces built on this coast have generally been copies of such as are 
 used in England, Germany, or France, where fuel of a totally different char- 
 acter is used. The impatience of the parties interested in such works to obtain 
 from them immediate profitable results has prevented the necessary experiments 
 being made to adapt these imported furnaces to our local fuel. 
 
 No smelting works have been carried on long enough on this coast to disci- 
 pline a sufficient number of workmen to conduct the details of the operations 
 with the care necessary to insure success. The few good workmen who have 
 come here from England, France, or Germany, all aspire to be superintend- 
 ents, or to own a mine themselves, without possessing the ability to impart their 
 knowledge to the more intelligent laborers placed under their direction. 
 
 All -these obstacles to success would be in a great measure removed if exten- 
 sive works were to be erected at some convenient central point, where those 
 having- ores to dispose of could always find a fair market. Such works, prop- 
 erly conducted, would yield a liberal return on the money invested in their 
 erection, and would be of incalculable benefit to the copper interests of the 
 Pacific coast. 
 
 The export of copper ores from the Pacific coast. It is difficult to obtain a 
 correct return of all the copper ores exported from this coast, as the custom-house 
 authorities have not kept anything more than an approximating account of such 
 as have been shipped through that department ; the manifests of the vessels in 
 which it has been shipped in many cases not specifying the quantity of ore taken, 
 only giving its value ; in some cases entering it as so many^packages of unspeci- 
 fied merchandise of a stated value. This makes it difficult to estimate the quan- 
 tity, because at the commencement of this exportation the ore was shipped in 
 barrels, casks, and boxes, some of which contained nearly half a ton each, and 
 as the value of the ore differs so much, the value given, if correct, would furnish 
 no basis for calculating the quantity. 
 
 It is through this cause that the published reports of the exports of ore given 
 in the leading commercial papers of San Francisco at stated intervals differ so 
 much with one another. The reports of the exports for the nine months of the 
 present year, published in these papers, are as follows : 
 
 The Alta, 15,174J tons; the Bulletin, 15,3502 tons; the Commercial Gazette, 
 20,S4SJ tons. 
 
 There is considerable discrepancy in these reports, the Gazette being probably 
 nearest correct. 
 
 The following list, compiled from every available source, gives the names of 
 mines which are known to have sent ore to San Francisco, and the quantity 
 purchased from each. There are several firms in that city which purchase or 
 make advances on copper ores. Among those most extensively engaged in this 
 business are Meader, Lalor & Co., Martin & Greenman, Mr. Price, Conroy & 
 O'Conner. None of these parties appear disposed to give information relating 
 to their business, under the impression, perhaps, that such information might in 
 some way or other injure them, and it was not through them directly that this 
 list was made out : 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 167 
 
 List*of mines that have shipped ore. 
 
 Name of mine. 
 
 Where located. 
 
 Quantity 
 shipped. 
 
 
 Copperopolis C alaveras county ............... . 
 
 Tons. 
 56, 542 
 5,719 
 1,500 
 100 
 1,300 
 250 
 4,000 
 3, 000 
 1,500 
 250 
 25 
 
 200 
 12 
 10 
 100 
 100 
 15 
 50 
 26 
 20 
 25 
 2,000 
 20 
 100 
 75 
 100 
 700 
 500 
 
 
 do ..do. . . . 
 
 Copper Hill 
 
 Near Campo Seco Calaveras county 
 
 
 Copperopolis Calaveras county 
 
 
 
 
 Lancha Plana. Calaveras county...... ............. 
 
 
 Gopher hills Calaveras county ........ 
 
 Newton - - ...... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mariposa. county . . ....................... 
 
 Buchanan 
 
 Regulus. 
 Mariposa county ...... ...... 
 
 
 Mt I)iablo Contra Costa county 
 
 
 do . do . ... 
 
 Alta 
 
 Del Norto county . . .................... 
 
 Osos 
 
 San Luis Obispo county " . ........ 
 
 
 Los Ansreles county 
 
 
 .do do 
 
 Copper Creek Company 
 
 
 Trinity Company 
 
 Trinity county .... ...................... 
 
 
 
 
 Mariposa county 
 
 Del Fino 
 
 Lower California, (belongs to Capt. Winder, U. S. A.) 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 Mountaineer 
 
 Arizona (belongs to Capt \Vinder, TJ. S A.) ...... 
 
 Grand Central 
 Planet 
 Mineral Hill 
 
 do do .. do 
 do do do 
 do do do 
 
 A total of 78,239 tons, not including any shipment from the Queen of Bronze 
 or any of the mines in Oregon or Lower California, or any of the many small 
 lots that were shipped as experiments by the mines worked in all parts of Cal- 
 ifornia during the excitement about copper that prevailed during the years 1860, 
 1861, 1862, and 1863. It is quite within limits to estimate the ores received 
 from all unnamed sources since 1860 at 1,761 tons. This, added to the quanti- 
 ties given in the list above, makes a total of 80,000 tons received at San Fran- 
 cisco and exported since the discovery of the mines at Copperopolis. 
 
 The following table giving the exports of copper ores from San Francisco 
 from January, i860, to October, 1866, compiled from the rec <rf s at tnc custom- 
 house and the shipping lists, shows a difference of upwards on?2,000 tons when 
 compared with the list above. This discrepancy can only be explained on the 
 grounds above stated. The books of the principal mines given in this list show 
 that the quantities set opposite their respective names have been actually shipped 
 from them. The ore shipped from the leading mines is calculated according 
 to English weight, 2,376 pounds to the ton. Some of the smaller companies 
 may have estimated their ore by the United States weight, or only 2,000 pounds 
 to the ton ; but this would not account for so large a discrepancy. 
 
168 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Exports of copper ores from San Francisco from January, 1862, to October, 1866. 
 
 Year. 
 
 To New York. 
 
 To Boston. 
 
 To Swansea. 
 
 Total for year. 
 
 1862 
 
 Tons. 
 86 
 
 Tows. 
 3, 574M 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 3, 660^$ 
 
 1863 
 
 1,337 
 
 4, 208^ 
 
 71% 
 
 5, 553$$ 
 
 ]864 . 
 
 4, 905M 
 
 5, 064 
 
 264^ 
 
 10, 234,3, 
 
 1865 
 
 4, 146$, 
 
 9,050 
 
 2. 591 M 
 
 17,787 
 
 1866 
 
 7, 676,1 
 
 3, 415& 
 
 10, 384$- 
 
 21,476]$ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Totals 
 
 20, 151 A 
 
 25, 312$ 
 
 13 248M 
 
 58 712 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The above table includes concentrated ores and regulus, when shipped in bags 
 or barrels, but not metallic copper in pigs or bars, of which there was shipped 
 about 25 tons in 1865 and 3,787 bas, of unknown weight, in 1866. In this 
 quantity is included 120 tons from the smelting works at Buchanan Hollow, 
 Mariposa county, shipped by Coffee & Risdon, of San Francisco. As this metal 
 averages 80 per cent., one ton of it is equal to five tons of 16 per cent. ore. The 
 export of this metal is consequently equal to 1,725 tons of such ore, making a total, 
 when added to quantity in the .first table, of 79,964 tons in round numbers, 
 say 80,000 tons ; in addition to which there are upwards of 2,000 tons of ores at 
 Stockton and San Francisco ready for shipment, awaiting vessels to carry it 
 away, and nearly 20,000 tons are ready for shipment at the various mines, where 
 it is retained in consequence of the very low price of such ores in this market at 
 present ; the whole showing that upwards of 100,000 tons of copper ore have 
 been taken out of the mines of California since their discovery in 1860. Esti- 
 mating this ore at an average value of $50 per ton, which is very much below 
 its actual value, the products of these copper mines since their discovery have 
 added $5,000,000 to the material wealth of the country, and opened a wide field for 
 the employment of the enterprise, capital, and labor of thousands of its citizens. 
 
 A comparison of the product of the copper mines of the Pacific coast with 
 those in other countries may be instructive in this place. Sir Henry De La 
 Beche, the head of the department of mines in England, stated in a lecture given 
 at the great exhibition in London, in 1861, that the average of all the ores of 
 copper produced in Cornwall and Devonshire did not exceed 8 per cent, when 
 dressed, and that the supply was constantly becoming less, and more costly to 
 obtain as the working in the mines became deeper. These two counties are the 
 chief sources of copper in all Europe. Here, on this coast, there are absolutely 
 inexhaustible sources of ores ranging from 10 per cent, to 12 per cent., which 
 may be obtained within a couple of hundred feet of the surface of the ground. 
 
 In the parliamentary returns published by order of the British government, 
 it appears that iAhe year 1861 the gross yield of copper ores in Great Britain, 
 including England, Ireland, and Wales, amounted to 231,487 tons of the value 
 of $6,800,000, or a little over $29 per ton. On this coast, under the present sys- 
 tem, ore of that value would not pay to take it out of the ground. As has already 
 been explained it costs between $40 and $50 per ton to place the ores obtained 
 on this coast in a market. The rates for freight to New York and Liverpool are 
 more than double as high as they were two years ago, in consequence of the 
 great demand for first class vessels to carry grain to those places. 
 
 Concluding remarks. None of the metallic copper made on this coast is suit- 
 able for castings or for rolling into sheets, owing to defects in the processes for 
 refining it. It is too brittle lor rolling, in consequence of containing traces of 
 sulphur. It is too hard for casting, turning, and polishing, and too liable to 
 tarnish and turn nearly black in color, in consequence of containing more or less 
 iron in alloy. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS., 169 
 
 The present depression in the copper mining interests on the Pacific coast 
 has been much increased by the excessive cost of freight to New York and 
 Swansea, which, falling at a time when the ores are of less value than they have 
 been for the past fifteen or twenty years, causes it to be unprofitable to ship 
 those that heretofore have formed the great bulk of the exports. The price of 
 freight at this time is nearly double what it was in 1861 and 1862. To illus- 
 trate this fact, it may be stated that the ship Haze, in 1861, was chartered to 
 carry a cargo to New York for $5,000 in gold. Within the past few weeks the 
 same vessel has been chartered for the same destination for $16,660 in gold, or 
 $25,000 in currency. In 1861 freight to Liverpool was offering at $11 per ton ; 
 at present it is not procurable at less than $17 per ton. 
 
 It will be readily understood that an article, the exports of which, though 
 amounting to two millions of dollars annually, the profits of which are limited 
 to such a slight margin, as already explained is the case with copper ores on 
 this coast, must cease to be a source of revenue to the government, or of employ- 
 ment and profit to the people, when the cost of its production and export ex- 
 ceeds the value of the product. This is a question deserving the most serious 
 consideration. 
 
 The products of the copper mines on the Pacific coast might be greatly in- 
 creased if the legislation of Congress were so framed as to make them profitable 
 to procure. This would increase the taxable property of the country, while the 
 products of the mines, now far below their capacity, would add materially to its 
 absolute wealth ; for if we do produce our own copper, it must be purchased 
 from other nations, for money or produce, as it is indispensable in the arts and 
 manufactures. 
 
 Under our form x of government, with such an extent of territory as we possess, 
 and such an intelligent and enterprising people as inhabit our mineral regions, 
 it should be a paramount object so to regulate the scale of taxes and duties on 
 the products of any branch of national industry as to encourage the labor en- 
 gaged in its development. A sound policy would dictate that so great an in- 
 terest as copper mining is destined to become in the United States should be 
 encouraged by every possible means in its infancy, and until the skill and ex- 
 perience of those interested in its development shall enable them to compete 
 with a reasonable hope of success with the copper miners and smelters of other 
 countries in which the business has been conducted for centuries. This they 
 cannot do at present, nor ever will be able to do, unless they are assisted for a 
 few years by favorable legislation. The duties and taxes, direct and indirect, 
 on copper, under the present system, amount to $4 63 on each 100 Ibs. of 
 American-made metal, while that imported from other countries only pays 
 $2 50 on each 100 Ibs. It is this invidious distinction tkat is crippling the 
 energies of those interested in developing the copper resources of the Pacific 
 coast. A reversal of this state of affairs, the levying of a duty of about $2 50 
 on each 100 Ibs. of foreign copper, over and above what is levied jon our home- 
 produced copper a duty that would inflict no injury on any American interest 
 would immediately revive the now languishing copper interests of the whole 
 country. 
 
 Measured by the facts and figures contained in this report, it requires no stretch 
 of the imagination to comprehend the great national importance of the copper re- 
 sources of the Pacific coast ; already, within five years of their discovery, 
 exporting sufficient ores of unusual richness to produce 10,000 tons of metal an- 
 nuallya quantity nearly equal to one-half of the supply of the whole world 
 twenty-five years ago, and five times as large as the produce of the whole United 
 States only ten years ago ! It requires -but experience and the advantages it 
 gives, and a slight protection on the part of the general government, to make the 
 Pacific coast occupy the same prominence as a copper-producing country that it 
 now occupies as the producer of gold and silver. 
 
170 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 SECTION 6. 
 QUICKSILVER MINES OF CALIFORNIA., 
 
 1. New Almaden mines. 3. Products and exports. 
 
 1. NEW ALMADEN MINES. 
 
 The ore of quicksilver. Cinnabar is the principal and only valuable ore of 
 the mercury of commerce, which is prepared from it by sublimation. 
 
 It is a sulphide (sulphuret) of mercury, composed, when pure, of quicksilver 
 86.2, sulphur 13.8, in which case it is a natural vermilion, and identical with 
 the vermilion of commerce ; but it is sometimes rendered impure by an admix- 
 ture of clay, bitumen, oxide of iron, &c. Cinnabar is of a cochineal red color, 
 often inclining to brownish red and lead gray, with an adamantine lustre, ap- 
 proaching to metallic in dark varieties, and to dull in friable ones. It varies 
 from subtransparent to opaque, has a scarlet streak, and breaks with a sub- 
 conchoidal uneven fraction. H = 2 to 2.5, specific gravity = 8.99. In a matrass 
 it entirely sublimes, and with soda yields mercury with the evolution of sul- 
 phurous fumes. When crystallized it belongs to the rhombohedral system. 
 
 Cinnabar occurs in beds in slate rocks. The chief European beds are at 
 Almaden, near Cordova, in Spain, and at Idria, in Upper Carinthia, where it 
 usually occurs in a massive form, and is worked on a thick vein belonging to 
 the Alpine carboniferous strata. It also occurs in China, Japan, Pluanca Vilica, 
 in South Peru, and at New Almaden, in California, in a mountain east of San 
 Jose, between the bay of Francisco and Monterey, where it is very abundant 
 and easy of access. lire's Dictionary. 
 
 Classes of cinnabar ores. Gruesa is the best quality or first class, in 
 pfieces eight to twelve inches or more in diameter ; mostly pure ore of cinnabar, with 
 little or no admixture of refuse rock. 
 
 Grauza is the second quality, in pieces of three to eight inches, generally 
 containing a considerable proportion of rock. It is either taken from the mine 
 in such pieces or is broken off from larger pieces of rock in the yard. 
 
 Tierras earth or dirt is the lowest quality, and is not taken into account 
 in the ores produced at the mine ; neither are the miners paid for it. It is made 
 into bricks and sun-dried previous to being reduced in the furnaces. Each 
 adobe or brick weighs about twelve and a half pounds. 
 
 The "carga" or load of ore is considered to be three hundred pounds. 
 
 Extracts of a report by Professor B. Si/liman, jr., from ihe American Journal 
 of Science and Arts for September, 1864. 
 
 The New Almaden quicksilver mines are situated on a range of hills subor- 
 dinate to the main Coast range, the highest point of which at the place is twelve 
 to fifteen hundred feet above the valley of San Jose. Southwest of the range 
 which contains the quicksilver mines, the Coast range attains a considerable 
 elevation, Mount Bache, its highest point, being over thirty-eight hundred feet 
 in height. 
 
 New Almaden is approached by the railroad running from San Francisco to 
 San Jose, a distance of forty-five miles. In the course of it there is a rise of one 
 hundred feet, San Jose being of this elevation above the ocean. From San 
 Jose to New Almaden the distance is thirteen miles, with a gradual rise of one 
 hundred and fifty or perhaps two hundred feet. 
 
 The rocks forming the subordinate range, in which the quicksilver occurs, 
 are chiefly magnesian schists, sometimes calcareous and rarely argillaceous. As 
 a group they may be distinguished as steatitic, often passing into well-charac- 
 terized serpentine. Their geological age is not very definitely ascertained, but 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 171 
 
 they are believed by the officers of the State geological survey to be not older 
 than cretaceous. But few fragments of fossils, and these very obscure, have 
 yet been found in these metamorphic rocks. At a point just above the dumps, 
 behind the reduction works at the hacienda (or village,) there is an exposure, 
 in which may be clearly seen in projecting lines the waving edges of contorted beds 
 of steatite and serpentine, interspersed with ochrey or ferruginous layers, more 
 easily decomposed ; and the partial removal of the latter has left the steatitic 
 beds very prominent. 
 
 The mine is open at various points upon this subordinate range over a dis- 
 tance of four or lire miles, in a northeast direction. The principal and the 
 earliest workings of the mine were in a right line, but little more than a mile 
 distant from the hacienda. The workings are approached, however, by a well- 
 graded wagon road, skirting the edges of the hills, which is two and three 
 eighths miles in length. 
 
 It appears, partly from tradition, and partly from the memory of persons now 
 living, that the existence of cinnabar upon the hill was known for a long time 
 prior to the discovery that- it possessed any economic value. In fact, upon the 
 very loftiest summit of this subordinate range, cinnabar came to the surface, and 
 could be obtained by a slight excavation or even by breaking the rocks lying 
 upon the surface. In looking about for physical evidences such as would aid 
 the eyes of an experienced observer in detecting here the probable presence of 
 valuable metallic deposits, one observes on the summit of the hill, at various 
 points along the line of its axis for two or three miles, and also beyond, toward 
 the place called Bull Run, occasional loose boulders of drusy quartz, with more 
 or less well- characterized geodes and combs ; accompanying which is an 
 ochraceous or ferruginous deposit, such as frequently forms the outcrop of 
 metallic veins. There is, however, no such thing as a well-characterized vein, 
 the quartz and its associated metals occurring rather in isolated masses or 
 bunches segregated out of the general mass of the metamorphic rocks, and con- 
 nected with each other, if at all, somewhat obscurely by thread veins of the same 
 mineral. 
 
 The main entrance to the mine at present is by a level about eight hundred 
 feet long, and large enough to accommodate a full-sized railroad and cars. This 
 level enters the hill about three hundred feet from its summit, and is driven into a 
 large chamber, formed by the removal of a great mass of cinnabar, leaving 
 ample space for the hoisting and ventilating apparatus employed in working 
 the mine. 
 
 At this point a vertical shaft descends to an additional depth of nearly three 
 hundred feet, over which is placed a steam " whim" with friction gearing and wire 
 rope, worked by a steam-engine, and by means of which all the ore from the 
 various workings of the mine is conveniently discharged from the cars, which 
 convey it out of the level.to the dressing floors. 
 
 In order to reach the lower workings of the mine, the observer may employ 
 the bucket as a means of descent, or he may, in a more satisfactory manner, 
 descend by a series of ladders and step, not in the shaft, but placed in various 
 large and irregular openings, dipping for the most part in the direction of the 
 magnetic north, and at an angle of thirty to thirty-five degrees. These cavities 
 have been produced by the miner in extracting the metal, and are often of vast 
 proportions ; one of them measures one hundred and fifty feet in length, 
 seventy feet in breadth, and forty feet in height ; others are of smaller dimn~ 
 sions ; and they communicate with each other sometimes by narrow passages, 
 and at others by arched galleries cut through the unproductive serpentine. 
 
 Some portions of the mine are heavily timbered to sustain the roof from 
 crushing, while in other places arches or columns are left in the rock for the 
 same purpose. 
 
 The principal minerals associated with the cinnabar are quartz and calcareous 
 
172 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 spar, which usually occur together in sheets or strings, and in a majority of cases 
 penetrate or subdivide the masses of cinnabar. Sometimes narrow threads of 
 these minerals, accompanied by a minute coloration of cinnabar, serve as the 
 only guide to the miner in re-discovering the metal when it has been lost in a 
 former working. 
 
 Veins or plates of white massive magnesian rock and sheets of yellow ochre 
 also accompany the metal. Iron pyrites is rarely found, and no mispickel was 
 detected in any portion of the mine ; running mercury is also rarely, almost 
 never, seen. 
 
 The cinnabar occurs chiefly in two forms, a massive and a sub-crystalline. 
 The first is fine granular, or pulverulent, soft, and easily reduced to the condi- 
 tion of vermillion; the other is hard, more distinctly crystalline, compact and 
 difficult to break; but in 'neither of these forms does it show any tendency to 
 develop well-formed crystals. It is occasionally seen veining the substance of 
 greenish white or brown compact steatite or serpentine. 
 
 The ores are extracted by contract, the miners receiving a price dependent 
 upon the greater or less- facility with which the ore can be broken. By far the 
 larger portion of the v/ork-people in the mines are Mexicans, who are found 
 to be more adventurous than Cornishmen, and willing oftentimes to undertake 
 jobs which the latter have abandoned. The price paid for the harder ores in 
 the poorer portions of the mine is from three to five dollars per carga of three 
 hundred pounds. This weight is obtained after the ore is brought to the sur- 
 face and freed by hand breaking from the superfluous or unproductive rock ; by 
 this arrangement, the company are secured from paying for anything but pro- 
 ductive mineral. All the small stuff and dirt formed by the working of the 
 " labors," are also sent to the surface to form the adobes used in charging the 
 furnaces. 
 
 It has often happened in the history of this mine, during the past fifteen 
 years, that the mine for a time has appeared to be completely exhausted of ore. 
 Such a condition of things has, however, always proved to be but temporary, 
 and may always be avoided by well-directed and energetic exploration. Upon 
 projecting, by a careful survey, irregular and apparently disconnected chambers 
 of the mine in its former workings in a section, there is easily seen to be a 
 general conformity in the line of direction and mode of occurrence of the pro- 
 ductive ore-masses. These are found to dip in a direction toward the north, in 
 a plain parallel, for the most part, to the pitch of the hill, but at a somewhat 
 higher angle. An intelligent comprehension of this general mode of structure 
 has always served hitherto in guiding the mining superintendent in the discovery 
 of new deposits of ore. 
 
 Since the settlement of the famous lawsuit, which has so long held this com- 
 pany in a condition of doubt, the new parties, into whose hands the property 
 has now passed, have commenced a series of energetic and well-directed ex- 
 plorations at various points upon the hill, with a view... to the discovery of ad- 
 ditional deposits of ore. At one of these new openings, distant at least five 
 hundred feet from the limit of the old workings, and not more than two hundred 
 feet from the summit of the hill, a deposit of the richest description of the softer 
 kind of cinnabar has been discovered, which, so far as hitherto explored, has a 
 linear extent of at least seventy or eighty feet, and in point of richness has 
 never been -surpassed by any similar discovery in the past history of the mine. 
 A charge of one hundred and one thousand pounds, of which seventy thousand 
 were composed of this rich ore, thirty-one thousand pounds of "granza" or 
 ordinary ore, and forty-eight thousand pounds of adobes, worth four per cent., 
 making a total charge of one hundred and five thousand eight hundred pounds, 
 yielded, on the day of our visit, four hundred and sixty flasks of mercury at 
 seventy-six and a half pounds to the flask. This yield is almost without 
 parallel in the history of the mine. The only preparation which the ores un- 
 
'WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 173 
 
 dergo, preparatory to reduction, consists of hand breaking or "cobbing" for 
 the removal of the unproductive rock. 
 
 The small ores and dirt hoisted from the mine are made into " adobes " or 
 sun-dried bricks, sufficient clay for the purpose being associated with the ore. 
 The object of these "adobes" is to build up the mouths of the furnaces to sus- 
 tain the load of richer ores. No flux is employed, there being sufficient lime 
 associated with the ores to aid the decomposition of the sulphurets. 
 ... The furnaces are built entirely of brick, in dimensions capable of holding 
 from sixty thousand to one hundred and ten thousand pounds, according to the 
 character of the ores employed. The chambers are fired from a lateral furnace, 
 fed with wood, and separated from the ore by a wall pierced with numerous 
 openings by the omission of bricks for that purpose. 
 
 Connected with the furnace is a series of lofty and capacious chambers, afeo 
 of masonry, through which the whole product of combustion is compelled to 
 pass alternately above and below from chamber to chamber, until all the available 
 mercury is condensed. The draught from these furnaces is carried by inclined 
 stacks up to the top of a lofty hill several hundred feet distant ; and here the 
 sulphurous acid and other effete products of the furnace are discharged. Formerly 
 no precautions were taken to prevent the escape of mercury through the foun- 
 dations of the furnace to the earth beneath ; now the furnaces stand upon double 
 arches of brickwork, and plates of iron are built into the foundations, so as to 
 cut- off entirely all descending particles of the metal and turn them inward. 
 To be convinced of the importance of this precaution, it is sufficient to watch 
 the operation of the furnace for a few moments, when an intermittent stream 
 may be seen to flow into a reservoir provided for it, and which by the former 
 process was completely lost in the earth. 
 
 On taking up the foundations of some of the old furnaces, within the last two 
 years, the metal was found to have penetrated, or rather permeated, completely 
 through the foundation and clay of the substructure down to the bed-rock be- 
 neath, a depth of not less than twenty-five or thirty feet. Over two thousand 
 flasks of mercury were thus recovered in a single year from the foundations of 
 the two furnaces. This loss is entirely avoided by the improved construction 
 which has been adopted. 
 
 The whole process of reduction is extremely simple, the time occupied from 
 one charge to another being usually about seven days. The metal begins to 
 run in from four to six hours after, the fires are lighted, and in about sixty hours 
 the process is completed. The metal is conducted through various condensing 
 chambers, by means of pipes of iron, to a " crane-neck," which discharges into 
 capacious kettles. It undergoes no further preparation for market, being quite 
 clean from all dross. 
 
 Property of the company. The landed estate of the Quicksilver Mining Com- 
 pany consists, therefore, of seven thousand eight hundred acres, or a fraction 
 over twelve square miles, of which more than one-third is mineral ground, tra- 
 versed by veins of cinnabar which have been traced for miles and tested in more 
 than a dozen places, and of which the celebrated New Almaden mine, which 
 has produced, prior to its possession by this company, more than fifty thousand 
 tons of ore, yielding about twenty-four million pounds of quicksilver, is but a 
 single development. 
 
 The permanent improvements upon the property of the company consist of- 
 Dwelling-houses, workshops, and stores at the hacienda 61 
 
 Dwelling-houses, workshops, and stores at New Almaden mine 276 
 
 Dwelling-houses, workshops, and stores at Enriqueta mine 55 
 
 Dwelling-houses on the farms - - - 13 
 
 Total.. 405 
 
174 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The buildings cost over $160,000. 
 
 There are six furnaces at the Hacienda, costing about $100,000. 
 
 The railway from the mouth of the New Almaden mine to the furnaces, one 
 and one-quarter mile in length, was completed in December last, and cost about 
 $12.000. 
 
 The population located upon the lands of the company, and nearly all in it3 
 employ, are as follows : 
 
 | At the Hacienda 286 
 
 jAt New Almaden village 1, 396 
 
 jAt Enriqueta village 176 
 
 {On the farms 85 
 
 Total . 1,943 
 
 The inventory of personal property at the several mines, exclusive of ores on 
 hand, amounts to the sum of $113,876. 
 
 2. PRODUCTS AND EXPORTS. 
 Produce of quicksilver at New Almaden, from July 1, 1850, to August 31, 1863. 
 
 
 1/3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dates. 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 S 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 0> 
 
 s 
 
 | 
 
 CO 
 
 C3 
 
 3 
 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 
 
 PM 
 
 ^ 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 
 Flasks. 
 
 Flasks. 
 
 Flasks. 
 
 July, 1850, to June, 1851.. 
 
 12 
 
 4,970,717 
 
 35.89 
 
 23, 875 
 
 
 23, 875 
 
 July, 1851, to June, 1852. 
 
 12 
 
 4, 643, 290 
 
 32 17 
 
 19,921 
 
 
 19 921 
 
 July, 1852, to June, 1853.. 
 
 12 
 
 4, 839, 520 
 
 27.94 
 
 18,035 
 
 
 19,035 
 
 July, 1853, to June, 1854.. 
 
 12 
 
 7, 448, 000 
 
 26.49 
 
 26, 325 
 
 
 26, 325 
 
 Julv, 1854, to June, 1855 
 
 12 
 
 9, 109, 300 
 
 26 23 
 
 31 860 
 
 
 31 860 
 
 July, 1855 to June 1856 
 
 12 
 
 10 355 200 
 
 20 34 
 
 28 183 
 
 
 28 183 
 
 July, 1856, to June, 1857.. 
 
 12 
 
 10, 299, 900 
 
 18.93 
 
 26, 002 
 
 
 26, 002 
 
 July, 1857, to June, 1858.. 
 
 12 
 
 10, 997, 170 
 
 20. 05 
 
 29, 347 
 
 
 29, 347 
 
 July, 1858 toOct 1858 
 
 4 
 
 3 873 085 
 
 20 05 
 
 10 588 
 
 
 10 588 
 
 Nov. 1858 to Jan 1861 
 
 
 Mine 
 
 closed 
 
 
 tion 
 
 
 Feb. , 1861", to Jan. , 1862 . . 
 
 12 
 
 13, 323, 200 
 
 18.21 
 
 32, 402 
 
 2,363 
 
 34, 765 
 
 Feb., 1862, to Jan., 1863.. 
 
 12 
 
 15,281,400 
 
 19. 27 
 
 39, 262 
 
 1, 129 
 
 40, 391 
 
 Feb., 1863, to Aug., 1863.. 
 
 7 
 
 7, 172, 660 
 
 18.11 
 
 17, 316 
 
 2,248 
 
 19, 564 
 
 Total 
 
 10 yrs #nd 
 
 102 313 442 
 
 
 302 916 
 
 5 740 
 
 308 756 
 
 
 llmos. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 General average from furnaces 22.20 per cent. Produce of quicksilver 23, 519, 834 pounds. 
 
 NOTE. By the terms of the compromise with Messrs. Barren & Co,, in August, 1863, 
 the New Almaden mine was to be held and worked by them for the benefit of this, the Quick- 
 silver Company, during the months of September and October, and the company was to as- 
 sume the entire control on the 1 st of November. 
 
 During these two months the product was as follows : September, 2,371 flasks ; October, 
 3,149 ; total product, 5,520, or 422,280 pounds. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 175 
 
 Tabular statement showing llie 'product of all the furnaces from November, 
 1863, to December, 1864, inclusive. 
 
 Months. 
 
 Total quantity of ore reduced. 
 
 Graeso. Granza. Tierras 
 
 5*38 
 
 H<<_ 02 
 
 "O 0.2 . 
 
 Total quicksilver. 
 
 I 
 Flasks. Pounds. 
 
 Nov., 3863.. 
 Dec., 1863.. 
 Jan., 1864.. 
 Feb., 1864.. 
 Mar., '1864.. 
 April, 1864.. 
 May, 1864.. 
 June, 1864.. 
 July, 1864.. 
 Aug., 1864.. 
 Sept., 1864,. 
 Oct., 1864.. 
 Nov., 1864.. 
 Dec,, 1864.. 
 
 Totals... 
 
 13 
 
 18 
 19 
 16 
 20 
 17 
 21 
 25 
 28 
 28 
 28 
 31 
 34 
 34 
 
 16, 200 
 
 38, 600 
 
 27, 000 
 4,500 
 
 46, 100 
 259, 500 
 174, 700 
 
 38, 800 
 160, 800 
 161,600 
 115,700 
 133,800 
 '45, 400 
 
 93, 000 
 
 628, 100 
 
 958, 400 
 
 432, 800 
 
 , 042, 800 
 
 ,318,500 
 
 , 012, 900 
 
 ,155,300 
 
 , 567, 200 
 
 , 838, 500 
 
 , 806, 600 
 
 ,841,300 
 
 , 828, 600 
 
 2,115,500 
 
 2,018,700 
 
 347, 200 
 
 371,800 
 302, 800 
 166,400 
 172, 600 
 189, 400 
 272, 500 
 312, 700 
 288,100 
 273, 600 
 273, 200 
 286, 400 
 326, 200 
 424, 000 
 
 999, 500 
 1,369,000 
 1,462,600 
 1,213,700 
 1,607,200 
 1,389,800 
 1,604,500 
 1,918,500 
 2, 287, 400 
 2,231,800 
 2, 230, 700 
 2,314,300 
 2,488,100 
 2, 535, 700 
 
 1,604 
 2,436 
 2,381 
 1,979 
 3,443 
 3, 252 
 3,022 
 3, 377 
 4,801 
 4,674 
 3,947 
 4,004 
 3,511 
 3,775 
 
 120, 300 
 182,700 
 178, 575 
 148,425 
 358, 975 
 243, 900 
 226, 650 
 253, 275 
 360, 075 
 350, 550 
 296, 025 
 300, 300 
 263, 385 
 283, 125 
 
 332 1,314,200 
 
 20, 326, 000 
 
 4, 005, 900 
 
 25, 646, 100 
 
 46,216 
 
 3,566,200 
 
 Total product from furnaces 46,216 flasks. 
 
 Total product from washings ^ 720 flasks. 
 
 Total , 46, 936 flasks. 
 
 Average per cent, of all ore reduced, tierras deducted, 16.49. 
 
 Tabular statement showing the gross product monthly for 1865. 
 
 Flasks. Pounds. 
 
 January 3, 768 288, 252 
 
 February 3, 512 268, 668 
 
 March *3, 427 262, 165J 
 
 April 4, 050 309, 825 
 
 May 4, 501 344, 326J 
 
 June 3, 961 303, 016 
 
 July 3, 671 280, 831 
 
 August 4, 470 341, 955 
 
 September 4, 598 351, 747 
 
 October 3, 010 230, 265 
 
 November 3, 839 293, 683 
 
 December 4, 271 326, 731 
 
 47, 078 3, 604, 465J 
 
 Product from washings 116 
 
 47, 194 
 
 [From official report of Mr. Bond, the vice-president, for 1665.] 
 
 J " The quantity of ore mined and reduced was 31,948,400 pounds, or about 
 16,000 tons, and the general average of all the ore reduced, allowing 3 per cent, 
 for tierras, was 12.43 per cent. 
 
 " It will be noticed that while the production of quicksilver during 1865 has 
 been in excess of any previous year, yet it has not increased in proportion to 
 
176 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES. 
 
 the increased quantity of ore mined. The average percentage of 1864, as 
 shown by the last year's report, was 16.40 per cent., and for the ten years pre- 
 ceding was 22.20 per cent." 
 
 Tabular statement showing the gross product monthly for 1866. 
 
 January . . 
 February . 
 March ... 
 
 April 
 
 May 
 
 June 
 
 July 
 
 August . . . 
 September 
 October . . 
 
 Flasks. 
 3,950 
 3,703 
 3,043 
 1, 000 
 2,900 
 2,100 
 3, 173 
 3,180 
 3, 190 
 3,190 
 
 Total 30, 029 
 
 Comparative statement of quicksilver exported from California to various coun- 
 tries from 1859 to 1864. 
 
 To 
 
 1859. 
 
 1860. 
 
 1861. 
 
 1862. 
 
 1863. 
 
 1864. 
 
 New York .. .. 
 
 Flasks. 
 250 
 
 'Flasks. 
 400 
 
 Flasks. 
 
 600 
 
 Flasks. 
 2,265 
 
 Flasks. 
 95 
 
 Flasks. 
 1,695 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 
 
 2, 500 
 
 1,500 
 
 1,062 
 
 1,609 
 
 Mexico .... ................. 
 
 103 
 
 3, 886 
 
 12,061 
 
 14,778 
 
 11,590 
 
 7,483 
 
 Ohi&B 
 
 1,068 
 
 2, 725 
 
 13, 788 
 
 8,725 
 
 8,889 
 
 18, 908 
 
 Peru 
 
 571 
 
 750 
 
 2,804 
 
 3,439 
 
 3,376 
 
 4,300 
 
 Chili 
 
 930 
 
 1,040 
 
 2,059 
 
 1,746 
 
 500 
 
 2,674 
 
 Central America 
 
 
 
 110 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 
 30 
 
 Japan 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 25 
 
 
 262 
 
 Australia 
 
 325 
 
 100 
 
 1,850 
 
 800 
 
 300 
 
 103 
 
 
 133 
 
 130 
 
 57 
 
 424 
 
 120 
 
 45 
 
 Victoria, V.I 
 
 19 
 
 327 
 
 116 
 
 5 
 
 42 
 
 21 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 3,399 
 
 9,448 
 
 35, 995 
 
 33,747 
 
 26, 014 
 
 36,918 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 And the exports previously have been 
 
 Flasks. 
 
 Inl858 24,142 
 
 In 1857 27,262 
 
 In 1856 23,740 
 
 Flasks. 
 
 In 1855 , 27,165 
 
 In 1854 20,963 
 
 In 1853 18,800 
 
 Exports to January 1, 1866. 
 
 At the commencement of the year 1865, the company had under consignment 
 and on hand 20,396 flasks of quicksilver, in addition to the quantity, 7,396 
 flasks, consigned through Messrs. Alsop & Co., which was distributed as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Consigned to China 7 
 
 Consigned to Mexico .}. 4 
 
 Consigned to Peru 1, 000 
 
 Consigned to Chili 600 
 
 Consigned to New York 1, 200 
 
 Consigned to London 1, 600 
 
 000 
 250 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 177 
 
 Consigned to Oregon 30 
 
 Consigned to Australia 100 
 
 On hand in Nevada 1, 854 
 
 On hand in California 2, 762 
 
 Total flasks ,20, 396 
 
 The product for 1865 has been distributed as follows : 
 
 Consigned to China 14, 250 
 
 Consigned to London 10, 400 
 
 Consigned to Peru - 5, 500 
 
 Consigned to Chili 2, 000 
 
 Consigned to New York 6, 800 
 
 Consigned to Mexico. *. 2, 650 
 
 Consigned to Australia 200 
 
 Consigned to Oregon 280 
 
 On hand in Nevada 4, 64 1 
 
 On hand in California 473 
 
 Total flasks.. . 47,194 
 
 Total number of flasks to be accounted for . 67, 590 
 
 The number of flasks sold from these consignments during the year, and 
 accounts therefore closed and settled, were 19.756, as follows : 
 
 Sold in China 4, 000 
 
 Sold in New York 4, 500 
 
 Sold in Mexico 450 
 
 Sold in Australia 100 
 
 Sold in London. 1, 600 
 
 Sold in Peru 1, 000 
 
 Sold in Nevada 6, 495 
 
 Sold in Colifornia 1, 350 
 
 Sold in Oregon 261 
 
 Total flasks . . .19, 756 
 
 Flasks remaining on hand January 1, 1866, and to be accounted for.. 47, 834 
 
 This quicksilver was distributed as follows : 
 
 Consigned to China 17, 250 
 
 Consigned to Mexico 6, 450 
 
 Consigned to New York 3, 500 
 
 Consigned to London , 10, 400 
 
 Consigned to Chili 2, 600 
 
 Consigned to Peru 5. 500 
 
 Consigned to Australia 200 
 
 Consigned to Oregon 49 
 
 On hand in California 1> 885 
 
 Total flasks 47, 834 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 12 
 
178 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The quantity consigned through Messrs. Alsop & Co., on hand January 1, 
 18G5, 7,396 flasks, has been sold, making the total sales for account of the com- 
 pany, during the year 1865, 27,152 flasks. 
 
 The foregoing statement includes only the shipments and sales of quicksilver 
 which have been closed and finally settled. In addition to the above, the com- 
 pany have received advices of the sales in China and London of about 10,000 
 flasks. 
 
 Products of other quicksilver mines in California during the year 1S66. 
 
 Guadalupe, average flasks per month 150 
 
 New Idria, average flasks per month. 500 
 
 Knox & Redington, average flasks per month 300 
 
 SECTION 7. s 
 BORAX, SULPHUR, TIN, AND COAL. 
 
 1. Principal borax countries. 2. Manufactured borax. 3. Discovery of borax in Califor- 
 nia. 4. Product of borax in California. 5. Process of working. 6. Deposits of sul- 
 phur. 7. Tin. 8. Coal. 9. Iron. 
 
 1. PRINCIPAL PLACES WHERE BORAX IS FOUND. 
 
 Prior to the discovery of borax in California, the principal localities in which 
 .the borates were found were at Halberstadt, in Transylvania, at Viquentizoa 
 and Escapa, in Peru, in the mineral springs of Chambly, St. Ours, &c., Canada 
 West, and in certain salt lakes of India, Thibet, and other parts of Asia, whence 
 the greater part of the borax of commerce was formerly obtained. 
 
 * " The salt separated from these waters by evaporation, either natural or 
 assisted by artificial contrivances, is sent to Europe as crude borax or tincal, 
 sometimes in large regular crystals, but more frequently as a white or yellowish 
 white mass, which is very impure, containing lime, magnesia, and alumina, and 
 likewise covered over with a greasy substance, (said to be added to diminish the 
 risk of breakage during transport.) According to analysis by Kichardson and 
 Bronell, crude Indian borax contains : 
 
 Boric acid, (anhydrous) 22.88 40.24 24.41 
 
 Soda ' . . : 12 .59 11.11 1 1 .71 
 
 Chloride of sodium .92 0.11 .21 
 
 Sulphate of sodium 0.13 0.49 2.84 
 
 Sulphate of calcium 1 .36 .68 1 .36 
 
 Insoluble matter 17.62 1.37 20.02 
 
 Water 44.50 46.00 39.45 
 
 300.00 100.00 100.00 
 
 2. MANUFACTURE OF BORAX. 
 
 " The purification or refining of this crude Asiatic borax has been carried on 
 from very early times in various seaport towns in Europe, especially at Venice, 
 
 and more lately at Amsterdam." 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 * Dictionary of Chemistry, by Henry Watts, vol. 1, p. 646. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 179 
 
 " The greater part of the borax used in the arts is now* prepared in France 
 by treating the native boric acid of Tuscany with carbonate of sodium, according 
 to a method first practiced by Payen and Cartier." 
 
 3. DISCOVERY OF BORAX IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The following extracts from a report by Dr. John A. Veatch, dated June 28, 
 1857, give a succinct and very interesting history of the discovery of borax in 
 California : 
 
 " Since the demonstration of the existence of boracic acid and the borates in 
 California in quantities sufficient for commercial purposes, a history of the dis- 
 covery and a description of some of the more important localities of these useful 
 products become matters of some interest. 
 
 " I believe I was the first to detect the borates in mineral waters in this State, 
 and perhaps, as yet, the only observer of their localities. My attention was 
 first drawn to this subject by noticing crystals of bi-borate of soda in the arti- 
 ficially concentrated water of a mineral spring which I chanced at the time to 
 be examining for other matters. This water was from one of the several springs 
 since known as the Tuscan springs, and which have gained some fame, and 
 very justly, I believe, as medicinal waters. The spot has been described by Dr. 
 Trask under the name of the Lick Springs, and is so designated on Britton and 
 Key's late map ; lying on the north part of Tehama county, eight miles east of 
 Red bluff. The crystals alluded to were observed on the 8th day of January, 
 1856. Several pounds were subsequently extracted by evaporating the water 
 to a certain degree of concentration and allowing the borax to crystallize. The 
 pioneer specimens of this product were deposited in the museum of the Cali- 
 fornia Academy of Natural Sciences, as an evidence of the existence of a new 
 and important link in the chain of our mineralogical productions, showing that 
 along with the rich productions of the noble and useful metals, we have also the 
 mineral substance so essential to their easy application to the purposes of man, 
 
 " The water, holding in solution so valuable a product, was thought worthy of 
 a critical analysis ; and consequently at an early period the aid of a chemist of 
 this city was invoked. The reported result, which I placed at the disposition 
 of Dr. Trask, was thought worthy of a place in his geological report of that 
 year, and appears in it. My mind being now alive to the subject, I learned, upon 
 inquiry, of other localities whjch I supposed might yield the borates. One of 
 these, near the mouth of Pitt river, forty miles north of the Tuscan springs, I 
 had the pleasure of visiting in company with Dr. Wm. 0. Ayres, in April, 1856. 
 Specimens there 'obtained yielded the borate salts ; and, from a subsequent exr 
 amination of the intermediate country, several similar localities were found. 
 The quantity was too small to be of any practical importance, but the prevalence 
 of the salt gave encouragement to further search. A reconnoissance of the 
 "coast range" of mountains, from the neighborhood of Shasta over a length of 
 some thirty miles towards the south, brought to light borates in the numerous 
 small springs abounding in that region, but only in minute quantities. These 
 springs were found almost exclusively in the sandstone, or in the magnesian 
 limestone overlaying it ; and the borates seemed to abound in localities bearing" 
 indications of volcanic disturbance. Thus a kind of guide was obtained in the 
 prosecution of further explorations. I began to entertain hopes of finding 
 streams with stronger impregnations, or accumulations, of the borates in salt 
 lagoons said to exist in Colusi county, where the sandstone formation was largely 
 developed, the adjacent foot-hills presenting volcanic features. Hunters told 
 tales of mineral springs of sulphurous and bitter waters ; of lakes of soda, and 
 alkaline plains, white with efflorescent matters, in that region. Not being in a 
 
 * Prior to the discovery of borax in California. 
 
180 . RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 situation immediately to visit those inviting localities, I had, for the time, to 
 content myself with pointing out to the hunters and others occasionally passing 
 through that country such appearances as I wished particularly to be noted. 
 Their reports, together with specimens sometimes furnished, were all corrobora- 
 tive of the correctness of my theory. Colonel Joel Lewis, of Sacramento City, 
 who occasionally visited the coast range on hunting excursions, and to whom 
 I explained the object of my search, and who, although not a scientific man, 
 is an intelligent observer, had the kindness to look, in his peregrinations, for 
 certain indications. He subsequently informed me by letter that he had met 
 with an Irishman, living in Bear valley, who had found a 'lake of borax,' as 
 it was pronounced by an Englishman who lived with the Irishman, and who 
 had been at one time employed in a borax manufactory in England, and there- 
 fore assumed to speak knowingly on the subject. He also informed me in the 
 same letter that a Major Vanbibber, of Antejope valley, had discovered large 
 quantities of nitre in the same neighborhood. These glowing reports led me to 
 hasten the excursion I had so long contemplated. In a personal interview with 
 the colonel he told me of an enormous mass, of a white, pulverulent substance, he 
 had himself observed near the margin of Clear lake, of the nature of which he 
 was ignorant. Mr. Charles Fairfax, who was with the colonel at the time, stated 
 to me that a small rivulet running at the base of the white hillock was an in- 
 tensely impregnated mineral water, totally undrinkable, as he had accidentally 
 discovered by attempting to slake his thirst with it. From the meagre informa- 
 tion gathered from these gentlemen, I was led to hope the ' hill of white powder,' 
 as they termed it, might prove to be borate of lime. I determined to satisfy 
 myself by a personal examination at once, and I finally induced Colonel Lewis 
 to act as my guide by furnishing him with a horse and paying expenses. It was 
 some time in the early part of September of last year that he and I left Sacra- 
 mento for the localities that had so much excited my hopes. At the town of 
 Colusi, which we reached by steamer, horses were obtained, and we proceeded 
 in a westerly direction across the Sacramento valley to the foot-hills of the 
 coast mountains, a distance of about twenty miles. That portion of the plains 
 skirting the hills gave unmistakable evidence of a heavy charge of mineral salts, 
 and the exceedingly contorted and interrupted state of the hill strata enabled 
 me at once to predict the presence of the beloved borates, which chemical trial 
 on some efflorescent matter taken from a ravine proved to be the case in a slight 
 degree. At this point we entered ' Fresh-water canon,' which cuts the hills and 
 forms a pass way into Antelope and Bear valleys. Here I received information 
 from a settler of a hot sulphur spring a few miles south of Bear valley, on one 
 of the trails leading to Clear lake. This spring we succeeded in finding on the 
 following day. It was with no small pleasure that I observed the outcropping 
 magnesian limestone in the hills surrounding the valley of the springs. The 
 strong smell of sulphureted hydrogen, and the appearance of a whitish efflores- 
 cence on the rocks, manifested, even at a distance, almost the certainty of find- 
 ing the mineral I sought. The indications were riot deceptive. The efflorescence 
 proved to be boracic acid, in part, while the hot, sulphurous water held borate 
 of soda in solution, together with chlorides and sulphates. There are three hot 
 springs at this place, and several cold ones, all alike strongly impregnated with 
 common salt and borax. The quantity of water yielded in the aggregate is 
 about one hundred gallons per minute the hot and cold springs yielding about 
 equal quantities. The temperature of the hot water is 200 Fahrenheit, and 
 that of the cold 60 Fahrenheit. The same phenomenon occurs here that is ob- 
 served at the Tuscan springs, viz., free boracic acid in the efflorescence on the 
 margin of the springs, while the water itself shows a decided alkaline reaction. 
 A careful examination proves that the efflorescent matters come directly from 
 the waters of the spring taken up by capillary attraction of the soil and evapo- 
 rated by the air. The singular fact may be accounted for by the decomposition 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 181 
 
 of tlic borates by the sulphuric acid generated by atmospheric action on the sul- 
 phur in which the soil abounds ; or the same decomposition may be produced 
 by the hydrosulphuric acid passing up in gaseous form from the laboratory 
 nature has established beneath. The same action, doubtless, takes place in the 
 water, but the boracic acid set free is at once taken up by the excess of alkaline 
 matter, while, in the efflorescence, no fresh supply of alkali offering, the acid 
 remains in its free state when once displaced by more powerful acids. 
 
 " These springs seem to be identical in the character of their waters with the 
 Tuscan springs, and therefore doubtless possess the same extraordinary 
 medicinal virtues. As a source of borax these springs could be made avail- 
 able, but as the owners of this locality possess others of superior richness, it 
 is not likely to be ever called to yield its mineral treasure. The situation is 
 a pleasant and romantic one. The distance from the town of Colusi is thirty- 
 five miles, over mostly a smooth and pleasant road. From Clear lake it is 
 eighteen miles, and over rather a rough country. The Indian name of the 
 place is Co-no-to-tok, a generic word having reference to the white appearance 
 of the ground. Mr. Archibald Peachy located a three-hundred-and-twenty- 
 aere school land warrant on this place in behalf of the borax company. After 
 satisfying myself with the examination of this interesting spot, noting nothing 
 of interest save a ' soda spring,' the water being impregnated to a remarkable 
 degree with carbonic acid gas, about eight miles from the lake. A chemical test 
 also detected boracic acid in smajl quantity. The following day we reached 
 the 'Hill of White Powder,' the goal of our hopes, on the margin of Clear * 
 lake. This White Powder Hill,' the goal of our hopes, proved an illustration 
 of how little the recollections of mere casual observers are to be depended 
 upon. The hill, in place of "consisting of materials in a state of disintegration, 
 so as to admit of being ' shoveled up,' as my friend supposed, proved to be a 
 concrete volcanic mass, bleached white by sulphurous fumes, and looking, at a 
 little distance, like a huge mass of slaked lime, which the inattentive ob- 
 server might readily suppose to be a 'hill of white powder.' The hope of a 
 treasure in the form of borate of lime vanished forever. 
 
 " The road had been rather toilsome, the weather exceedingly hot, and my 
 guide not very well ; and as he had gone the full length of the contemplated 
 journey, and felt somewhat disgusted at the result so far, and had nothing 
 more to draw his attention in this direction, he proposed to return at once by 
 the way of the- Irishman's 'borax lake' and Vanbibber's nitre 'placer. This 
 was agreed upon ; so, collecting a few specimens of efflorescent matters from 
 the ground, and filling a bottle with the water in the ravine, I closed the ex- 
 amination of the ' Hill of White Powder.' The ravkie I afterwards called the 
 " boracic acid ravine," and the white hill is now called ' Sulphur Bank.' Of 
 these I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. 
 
 " Before leaving the neighborhood I determined, however, to know something 
 more of its surroundings. 1 learned, upon inquiry of Mr. Hawkins, who lives 
 near the spot, that a place not far off, known by the name of Alkali lake/ 
 presented a rather peculiar appearance. Hawkins consented to act as my 
 guide. After travelling a short distance, and clambering to the narrow edge 
 of an almost precipitous mountain ridge, we looked down the opposite slope, 
 equally steep, on a small muddy lake that sent up, even to our elevated posi- 
 tion, no pleasant perfumes. Thus, on one of the hottest days September ever 
 produced, without a breath of air to dilute the exquisite scent exhaled from 
 two hundred acres of fragrant mud, of an untold depth, I slid down the 
 mountain side into ' Alkali lake,' waded knee-deep into its eoapy margin, 
 and filled a bottle with the most diabolical watery compound this side the 
 Dead Sea. Gathering a few specimens of the matter encrusting the shore, I 
 hastened to escape from a spot very far from being attractive at the time, but 
 which 1 have since learned to have no prejudice against. Of this place 1 shall 
 
182 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Lave occasion to say more. On my return to Hawkins's, who had the kind- 
 ness to entertain me with the genuine hospitality of a frontiersman, I looked to 
 iny last specimens and found encouraging results in the partial chemical ex 
 animation I was able to give them. I now again placed myself under the 
 guidance of my friend Lewis, and we started for the Irishman's house in Beai 
 valley. We found the owner of the ' borax lake,' but the borax had evap- 
 orated with the water and left nothing but common salt, tinged of a beautiful 
 bluish red color, which I suppose had given the notion that it was something 
 out of the usual way. It was the only specimen of salt I remember to have 
 seen in the coast range that contained no boracic acid in any form ; it was 
 guiltless of even a trace. The next step was to examine the nitre region. 
 Major Vanbibber, the reputed discoverer, being a grandson of Daniel Boone, 
 ought to possess, one would suppose, an hereditary knowledge of one of the 
 essential constituents of gunpowder ; and as Colonel Lewis had shown me a 
 specimen of very pure nitre, which he said the Major had given him, I rather 
 expected to find a lew more left. This, however, was rather worse than the 
 ' borax lake ' disappointment ; the major had actually forgotten where the 
 lake was, and whether there were any more specimens than those he gave 
 Lewis. The major, I believe, must really have forgotten, for upon subsequent 
 examination the specimen proved to be refined saltpetre that undoubtedly came 
 from some shop or drug store. 
 
 " There was certainly a mistake about its origin ; but I felt amply repaid for 
 a hard day's ride in spending a night under the hospitable roof of a direct de- 
 scendant- of the renowned 'Backwoodsman of Kentucky.' I observed near 
 the major's house a small pond. Some salt crystals I picked up had the pecu- 
 liar bevelled angles indicating the presence of borax. The quantity was in- 
 considerable. Thus ended my first expedition to Clear lake. We here set our 
 faces direct for Colusi, as there seemed nothing more to be seen ; and as I had 
 engaged the horses we rode at rather a high per diem, I felt anxious to termi- 
 nate the trip. From Colusi my guide returned to Sacramento and I to Red 
 Bluff ; from there I came again to San Francisco, for the purpose of testing my 
 specimens more critically than I was able to do in the country. 
 
 " Convinced of the lichuess of my ' Alkali lake' specimens, it remained to be 
 seen whether the quantity was sufficient to justify the hope of making it avail- 
 able for practical purposes. A further and more strict examination was neces- 
 sary. I felt, too, the propriety of a thorough exploration betwixt the Bluff 
 and Clear lake, and more thence to the bay of Sail Francisco, thus rendering 
 continuous the reconnoissance from Pitt river to the last-named point, a dis- 
 tance, in a direct line, of two hundred miles. After a hard struggle for the 
 funds requisite, I returned to Red Bluff ; and from thence, in company with my 
 son, commenced a pretty thorough examination of the coast range and the ad- 
 joining edge of the Sacramento valley. 
 
 " Nothing of much importance presented itself until reaching a saline district, 
 about eighty miles south of Red Bluff. It is one of the branches of Stony 
 creek. Valuable salt springs exist here. The water contains the borates in 
 minute quantities ; and one spring was remarkable for the enormous proportion 
 of iodine salts held in solution. In our slow, onward progress borax now and 
 again manifested itself; but as it had grown familiar, I no longer went into 
 ecstacies over a mere trace. I still treated, however, the slightest indications 
 with due deference, and noted their localities. 
 
 " In due time I again reached the ' white hill.' The disgust of the first disap- 
 pointment had worn off', and I felt disposed to re-examine the locality more 
 critically. I now discovered, for the first time, that the 'white hill' was 
 mostly a mass of sulphur, fused by volcanic heat. The external dust, com- 
 posed of sulphur, mixed with sand and earthy impurities, and formed a concrete 
 covering of a whitish appearance, hiding the nature of the mass beneath. On 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 183 
 
 breaking the crust, numerous fissures and small cavities, lined with sulphur 
 crystals of great beauty, were brought to light. Through the fissures, which 
 seemed to communicate with the depth below, hot aqueous vapors and sulphur- 
 ous fumes constantly escape. The fused mass, covering many acres and ex- 
 hibiting a bluff iront some forty feet high, is exceedingly compact and pon- 
 derous in structure; of various shades, from yellow to almost black. It seems 
 to be very pure sulphur. The quantity is enormous, and at no distant day may 
 be made available, 
 
 "From the ' sulphur bank ' I again turned my attention to the ravine. The 
 water, as I had before ascertained, was strongly impregnated with boracic acid, 
 in a- free state. The stream is small, yielding only about three gallons per 
 minute, and is soon lost in the sandy soil, in its progress toward the margin of 
 the lake. From the porous nature of the ground surrounding the spring, and 
 saturated with the same kind of acid water, it is probable a large quantity escapes 
 without making its appearance on the surface. The soil for some yards on either 
 side of the ravine is, to the depth of an inch or two impregnated with boracic 
 acid in summer. Sulphuretted hydrogen escapes in continued bubbles through 
 the water, a feature common to all the borax localities I have yet found ; in 
 some places, however, the carburetted takes the place of the sulphuretted hydro- 
 
 gen. The head of this ravine is about three hundred yards from the margin of 
 lear lake, winding around the base of the 'sulphur bank,' receiving some 
 small springs in its course, which seem to have their origin beneath the sulphur. 
 The flat land bordering the lake, some eight acres in extent, through which the 
 ravine runs, shows a strong impregnation of boracic acid in its soil. The point 
 where the ravine enters the lake is marked by a large quantity of water of a 
 boiling temperature, issuing through the sand, a little within the margin of the 
 lake. This percolation of hot water covers an area of one hundred and fifty by 
 seventy-five feet. This fact I observed on my second visit, but not until the 
 third or fourth visit did I ascertain that the water contained a considerable quan- 
 tity of borax, along with an access of boracic acid. From a gallon I obtained 
 four hundred and eighty-eight grains of solid matter, consisting of borax, boracic 
 acid, and a small portion of silicons and other earthy impurities. On digging 
 to a slight depth just outside the lake, the hot water burst up and ran off freely. 
 From one of these places a stream issued of sixty gallons per minute. I have 
 estimated the entire quantity at three hundred gallons per minute, and feel very 
 confident of being largely within bounds. The stream seems to come from the 
 direction of the sulphur bank, and it would probably be easy to intercept it be- 
 fore it enters the lake, by digging a little above high-water mark. It may be 
 well to note here, that the difference between high and low water marks in Clear 
 lake is never more than three feet. 
 
 " The enormous amount of borax these springs are capable of yielding would 
 equal half the quantity of that article consumed both in England and America. 
 The large quantity of water in which it is dissolved would, of course, involve 
 the necessity of extensive works for evaporation. Graduation, as a cheap and 
 effective method of evaporation, would be exceedingly applicable here, from the 
 continued prevalence of winds throughout the entire year. These winds blow- 
 ing almost unceasingly from the west, form a peculiar feature of the country 
 about Clear lake. 
 
 "There is nothing to hinder the manufacture of many million pounds of borax 
 per annum, at a cost but little beyond that of producing salt by graduation. 
 Fuel for final evaporation could be had in any quantities from the extensive oak 
 forest in the immediate vicinity. With these observations I dismiss this locality, 
 adding, however, that Mr. Joseph G. Baldwin located this with a four hundred 
 and eighty acre school land warrant, for the benefit of a borax company. 
 
 " Having wandered from my story of my second visit to the ' sulphur bank,' 
 and blended with it observations made in several subsequent examinations, I 
 
184 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 now turn to my second' visit to ' Alkali lake, or Lake Kaysa, as the Indian? 
 call it. I need only say, however, I became fully satisfied of the great value 
 of the locality, the extent of which has only been recently developed. I ob- 
 served that the lake itself contained but little water, but that wells dug any- 
 where near its margin immediately filled with the same kind of water ; the con- 
 clusion, therefore, was, Vhat an almost inexhaustible supply was obtainable. I 
 learned, too, that what seemed to be mud at the margin and shelving off and 
 covering the entire bottom to the depth of some feet, was a peculiar jelly-like 
 substance of a soapy feel and smell. This matter I found to be so rich in borax, 
 that I supposed it might be advantageously used for the extraction of the mine- 
 ral. Thus satisfied of the value of the lake, I little thought that within a few 
 yards of me lay an additional value in the form of millions of pounds of pure 
 borax crystals, hidden by the jelly-like substance I was then contemplating. 
 This important fact was not observed until some six months afterwards. 
 
 " This locality is by far the most important of any I have yet discovered. It 
 is situated, as may be seen by reference to the accompanying map, in the angle 
 formed by the two prongs into which Clear lake is divided at its eastern extremity. 
 The. elevated hill land that fills the angle separates into two sharp ridges, each 
 following its division of the lake and leaving a valley between, of a triangular 
 shape, near the apex of which lies Alkali lake. Clear lake is, therefore, on two 
 sides of it, distant to the north about a mile, and to the south about half the 
 distance. The open part of the triangular plain looks to the east, and expands 
 into an extensive valley, from which it is cut off, partially, by a low volcanic 
 ridge running across from one hill to the other, and thus enclosing the triangle 
 
 " This ridge is composed of huge masses of rock resembling pumice-stone, 
 which float like cork in water. A thin stratum of ashy-looking soil, scattered 
 over with obsidian fragments, covers the ridge and affords root to a stunted 
 growth of manzanita shrubs. 
 
 " The whole neighborhood bears marks of comparatively recent volcanic ac- 
 tion. Indeed, the action has not ceased entirely yet ; hot sulphurous fumes 
 issue from several places on the edge of the ridge just named, on the side next 
 Alkali lake. 
 
 " The ' lake,' as it is called, is rather a marsh than a lake. In winter it 
 covers some two hundred acres, with about three feet depth of water. ' In the 
 dry portion of the year it shrinks to some fifty or sixty acres, with a depth of 
 only a few inches. The ' soapy matter ' covers the entire "extent with a depth 
 of nearly four feet, the upper part, for a foot in depth, being in a state of semi- 
 fluidity, the lower having the consistency of stiff mortar. Beneath this is a 
 rather tenacious blue clay. This water was nearly as highly charged with 
 solid matter as that of the lake in its highest summer concentration ; the pro- 
 portion of borax to other substances being greater. The soapy or gelatinous 
 matter, however, presents the greatest feature of attraction, being filled with the 
 prismatic crystals of pure borax. They vary, from a microscopic size up to the 
 weight of several ounces. These crystals are semi-transparent, of a whitish or 
 yellowish color. The form is an oblique rhomboidal prism, with replaced edges 
 and truncated angles. In some cases the edges are bevelled, and in others the un- 
 modified hexahedral prism exists. Beneath the gelatinous matter, and on the 
 surface of the blue clay, and from sixteen to eighteen inches in it, crystals 
 of a similar form, but much larger, are found. They weigh from an ounce, 
 and seem to have been formed under different circumstances from the 
 other crystals. My first impression was that they had been formed in the 
 upper stratum, and, sinking by their own gravity, had found their present posi- 
 tion. An examination proves, however, that they were formed where they lie, 
 as particles of the blue clay are found enclosed in their centres, which could not 
 have been the case had the upper crystals been their nuclea, for no blue matter 
 is ever found in them. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 185 
 
 " The first inquiry of practical interest relates to the quantity of borax already 
 formed. On this subject I cannot speak with perfect confidence. The quan- 
 tity is very considerable, but I do not lock on the experiments heretofore made 
 to test this matter as conclusive. The area covered by the crystalline deposit 
 is not coextensive with that of the lake, but has been found over a space oi 
 about twenty acres in the examination made so far. A very valuable collateral 
 product, iodine, with the compounds of which the water seems to be exceed- 
 ingly rich, could be made a source of revenue with but little additional expense. 
 "With regard to the quantity of iodine I cannot speak positively, not having 
 isolated the product ; but from the brilliant reaction with the qualitative tests, 
 there can be no doubt of its being great. Should this article be manufactured 
 largely the sulphuric acid required might be made on the spot from the pro- 
 ducts of the ' sulphur bank,' one and a half mile distant. With this I leave 
 ' Alkali lake.' I would state that I located this place in my own name for 
 the company. 
 
 "' There is yet another important boras locality in the same vicinity, resem- 
 bling much the foregoing in its more prominent features. It consists of a pond 
 of water of about twenty acres. The bottom is covered with the same soap- 
 like substance, but seems to contain no crystals. The water contains less solid 
 matter in solution, but the percentage of borax is greater in proportion to the 
 other substances than in the Alkali lake. The borax separates readily by 
 crystallization, and forms about thirty -three per cent, of the whole matter. Like 
 the foregoing, this pond has no outlet and no visible source of supply ; yet it is 
 said never to be dry, although the water is never more than three feet deep. 
 It would perhaps be a profitable source of borax if the millions of pounds the 
 before-described localities are capable of yielding be not enough to supply the 
 demand. It is in the midst of a magnificent grove of pines and oaks. This 
 place was taken by Mr. Archibald Peachy, by the location of a three-hundred- 
 and-twenty-acre school land warrant. The borates are also known to exist in other 
 localities between Clear lake and Napa City. In Siegler valley there is a hot 
 spring, in the waters of which 1 detected borate of strontia and other borate 
 salts. Near Napa there is a borate spring, and one in Suisan valley, near the 
 marble quarry. None of these places are important. The foregoing are the 
 only borax localities known in the northern part of this State ; and I feel con- 
 fident there are no others in that quarter that can ever compete with the inex- 
 haustible stores of the Alkali lake and the hot springs. I had expected to find 
 something worthy of attention at or in the neighborhood of the geysers, but 
 there was no trace of borates in the hot waters of those springs, nor anywhere 
 totally in the surrounding district. The geological features of the country were so 
 different from those of that where I had theretofore found the borates, that I was 
 able to predict as soon as I saw it that nothing of the kind existed. In a hasty 
 reconnoissance of the great Tulare valley I found traces, but nothing more, of 
 these substances. I have reasons for doubting the existence of any largo 
 quantities in that region. That portion of the valley bordering on the Coast 
 range might be worth examining further. It is there, if] anywhere, valuable 
 deposits may be looked for. 
 
 " There probably are as many as three districts in the lower part of the State 
 presenting the borates. One or more valuable localities may probably be found 
 among them." 
 
 4. PRODUCT OF BORAX IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Up to this date but one borax company has been formed in California. There 
 was some talk of organizing another company eight or nine months since, the 
 parties interested having discovered on the shores of Owen's lake, in the southern 
 part of the State, a substance resembling the borate of lime of South America 
 
186 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 but an analysis of some specimens and of the waters of the lake showing no 
 trace of borax, the project was abandoned. The California Borax Company is 
 the only company on this coast of which I have any knowledge. This company 
 produces at present about two tons of crude crystals daily. Their process is 
 simple, the entire machinery consisting of six small coffer-dams, six feet square 
 each, open at top and bottom. By means of floats these coffer-dams are sunk 
 in the mud ; the water is then bailed out, and the finer crystals extracted by 
 washing, as in placer gold-washing. 
 
 5. PROCESS OF WORKING. 
 
 The mud taken from different parts of the lake after the crystals have been 
 extracted in this primitive way give, by analysis, from 11.9 to 18.7 per cent of 
 prismatic borax, and from virgin mud, partially dried, from which the borax has not 
 been extracted, a result of 31^ crystallized borax is obtained. Several tons 
 of the mud, which had been worked over by the coffer-dams, were treated prac- 
 tically by lixiviation, and gave the following results : 
 
 Fine prismatic borax, 15 per cent. ; carbonate of soda, 28J per cent. ; common 
 ealt, 8J percent.; equal to 51f per cent, -Thus yielding in the three salts more 
 than one-half the weight of the whole. The mud partially dried lixiviates easily, 
 and the salts are separated without difficulty. 
 
 When the company's works are completed the present mode of production 
 will be discontinued. 
 
 The fine crystals are found in the upper layer or stratum of soft mud to the 
 depth of about six feet. They dissolve easily, and are subsequently reformed in 
 large crystals by the process of boiling and crystallization. Below the first stra- 
 tum is a stiff, blue mud containing the largest crystals, which are picked out by 
 band, the mud being too stiff to be treated by washing. The quantity ob- 
 tained by the present process could be increased by increasing the number of 
 coffer-dams. This has not been done for the reason that the company have been 
 engaged during the summer in the erection of expensive works for the treatment 
 of the mud by lixiviation, having found by analysis and by actual experiment 
 that for every pound taken out by the coffer-dam washing process fourteen or 
 fifteen pounds go back into the lake, where it is held in solution or in minute 
 crystals by the liquid mud. It is expected that they will be in successful opera- 
 tion by next spring, when, it is confidently anticipated, the 'capabilities for pro- 
 duction will be practically unlimited. 
 
 Borax lake covers two hundred and nineteen acres in the latter part of the 
 summer.* At other seasons it covers quite four hundred acres, of which about 
 three hundred acres may be considered as borax ground. The average depth 
 of the water is about two and a half feet. It is the mud, -however, which con- 
 tains the borax in large quantities. The first eight and a half feet average 15 
 per cent, borax, 28 per cent, carbonate of soda, and 8^ per cent, common salt. 
 Below the depth of eight and a half feet the smallness of the coffer-dams has pre- 
 vented their working, hence it is not known how much further down this high 
 average will continue. At the depth of sixty feet the mud brought up by an 
 artesian borer give by analysis but 3.51 per cent, of borax*. The intermediate 
 points between eight and a half and sixty feet have not yet been tested. The 
 artesian borer was sent up for the purpose of testing the ground at all depths, 
 but, being worked by inexperienced hands, was broken on the first trial after 
 having reached the depth of sixty feet. 
 
 An estimate of average workings shows that twenty cubic feet of mud will 
 yield one ton, so that taking the number of square feet to the acre, the numbei 
 of fert already tested, and the percentage of borax contained in the mud, an 
 approximate idea may be formed of the value of this deposit. 
 
 * Report of United States surveyor general of California. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 187 
 
 The company estimate that if the crystallization which is going on all the 
 time were to cease suddenly, they would still have a deposit of at least two 
 thousand tons of borax and eight thousand tons of carbonate of soda to the 
 acre. 
 
 Besides the innumerable boracic springs -which find an outlet in the bed of the 
 lake, there are other springs on the same property which deposit boracic acid 
 over a large surface of ground. These are not worked for the reason that the 
 lake furnishes the borax itself in such great abundance. 
 
 Under the impression that the total consumption of borax in Great Britain 
 was less than 2,500 tons per annum, the company proposed, limiting the capa- 
 city of their works to about eight tons a day. Recent information, however, 
 satisfies them that the actual consumption in Great Britain is upwards of 11,000 
 tons. They profess to be able to place borax in London cheaper than it can be 
 manufactured there, which, at the lowest estimate, is five cents per pound. The 
 carbonate of soda will pay the cost of production. 
 
 The cost of labor at borax lake is $31 per month. The laborers employed 
 are Chinese, and they find themselves. Fuel is abundant all over the hillsides. 
 Transportation to the bay of San Francisco is $15 per ton. 
 
 In 1865 this company exported 1,707 cases of borax, valued at $38,765; and 
 during the first nine months of 1866 they have exported 1,998 cases, valued at 
 $42,235, and there is a steadily increasing demand for it in the markets of the 
 Atlantic States, as its great purity is becoming known. The imports of this 
 article on this coast have nearly ceased since this California product has been 
 introduced. The superintendent of the mint, all the assayers and manufac- 
 turers who use this article in their operations, combine in stating that it is far 
 better than any imported. 
 
 There are several lakes among the Sierra Nevadas in the States of California 
 and Nevada, the waters of which contain large quantities of boracic acid in so- 
 lution. But the only place on the coast, if not in the world, where it is found 
 in a crystalline form in such abundance, is in the coast range. 
 
 6. DEPOSITS OF SULPHUR. 
 
 There are sulphur deposits in many parts of the State, but only one thus 
 far has been worked successfully that belonging to the Borax Company, near 
 Clear lake, which has been in operation about four months. The capacity of 
 the present refinery is from six to ten tons per day, depending on the variable 
 quality of the material worked. 
 
 Along the entire base of the sulphur hills flow innumerable boracic acid 
 springs. Near the shores of the lake are boiling springs of borax. 
 
 7. TIN. 
 
 [From the Geological Survey of California, vol. I, page 180, by Prof. J. D. Whitney.] 
 
 The Temescal range was, in 1860 and 1861, the scene of a great excitement 
 on the subject of tin, whicft metal was supposed to occur here in large quantity, 
 hundreds of claims being taken up, covering all the hills and ridges for miles 
 around. *Tin ore was undoubtedly found at one locality in these hills and in 
 considerable quantity, as specimens of it have been seen in various collections 
 from San Francisco to New York. The ore, which appears to be a mixture of 
 cassiterite, (tin stone, or oxide of tin,) with more or less earthy or mineral 
 matter, resembling a mixture of hydrous oxides of iron and manganese, is quite 
 unlike in appearance to any previously seen, and its true character would hardly 
 have been recognized by the most practiced mineralogist. Some specimens, 
 assayed in New York and Boston, gave as much as 60 per cent, of the metal. 
 
 The locality from v/hich this ore was obtained was the so-called Cajalco 
 
188 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 mine, about three miles north of the Temescal ranch-house. Here a shaft had 
 been sunk, in the winter of J860- ? 61, to the depth of thirty-six feet; but it was 
 partly filled with water and inaccessible at the time of our visit. A great num- 
 ber of the claims taken up in this vicinity were visited. They seemed nearly 
 all to be located on seams or streaks of dark hornblende running irregularly 
 through the granitic and highly metamorphic rocks. Although there was no 
 appearance of tin about any of these, or any signs of regularity in the "leads," 
 a great many specimens were collected and carefully assayed for tin, without 
 there being a trace of that metal found in any one of them. The excitement 
 has undoubtedly long since died away, and it is not probable that the mass of 
 the ore in the Cajalco mine was very extensive, or more would have been heard 
 of it before this time.* At all events, it is a singular and interesting occurrence 
 of this metal, and we know of no other locality on the Pacific coast north of 
 Mexico where tin ore has been found in place. A single fragment of this sub- 
 stance was given us, apparently under circumstances justifying credence in the 
 discovery, as having been found loose in the soil in the northern part of the State, 
 near Weaversville ; but the vein from which it was derived has probably never 
 been discovered, as such a fact could have hardly failed to become widely 
 known. 
 
 A belt of limestone crosses through Temescal valley, as was recognized from 
 the occurrence of numerous fragments of this rock on the surface. The bed 
 itself we were unable to discover. It is of a light brown color, semi-crystalline 
 in texture, and contains minute organic bodies, of which the exact nature could 
 not be made out. 
 
 8. COAL. 
 
 SIR: In accordance with your request, I herewith submit a report on the 
 coal mines of the west coast of North America, the character of the coal, the 
 present condition of the mining interests, and a table of statistics of the amount 
 consumed in San Francisco during the last six years. The latter item is prac- 
 tically a statement of the actual yield of our domestic mines, inasmuch as San 
 Francisco is almost the only market, the outside consumption barely amounting 
 to ten per cent, of the amount used in this city. 
 
 I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 W. M. GABB. 
 
 J. Ross BROWNE, Esq. 
 
 Mr. GabVs Report. 
 
 The great coal-bearing formations of the world, those from which the coals 
 of Pennsylvania and the Mississippi valley are obtained, are not represented 
 on the Pacific slope of the North American continent. It is not to be under- 
 stood, however, that the carboniferous formation is the only one in which valu- 
 able deposits of coal have been found. Every one of the great groups of rocks 
 has been found to yield coal in workable quantities in some part of the world. 
 The brown coal of Germany, of nearly the same geological age as that of the 
 Oregon mines, has been worked for many years with profit. So also the cre- 
 taceous coal of California has its analogue in New Zealand. In the older 
 formations, the Jurassic, triassic, and permian rocks, intermediate in age between 
 the coals of California and those of the great coal-fields of the Atlantic slope, 
 all yield their stores of carbonized plants to the mirier, whether under the name 
 of coal or lignite. 
 
 The coal deposits of the Pacific may b^ divided into two distinct groups, 
 
 * The cause of the suspension of operations on these mines, as alleged by persons living 
 in Los Angeles county and familiar with the circumstances attending the discovery, is that 
 the claims are in litigation. J. R. B. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 189 
 
 geologically. The older, including all of the workable coals of California, as 
 well as that of Washington Territory and Vancouver island, belongs to the 
 cretaceous formation, the analogue of the white chalk of England. This 
 formation consists here of two members, the older of which contains the north- 
 ern coal deposits ; and, although it exists in California, making a large portion 
 of the coast range, it is, so far as known, in this State entirely barren of coal. 
 The upper group, on the other hand, is not found outside of the limits of Cali- 
 fornia, is confined almost exclusively to the coast range, and is the coal-bearing 
 formation of this State. 
 
 The other group is the miocene or middle tertiary formation. This group of 
 rocks- is one of the most widely spread on this side of the continent, and is 
 known, so far, to exist from the Russian possessions on the north to Cape San, 
 Lucas on the south. In a thousand places along this vast extent it contains 
 small seams of coal, well marked enough to deceive the ignorant prospector, 
 but never of sufficient extent to be practically valuable, except in a single 
 locality in the State of Oregon. 
 
 Before proceeding further, it would, perhaps, be well to glance in detail at 
 the several localities on this coast that have yielded coal in profitable quantities. 
 The number of these localities is small, though, doubtless, an increased demand, 
 combined with a diminished cost of labor, will increase their number. 
 
 Bellingham bay, in almost the extreme northwestern corner of Washington 
 Territory, is the site of one of the largest and best mines on this side of the 
 continent. The deposit consists of about fourteen feet in thickness of coal and 
 slate, of which I was informed that about nine feet were available for mining. 
 The coal itself, as compared with other coals of the coast, is of fair quality, the 
 greatest drawback being the occasional presence of sulphur, rendering it un- 
 pleasant for domestic purposes. The position of the mine, with reference to the 
 harbor, is excellent. The mouth of the mine is barely over a fourth of a mile 
 from the vessels in the harbor in which the coal is shipped. The coal is, there- 
 fore, only handled in the mine and while being picked in the coal-house, thereby 
 avoiding much of the breakage to which soft coals are subjected by repeated 
 handlings. The vein dips at a high angle, and all of the coals and the water 
 have to be extracted by expensive machinery. 
 
 At Nanaimo, on Vancouver island, about seventy miles above Victoria, there 
 is a deposit of the same geological age as that at Bellingham bay, and which 
 has been worked extensively. This mine was originally owned and worked by 
 the Hudson Bay Company. About 1863 it was sold to a company called the 
 Vancouver Island Coal Company. The appliances about the mine are of the 
 most substantial and convenient kind, and the working of the mine was, at the 
 time of my visit, a model of good engineering. The coal is claimed to be su- 
 perior to any other produced on the coast, and commands a higher price in the 
 San Francisco market than any other west coast coal. 
 
 Many other deposits of coal exist along the shores of the Straits of Fuca and 
 Puget sound. Most of these are, however, either so inaccessible or so small 
 that, with the present costs of labor and transportation, they can hardly prove 
 profitable. An exception to this remark may exist in the Straits of Fuca mine, 
 near Clallam bay, Washington Territory, opened within the last year or two. 
 It is claimed that this is a really good mine. It will certainly need to have an 
 extensive deposit of good coal to be of the slightest value on that inhospitable 
 coast. 
 
 Coming southward, the next region of any importance is Coos bay. As 
 stated above, the coal of this locality is of tertiary age. The deposit does not 
 seem to be very extensive, and it is so located that but a small portion of it 
 can be worked. Most of the coal lies under heavy rolling hills at a great depth 
 from the surface. One mine the Newport or Flanagan mine has been worked 
 in a small way for eight or nine years with very satisfactory results. Upwards 
 
190 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 of thirty thousand tons of coal have been shipped to San Francisco, and sold 
 there at a price above the current average price of west coast coals. The de- 
 posit consists of three veins, separated by only a few inches of soft claystone, 
 and making an aggregate thickness of eight to nine feet of good compact coal, 
 with almost no slate or bone coal. 
 
 The deposit is nearly horizontal, dipping towards the mouth of the mine 
 with only sufficient angle to permit unassisted drainage, and the running out of 
 the cars by gravity. No hoisting or pumping gear has ever been or ever will 
 be used in this mine. The coal is carried seven-eighths of a mile in cars to a 
 wharf, where it is shot into lighters and carried a mile thence to the vessel in 
 which it is shipped to San Francisco. Were the railroad extended so as to 
 avoid lighterage, and the expense and loss consequent on the repeated handlings 
 of the coal, and were the coal, shipped in steam vessels devoted exclusively to 
 this trade, instead of being carried by the one or two hundred tons at a time in 
 lumber vessels, this mine might be made the most profitable, as well as the most 
 popular, on the coast. 
 
 Many localities of coal are known in interior Oregon as, for instance, on the 
 McKenzie fork, of the Willamette river ; the vicinity of Eugene City ; several 
 places in the valley of the main Columbia, &c., &c. ; but interior coal mines can 
 never be of practical value in California or Oregon at a distance from railroads 
 and navigation, unless for local manufacturing purposes, especially in the vicin- 
 ity of the heavy forests which clothe so much of the surface of Oregon. 
 
 In California the coal formation is found over a large area. I have identified 
 it in the coast ranges from the vicinity of Round valley, Mendocino county, to 
 New Idria, Monterey county. In the former locality the coal forms a bed about 
 ten feet thick, very impure, but with one or two seams, of about a foot thick, of 
 excellent quality. The locality is so inaccessible, however, that it can never be 
 "of any value. At New Idria, about four miles from the Idria mine, the same 
 beds occur again, and have been " prospected" to some extent for coal. Here 
 they exist as beds of clay slates, barely impregnated with a little carbonaceous 
 matter. Impure as these strata are, they are nevertheless, without doubt, the 
 exact equivalent of the coal beds of Monte Diablo. 
 
 The Monte Diablo mines are located in a range of hills lying north and north- 
 east of the mountain, along a nearly east and west outcrop. The coal has been 
 found for five or six miles in a nearly continuous line, although not more than 
 three miles of this extent has as yet proved of sufficient value to render mining 
 profitable. The veins have been somewhat disturbed by faults, and I have 
 reason to believe, from some examinations I made in 1862, that beyond certain 
 limits they thin out rapidly. This is markedly the case to the west of the Pea- 
 cock mine. 
 
 The deposit in this region consists of two veins, the lower of four feet thick, 
 known as the "Peacock " or " Cumberland " vein ; the other, of three feet thick, 
 called the " Clark " vein. These two veins, named after the first mines in which 
 they were first well explored, are separated by about three hundred feet in thick- 
 ness of sandstones. 
 
 A number of mines have been opened at various points along the outcrops of 
 the two veins, the principal of which are the Cumberland and Black Diamond, 
 the Clark, Cruikshanks, Adams, Independent, Manhattan, and Peacock. In 
 some of these veins work has been suspended, as, for instance, in the Peacock 
 mine, where the vein was found so much disturbed as to be of little value. In 
 others, work has been prosecuted with considerable vigor, and, as the shipments 
 to San Francisco show, with some success. The greatest drawback to the profit- 
 able working of these mines has been the cost of land carriage from the mines 
 to a shipping point on the San Joachim river. Formerly the coal was hauled 
 from the mines to a shipping point on the river, a distance varying from six to 
 nine miles. Recently, however, two railroads have been completed, one ter- 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 191 
 
 initiating at New York, the other near Antioch, thereby very materially dimin- 
 ishing thn most important expenses to which the proprietors of the mines were 
 subjected. 
 
 High hopes were at one time built on the coal discoveries in Corral Hollow, 
 some thirty miles south of Monte Diablo, on the east face of the Coast range. 
 Several mines were opened and much money expended. In fact a small quan- 
 tity of coal was carried thence to San Francisco, but inasmuch as it has been 
 ascertained by careful and reliable estimates that every ton of coal thus deliv- 
 ered in San Francisco had cost the proprietors of the mines over one hundred 
 dollars, ($1C-0,) the presumption is that the mines are of but little commercial 
 value. There is here at least one bed of coal of considerable size, but of very 
 poor quality and variable thickness. Furthermore, it is so broken and twisted 
 by the disturbing farces to which the rocks of th,e vicinity have been subjected, 
 that, even were the coal good in quality, the vein could not be relied on. 
 
 On the southern slope of the San Gabriel mountains, about thirty-five miles 
 northeast of Los Angeles, is a locality from which some coal has been obtained. 
 I saw a ton or more in a blacksmith shop in that city a year ago. It is appa- 
 rently a little below the average of west-coast coals in quality, is soft, and some- 
 what impure. So far as I am aware the locality has never been visited by a 
 geologist, and we have no definite information about it, though the general fea- 
 tures of the region appear to point to the same geological age for this as for the 
 Monte Diablo beds. 
 
 The distance of this mine from water transportation must render it valueless, 
 at least to the present generation. 
 
 About seven miles northeast from Oroville is a small bed of very impure coal. 
 The material contains so much earthy matter that it is almost a question of 
 doubt whether it would not be more proper to describe it as carbonaceous shale 
 rather than as coal. Of course it is valueless for fuel, though I was informed 
 in 1864 that it was used successfully in the Oroville gas-works for the manufac- 
 ture of illuminating gas. 
 
 On Eel river, about three or four miles southwest of Round valley, Mendocino 
 county, is a bed of coal about ten feet thick, striking Hirectly across the bed 
 of the river and forming a little cascade. The deposit is of the same geological 
 age as that of Monte Diablo, and although most of it is very impure, it contains 
 one or two seams, of about a foot thick each, of excellent quality. 
 
 It is, however, so far inland and so completely surrounded by high and rough 
 mountains that it is extremely doubtful if it will ever become practically available. 
 
 In addition to the above localities, which have already yielded or can be made 
 to yield coal in quantity, there are hundreds of places scattered all over Cali- 
 fornia, especially in the Coast range, where small quantities of coal have been 
 found, and where, at the same time, there is no possible chance of finding it in 
 such quantity as to be of value. The miocene rocks contain everywhere small 
 seams of coal of an inch or more in thickness, which, like" the ignis fatuus, have 
 led on the unfortunate miner by holding constantly before his eyes the dazzling 
 promise of a fortune as soon as the "veins come together," or when he shall have 
 gotten "below the water line" prospects always in 'she future, often implicitly 
 believed in, and never realized. The little inch- veins, often very numerous and 
 quite close together, never unite, but have been known to run parallel for many 
 yards in fact, as far as the patience and money of the " prospector" would ex- 
 tend. 
 
 The coals of the west coast are, like all coals of the later geological formations, 
 soft, more or less friable, and contain considerable water. Compared with true 
 carboniferous coal, such as Pennsylvanian or English, they give less heat, and 
 the loss is far greater by breakage in handling. 
 
 The following table of analyses of various coals on this coast is extracted from 
 the report of Professor Whitney, State geologist of California. The professor 
 
192 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TEKRITOKIES 
 
 remarks that these analyses were made in 1861 and 1862, and are from speci- 
 mens taken at no very great depth : 
 
 
 Mount Diablo, California. - 
 
 Bellingham bay, 
 Washington Ter. 
 
 Nanaimo, Vancou- 
 ver's island. 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 to 
 
 s 
 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 i 
 
 8 
 & 
 
 o 
 
 cJ 
 
 5 ii 
 P 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 Cumberland. 
 
 & 
 
 o 
 
 B . 
 
 fjj 
 
 o 
 
 
 Water 
 
 13.47 
 40.36 
 40. 65 
 5.52 
 
 14.69 
 33.89 
 46.84 
 
 4.58 
 
 13.84 
 40.27 
 44. 92 
 0.97 
 
 14.13 
 37.38 
 44.55 
 3.94 
 
 20.53 
 35. 62 
 36.35 
 7.50 
 
 8.39 
 33.26 
 45.69 
 12.66 
 
 2.98 
 32.16 
 46.31 
 18.55 
 
 20.09 
 32. 59 
 41.98 
 5.34 
 
 Bituminous substances - . . 
 Fixed carbon 
 
 Ash 
 
 
 It will be observed that there is a great similarity between all of the coals 
 produced on this coast. There is probably, however, one weak point in the 
 table. The, Nanaimo coal is here shown to have a very large quantity of ash as 
 compared with the California and Oregon coals. It is not improbable that the 
 analysis may have been based on a poorer specimen than the average, though 
 Professor Whitney assures me that it looked like a fair sample. 
 
 The subjoined table exhibits the amount of coal received in San Francisco 
 since the year 1860. It does not, however, give the full yield of all the mines, 
 inasmuch as small quantities of our domestic coals are shipped to inland towns 
 and used in the vicinity of the mines. It will be seen, however, that, small as 
 the figures are, the demand is steadily increasing, and the facilities are good for 
 supplying this demand for many years to come : 
 
 Imports of coal into San Francisco since 1860. 
 
 
 1860. 
 
 1861. 
 
 1862. 
 
 1863. 
 
 1864. 
 
 1865. 
 
 1st 9 montKs 
 1865. 
 
 1st 9 months 
 1866. 
 
 Foreign coals 
 
 Tons. 
 7,650 
 6,655 
 6,640 
 1,900 
 
 Tons. 
 23. 370 
 6. 475 
 23, 565 
 
 12,, 495 
 
 Tons. 
 12, 590 
 8,870 
 16, 0:35 
 5,110 
 
 Tons. 
 16, 890 
 5.745 
 14! 660 
 1,790 
 
 'Ton's. 
 21, 160 
 12, 785 
 18, 330 
 2, 323 
 
 Tons. 
 17,610 
 16, 190 
 9, 655 
 1,410 
 810 
 
 Tons. 
 9,144 
 8, 551 
 5, 959 
 
 Casks. 
 
 1 
 Tons. ; Casks. 
 34,484 j 
 7,1.80 !.. 
 5.131 i 
 1,480 i 
 
 Vancouver 
 English 
 
 Chili 
 
 Unspecified 
 
 
 
 
 
 Eastern- 
 Am hracite 
 Cumberland 
 
 Domestic 
 Belling-haui bay. . . 
 Coos bay 
 Monte Diablo 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 23, 045 
 
 65, 905 
 
 42, 625 
 
 39,085 
 
 54, 600 
 
 45, 675 23, 654 
 
 
 
 48,375 ! 
 
 34, 985 
 5,970 
 
 40, 955 
 
 26, 060 
 2,975 
 
 36, 685 
 4,970 
 
 41, 655 
 
 38, 660 
 5,670 
 
 41, 680 
 
 7, 275 
 
 48, 955 
 
 22,585 
 4, 230 
 
 20, 638 
 20 
 
 2,858" 
 
 6,293 
 6, 834 3, 604 
 
 29. 035 
 
 44, 330 
 
 26, 815 
 
 20, 658 
 
 2, 858 
 
 13, 127 3, 604 
 
 5,490 
 3, 145 
 
 10, 055 
 4. 630 
 6,620 
 
 10,050 
 2,815 
 23, 400 
 
 7.750 
 1,185 
 43, 200 
 
 11, 845 
 1 200 
 37, 450 
 
 13, 700 
 1,500 
 58, 560 
 
 8,000 
 1,300 
 39, 848 
 
 
 9 590 
 
 
 
 2,500 
 54,087 
 
 Grand total... 
 
 8,635 
 
 21,305 36,265 
 
 52, 135 
 
 50, 495 
 
 74, 760 
 
 49. 148 
 
 1 66,177 
 
 72, 635 
 
 116, 245 
 
 120, 545 
 
 135, 550 
 
 154, 050 
 
 147, 250 
 
 93, 460 
 
 2,558 
 
 127,679 j 3,604 
 
 9.--IKON. 
 
 In consequence of the present high price of fuel and labor, the development 
 of the iron resources of the Pacific coast has not received as much attention aa 
 their magnitude and importance demand. There are numberless extensive de* 
 posits of all descriptions of iron ores in all the States and Territories on the 
 coast. Thus far there has been but one furnace erected for the reduction of 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 193 
 
 this ore to metal. This establishment is located near St. Helens, within a short 
 distance of the Columbia river, in Oregon, where there is an exceedingly fine 
 body of ore, conveniently located with reference to fuel and water transporta- 
 tion. Arrangements are in progress for the erection of similar works in other 
 places. One is in course of construction in Sierra county, California, about 
 fifteen miles above Downieville, where there is a very large body of ore, which 
 assays from 60 to 75 per cent. There is some talk of erecting a smelting works 
 in the vicinity of San Francisco for the purpose of reducing the grains of 
 specular iron ore found in great abundance among the eand on the shores of 
 the bay. 
 
 The consumption of pig-iron in California is rapidly increasing, as the demands 
 for machinery multiply, 
 
 In 1859 the foundries at San Francisco consumed 5, 000 tons. 
 
 1860 do do ....... 6, 500 do. 
 
 1861 do do 6,500 do. 
 
 1862 do do 5, 000 do. 
 
 1863 do...' do 10,000 do. 
 
 1864 do do 14,000 do. 
 
 1865 do do 20,000 do. 
 
 1866 do do 20,000 do. 
 
 There is probably as much more used in the interior of that State, Nevada, 
 and Oregon. 
 
 LIST OF THE ORES OF METALS FOUND ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 Copper, silver, antimony, manganese, iron, lead, arsenic, magnesium, tin, ziac, 
 bismuth, molybdenum, chromium, tellurium, mercury, nickel, cobalt. 
 
 NON-METALLIC MINERALS. 
 
 Marble, alabaster, sulphate of lime, carbonate of lime, kaolin, pipe-clay, 
 fullers' earth, sulphur, borax, fire-clay, soapstones, asbestos, lithographers' 
 stone, petroleum, asphaltum, salt, alum, emery, coal, blacklead. 
 
 BUILDING MATERIALS. 
 
 Granites, sandstones, limestones and marbles, slates, brick clays, &c. 
 
 GEMS AND PRECIOUS STONES. 
 
 Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, amethysts, garnets, beryl, topaz, agates, jaspers, 
 cornelians, opals, sapphires, egmarin, &c. 
 
 SECTION 8. 
 
 MINING KBGION, POPULATION, ALTITUDE, ETC. 
 
 1. Mining region and mining population. 2. Main divisions. 3. Altitudes. 4. Climatft, 
 5. Capacity to maintain a large population. 6. Number of miners. 7. Timber. 
 
 1. THE MINING BEGION AND THE MINING POPULATION. 
 
 All that portion of our continent west of the Kocky mountains is, we may 
 say in general terms, rich in minerals, and especially in gold, silver, and cop- 
 per. The western slope of Mexico has produced more silver during the last 
 three hundred years than all the rest of the world. Arizona has rich placers 
 and valuable veins of silver and copper; Nevada has silver; California,' gold, 
 silver, and copper; Oregon, gold; Idaho, .gold and silver; Montana and British 
 Columbia, gold. The lower part of the basin of the Columbia and the upper 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 13 
 
194 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 part of the basin of the Colorado are comparatively poor. The richest mines in 
 the interior basin are of silver- the richest iu the basins that open to the sea 
 are of gold. 
 
 2. MAIN DIVISIONS. 
 
 The American territory on the Pacific slope has an area of 900,000 square 
 miles, and is divided by well marked topographical features into four main 
 divisions : 
 
 1. The coast, which includes a strip about 150 miles Vide, west of the Sierra 
 Nevada and Cascade mountains. 
 
 2. The basin of the Colorado, which includes all of Arizona and the eastern 
 and southern parts of Utah. 
 
 3. The basin of the upper Columbia, which includes nearly all of Idaho and 
 portions of Oregon, Washington Territory, Utah, and Montana. 
 
 4. The interior basin, which includes most of Nevada and Utah and parts of 
 Oregon and Idaho. 
 
 These divisions, or basins, are separated from one another by high mountain 
 ranges, but the only divide which has been carefully traced and laid down on 
 the maps is that east of the coast basin. The ridges which separate the interior 
 basin from, the Columbia on the north, and from the Colorado on the south, 
 have not been precisely laid down. The interior basin is divided up into a 
 number of independent minor basins, all of which are high, arid, and, in their 
 natural condition, desolate; although there are a few valleys which by the hand 
 of man have been irrigated and cultivated. Along the coast considerable quan- 
 tities of rain fall; the surface of the earth is, in the low lands, covered by a 
 deep mould, and there is a luxurious vegetation, especially in Oregon and 
 Washington, where the forests, on the mountains are so dense that there is little 
 hope for the discovery of -minerals among them. But in the basins of the in- 
 terior, the upper Columbia and the Colorado, there is little mould or vegetation ; 
 the mountains are steep, the rocks are bare, and mineral veins are readily found 
 and traced. 
 
 The poverty of the country in agricultural resources is the cause of one of 
 its great advantages for mining. 
 
 3.-ALTITUDES. 
 
 The American mining regions of the Pacific slope, like most of those else- 
 where, are mountainous. The gold mines of California are at various eleva- 
 tions from 500 to 6,000 feet above the level of the sea. The Sierra Nevada 
 rises in many places to a height of 9,000 feet, or even more; and from the 
 comb of the ridge to the level land of the valley, the distance in a direct line 
 is from forty to fifty miles; and the descent of the streams, with all their bends, 
 is more than a hundred feet to the mile. With the rapidity of current conse- 
 quent on such a descent, they have worn very deep channels, leaving steep and 
 high intermediate hills. It is on the side of the mountains thus cut into great 
 canons that most of the mining of California is done. The average elevation 
 of the placers of the Sacramento basin may be estimated at 2,000 feet. The 
 lowest mining towns never have snow or ice for more than a day or two at a 
 time, while in the highest the snow lies every year four or five months; and 
 racing on snow-shoes is one of the common winter amusements. The mines in 
 the valley of Klamath river are at an elevation of about 2,500 feet. The silver 
 mines of Kearsarge, in California, are 10,000 feet above the sea. The silver 
 mines of Alpine county are 6,000 feet high. The mines on the Comstock lode 
 are from 5,500 to 6,500 feet high. The Eeese River mines have an elevation 
 of about 7,000 feet. The Idaho mines vary in height from 3,000 to 6,000 feet, 
 The mines of Arizona are at various elevations from 300 to 3,000 feet. Those 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 195 
 
 on the banks of the Colorado river are probably as near the level of the sea as 
 any in the world. The quicksilver mine of New Almaden is 1,000 feet above 
 the sea. 
 
 The following are the elevations in feet above the sea of some of the principal 
 mining tewns : 
 
 Placerville 1, 800 
 
 Auburn 1, 200 
 
 . Dutch flat 2, 943 
 
 Nevada, California . . ^ 2, 573 
 
 Brandy City 3, 592 
 
 Eureka, Sierry county t , . 5, 223 
 
 Sierra Buttes mine 7, 000 
 
 Nelson's Point 3, 858 
 
 Quincy ". 3, 500 
 
 Shasta City 1, 159 
 
 Murphy's 2, 201 
 
 Silver Mountain 6, 516 
 
 Markleville 6, 306 
 
 Mogul f. 8, 650 
 
 Silver City 4, 911 
 
 Virginia City, Nevada 6, 205 
 
 Como, Nevada 6, 600 
 
 Colorado, at Mohave crossing 356 
 
 Great Salt Lake city v . 4, 351 
 
 Herschel lays down the rule that the temperature sinks one degree of Fah- 
 renheit for each 350 feet of elevation.* 
 
 ' 4: CLIMATE. 
 
 In the coal mining districls of Monte Diablo, and at the quicksilver mine of New 
 Alinaden, the climate is very mild and equable. The sea breeze is felt nearly 
 every summer day, and a temperature of 90 is rare. The heat of the sun's 
 rays is broken by the cool winds and fogs from the ocean, and the evenings are 
 invariably cool, so that though light cotton garments may be pleasant for wear 
 at noon, woollen are in demand before sunset, and every night, even in July 
 and August, good blankets are prized. 
 
 In winter ice is seldom formed, and not once in a year does it last through a 
 day, and if snow falls it is only on high peaks. Skating, snow-balling, and 
 sleigh-riding are amusements which cannot be enjoyed here. Fogs are not 
 uncommon in the summer, but they always disappear after the sun has been 
 up a few hours, and two-thirds of the days of the year are cloudless. There is 
 no rain from May to November, and during the rainy season the amount of 
 water that falls is twenty-two inches, or about half of the quantity that falls 
 at New York or Philadelphia in a year. Thunder and lightning are very 
 rare, and such violent electric storms as are frequent every summer in the Mis- 
 sissippi valley are unknown on the coast of California. It may safely be said 
 that no climate in the world is more favorable to the health and activity of man, 
 or more conducive to the comfort of the laborer. 
 
 As we leave the coast the moderating influences of the sea breezes are lost, 
 and the winters are^.colder and the summers warmer. At the lowest mining 
 camps east of Sacramento, although the winters are very mild* yet ice and 
 saow in small bodies are often seen for two or three eonsecutive days, and the 
 summers are intensely hot ; and, indeed, in all the mining districts of California 
 the summers are warm, even at high elevations, especially in the deep canons, 
 
 ^Physical Geography, by Sir J. F. W ~Herschel, page 226. 
 
196 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 where the breezes are not felt, and where the heat of the sun is caught by steep 
 rocks and reflected down upon the mining camps below. 
 
 In the valleys and lower part of the mountains the heat is excessive from 
 May to October, the thermometer standing as high as 85 or 90 nearly every 
 day for month after month. There is no rain usually in that part of the year ; 
 the sky is almost cloudless ; the bare earth appears to be perfectly dry during 
 the summer and fall ; heats are therefore higher than in many other countries 
 blessed with abundant vegetation and frequent showers throughout the year in 
 the same latitude. But the nights are always cool, especially after midnight ; 
 and as we rise in latitude on the mountain sides, we find neither frosts nor snows, 
 and the summers are shorter and cool days more frequent. At Yreka, with an 
 altitude of two thousand "five hundred feet, frosts come even in July; and 
 in the latitude of San Francisco, frosts occur every month at an altitude of 
 about five thousand feet, and snow lies on the ground for seven or eight months 
 of the year. In the higher mining camps of Sierra county the snow lies from 
 five to ten feet deep, every winter, for months, and the miners shovel the snow 
 from the roofs of their cabins to save them from being crushed by the weight ; 
 and cut tunnels under the snow from cabin to cabin, and provide snow shoes so 
 they can travel over the surface of the snow if necessary. During a large 
 part of the year the country is arctic in its appearance, and the climate is arctic 
 in its temperature. 
 
 In the lower mining districts of the southern part of Sacramento basin the 
 heat is almost torrid. At Millerton, in the San Joaquin foot-hills, the mean 
 temperature for three summer months has been as high as 106, and occasionally 
 there are winds so hot that they blister the skin. The amount of rain in Cali- 
 fornia increases as we rise in altitude and latitude. That is a general rule. 
 Thus/ at San Diego, in latitude 32, the annual rain-fall is 11 inches; at San 
 Francisco, in latitude 37 48', it is 22 inches ; and at Humboldt Bay, in lati- 
 tude 4 46', it is 34 inches. Those places are all at the level of the sea and on 
 the sea-coast ; five additional inches of rain may be added for each thousand 
 feet of altitude. So it may be said that in the latitude of San Francisco places 
 at the height of 2,000 feet on the sierra have 32 inches of annual rain-fall ; 
 places 4,000 feet high have 42 inches ; those 6,000 have 52 inches ; and those 
 3,000 feet G2 inches. These are general deductions from numerous observa- 
 tions taken at different points ; but they must not be regarded as precise and 
 invariable. The higher the altitude the greater the difference in the rain-fall of 
 different years, and the stronger the influence of topographical features in de- 
 termining the amount of fall within a limited area. 
 
 Much more water usually falls on that side of a mountain from which the 
 storm comes than on the other. At an altitude of 3,000 feet, and higher, large 
 quantities of snow fall ; but in the estimate of the amount of rain on the moun- 
 tains given above, a foot of snow is equivalent to a little more than an inch of 
 water. But north af California, or east of the Sierra Nevada, we come into 
 other climates. At Fort Yuma, 100 miles east of San Diego, only one-third as 
 much rain falls as at the latter place, and most of the rains come, not in the 
 winter, but in the summer. The rainy season of Arizona and the Colorado val- 
 ley is the dry season of the coast of California. All through Arizona the 
 climate is dry and the summers hot, but the winters are exceedingly cold in 
 some of the higher mining districts. 
 
 Nevada and Utah are high, dry, arid, and desolate. The evaporation equals 
 the rain-fall, and therefore no water can be spared for the ocean, but all is 
 swallowed up in sinks or lakes, in basins surrounded by mountains on every side. 
 If the fall exceeded the evaporation, the waters would rise until the basin would 
 overflow, and at the outlet a channel would be worn through the mountains 
 until much of the inner lakes were drained, and at the bottom of that lake large 
 bodies of sand, gravel, and loam would be deposited, suitable for the support of 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 197 
 
 vegetation, when at last it should rise above tlie water in consequence of the in- 
 creasing depth of the channel at the gap iii the mountains. The valley of the 
 upper Colorado looks as if it had once been converted into a great lake by the 
 elevation of the Cascade mountains, but the river cut a channel at the Dalles 
 before a sufficient quantity of soil had been deposited over the basin, and so the 
 greater part of it is desolate. There is nuich resemblance between the climates 
 .of Idaho and Nevada. The summers are very warm, the winters are cold, and 
 the fall of rain scanty, but the rain-fall is greater in Idaho than in Nevada. 
 
 The following figures show the temperature for each month aHd for the year 
 at various towns in or near mining districts : 
 
 
 * 
 Latitudes. 
 
 January. 
 
 February. 
 
 ""5 
 
 03 
 
 a 
 
 ! 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 OJ 
 
 g 
 p 
 
 ha 
 
 t>> 
 hj 
 
 August. 
 
 September. 
 
 October. 
 
 November. 
 
 December. 
 
 Benicia 
 
 / 
 
 38 03 
 
 47 
 
 52 
 
 53 
 
 57 
 
 59 
 
 67 
 
 67 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 69, 
 
 54 
 
 47 
 
 Fort "\IilVr 
 
 37 
 
 47 
 
 53 
 
 56 
 
 62 
 
 68 
 
 83 
 
 30 
 
 83 
 
 76 
 
 67 
 
 55 
 
 48 
 
 Fort Residing' 
 
 40 28 
 
 41 
 
 49 
 
 51 
 
 59 
 
 65 
 
 77 
 
 ft-> 
 
 79 
 
 71 
 
 fr> 
 
 53 
 
 41 
 
 Fort Yuma ...... ...... 
 
 3-2. 43 
 
 56 
 
 5H 
 
 66 
 
 73 
 
 76 
 
 87 
 
 89, 
 
 90 
 
 80 
 
 76 
 
 64 
 
 55 
 
 Fort Jones 
 
 4J 36 
 
 31 
 
 37 
 
 43 
 
 49 
 
 54 
 
 61 
 
 71 
 
 68 
 
 69 
 
 57 
 
 41 
 
 39, 
 
 Sacramento 
 
 38 34 
 
 45 
 
 43 
 
 51 
 
 59 
 
 67 
 
 71 
 
 7 >: > 
 
 73 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 59 
 
 45 
 
 Grass valley 
 
 
 07 
 
 37 
 
 3H 
 
 44 
 
 40 
 
 52 
 
 63 
 
 58 
 
 53 
 
 43 
 
 36 
 
 46 
 
 Meadow valley ..... 
 
 39 56 
 
 B4 
 
 39, 
 
 41 
 
 
 61 
 
 66 
 
 71 
 
 68 , 
 
 57 
 
 59 
 
 44 
 
 39 
 
 Fort Wall 
 
 43 04 
 
 ^\ 
 
 94 
 
 95 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 59 
 
 48 
 
 99 
 
 
 Dalles 
 
 Salt Lake City 
 
 45. 36 
 
 40 46 
 
 33 
 
 97 
 
 40 
 35 
 
 46 
 
 39 
 
 53 
 
 50 
 
 59 
 65 
 
 67 
 71 
 
 73 
 
 HI 
 
 70 
 
 61 
 
 53 
 
 41 
 41 
 
 33 
 31 
 
 
 46 27 
 
 31 
 
 38 
 
 40 
 
 52 
 
 59 
 
 63 
 
 70 
 
 72 
 
 6't 
 
 48 
 
 41 
 
 40 
 
 Fort Defiance ... 
 
 35 44 
 
 96 
 
 30 
 
 38 
 
 46 
 
 51 
 
 64 
 
 f,9 
 
 67 
 
 56 
 
 46 
 
 35 
 
 99 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The following table shows the rain- fall at a few points and in inches : 
 
 
 Spring. 
 
 Summer. 
 
 Autumn. 
 
 Winter. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Sacramento . . .. .. .... 
 
 7.01 
 
 0.00 
 
 2 61 
 
 12. 11 
 
 21.73 
 
 Fort Ytima 
 
 27 
 
 1 30 
 
 86 
 
 72 
 
 3.15 
 
 Fort Miller 
 
 9 57 
 
 02 
 
 2 80 
 
 9 79. 
 
 22 18 
 
 Fort Miller 
 
 11.30 
 
 0.39 
 
 4.89 
 
 12. 44 
 
 29. 02 
 
 Fort Jones . ............ 
 
 5 38 
 
 0.89 
 
 5 30 
 
 5 20 
 
 16. 77 
 
 Fort Defiance 
 
 2 91 
 
 6 45 
 
 4 84 
 
 2 97 
 
 37. 17 
 
 Dalles 
 
 2 63 
 
 42 
 
 3 78 
 
 6 98 
 
 13.81 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The cost of living is high in all the States and Territories west of the Rocky 
 mountains. Flour and beef are usually sold in San Francisco for about the 
 same price demanded in New York ; but transportation to the mines is very 
 expensive, and the commissions and profits of traders are large. To Austin 
 the freight in summer by wagon is seven to ten cents per pound from Sacra- 
 mento ; to Virginia city, three and one-quarter cents ; from Marysville to Quincy, 
 two and one-quarter cents ; to Grass valley, one-half of a cent ; to Downieville, 
 one cent and a third. The freight from San Francisco to La Paz, on the Colo- 
 rado, is about one and a half cent per pound ; and to the Idaho mines, about 
 seven cents per pound. In the winter freights rise, and there is then no limit 
 to them, save the needs and the purse of the shipper. The mining counties of 
 California now grow nearly all the fruits and vegetables, and some of the grain, 
 consumed by the miners ; but all the clothing, fine tools, fine furniture, and 
 many articles of food are brought from the valleys or seaport. 
 
 In consequence of the bad condition of the roads in the winter and the un-. 
 
198 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 settled character of the population the supply is frequently unequal to the de- 
 mand, and then prices go to high figures, especially in the remoter district. The 
 cost of the necessaries of life generally for laboring men is three times as great 
 in the mining counties of California as in the interior counties of New York, 
 and from four to six times in Nevada, Idaho, and Arizona. 
 
 5. CAPACITY TO MAINTAIN A LARGE POPULATION. 
 
 California can maintain a large population. In many respects the State re- 
 sembles Spain. It has a similar climate, soil and size, and should support as 
 many inhabitants. The population of Spain is at present fourteen millions, and 
 under the Moorish dominion many valleys which are npw bare and desolate 
 were well tilled and densely populated. Spain has 188,000 square miles, and 
 California 160,000, and our State has sources of wealth which the Spanish 
 peninsula kas not. The Sacramento basin bears a strong resemblance to Lom- 
 bardy, which has the, densest population and most thorough tillage of Eiirope. 
 In an area of 6,000 square miles three millions of people are collected ; and 
 they are noted for physical beauty and intellectual activity ; hence it does not 
 appear that their crowded condition has done them harm. A large part of the 
 wealth of the Lombards is derived directly and indirectly from irrigation, which 
 they have earned further than any other nation. The Alps there rise to an 
 average height of 6,000 feet, from their northern boundary along a line one hun- 
 dred and twenty miles, and the snow which falls in these mountains furnishes 
 the water for many of the most valuable canals. The Sacramento basin has an 
 area of 25,0.00 square miles, lying along the foot of a mountain range 400 miles 
 long and 10,000 feet high on an average. The low lands of the basin has a soil 
 as fertile and a climate as genial as that of Lombardy. The amount of moist- 
 ure from rain is not so great in the valley, but that obtainable from the moun- 
 tains is greater. The Lombards have natural lakes that serve as admirable res- 
 ervoirs ; but the Californians can make lakes by throwing dams across the 
 canons. The vine, the silk- worm, and rice, which contribute much to the wealth 
 of the valley of the Po, will thrive at least as well in the valley of the Sacra- 
 mento. When, in addition to these agricultural resources, we consider the 
 mineral wealth of the Sierra Nevada, and the commercial advantages of the 
 terminus of the Pacific railroad, the central position between China and New 
 York, and between Oregon and Mexico, we are justified in the conclusion that 
 California can well support a population of ten or fifteen millions. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 199 
 
 6. -NUMBER OF MINERS. 
 
 The following table shows the number of miners of different classes in certain 
 counties of California, as estimated by well-informed persons in those counties, 
 the limited time for the preparation of this report not permitting more than an 
 estimate on this point : 
 
 
 Total number of 
 white miners. 
 
 Total number of 
 Chinese miners. 
 
 Number of gold 
 quartz miners. 
 
 Hydraulic miners. 
 
 1 
 
 is 
 *i 
 
 6 
 
 Silver miners. 
 
 Copper miners. 
 
 Del Norte 
 
 250 
 
 300 
 
 
 100 
 
 350 
 
 
 100 
 
 Klamath 
 
 700 
 
 300 
 
 100 
 
 50 
 
 850 
 
 
 100 
 
 Trinity 
 
 700 
 
 1,500 
 
 100 
 
 500 
 
 1 600 
 
 
 
 
 2,500 
 
 500 
 
 300 
 
 200 
 
 2,500 
 
 
 
 Shasta 
 
 1 000 
 
 300 
 
 SCO 
 
 100 
 
 1 000 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 Plumas . 
 
 1,000 
 
 400 
 
 300 
 
 300 
 
 700 
 
 
 100 
 
 Butte .... 
 
 3,000 
 
 1,500 
 
 200 
 
 300 
 
 2 000 
 
 
 
 Sierra 
 
 2 500 
 
 1 500 
 
 500 
 
 800 
 
 2 700 
 
 
 
 Nevada 
 
 300" 
 
 1 500 
 
 2 000 
 
 1 000 
 
 1 100 
 
 300 
 
 100 
 
 Yuba 
 
 1,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 300 
 
 300 
 
 1,300 
 
 
 100 
 
 Placer 
 
 1,800 
 
 1,500 
 
 300 
 
 600 
 
 2, 350 
 
 
 50 
 
 El Dorado 
 
 2 000 
 
 3 000 
 
 300 
 
 500 
 
 4 150 
 
 
 50 
 
 Alpine . . 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 
 
 400 
 
 
 Amador 
 
 1 200 
 
 1 500 
 
 400 
 
 200 
 
 1 600 
 
 
 500 
 
 Calaveras . 
 
 2,500 
 
 2,000 
 
 500 
 
 500 
 
 2 500 
 
 
 1 000 
 
 Tn oln rn TIG 
 
 2 000 
 
 1 500 
 
 500 
 
 300 
 
 2 400 
 
 
 300 
 
 Mariposa 
 
 1 000 
 
 I 500 
 
 500 
 
 100 
 
 1 600 
 
 
 300 
 
 Merced 
 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 300 
 
 50 
 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 Mono . .... ......_ 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 N 100 
 
 
 Kern 
 
 400 
 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 
 Ingo. .. 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 25 750 
 
 20 800 
 
 7 150 
 
 5 850 
 
 29 550 
 
 1 300 
 
 2 700 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 TIMBER* 
 
 The mining counties of California are generally supplied with abundant tim- 
 ber for present uses. The forests, from 3,500 to 5,500 feet above the level of 
 the sea, on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, are very dense, and are 
 composed of magnificent conifers, many of which have a diameter of five feet 
 or more, and a height of 200 or 250 feet. The sugar pine and the Douglas 
 spruce, both valuable for lumber, are large and abundant. These dense forests 
 are, however, higher up than most of the mining districts, which are found 
 among hills covered with scattered oak and nut pine. In the vicinity of the 
 chief mining towns the trees have been destroyed in a ruthless manner, and 
 many hills that were once well timbered are now bare. There was no private 
 owner for the land, and the timber was wasted in many cases ; trees were cut 
 down for fire wood, and onty the branches were taken because by that means 
 the wood-chopper could cut more wood than if he split up the tough trunk. 
 This course was profitable to the woodman, but bad for the State ; and nume- 
 rous complaints were made until 1864, when the legislature made it a criminal 
 offence to destroy the timber in this manner, although permitting any one to 
 cut the timber on the public land for firewood or. other useful purposes in an 
 economical manneu. 
 
200 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 In the northwestern corner of California and the southwestern corner of Ore- 
 gon the forests are so dense in several of the mineral districts that they inter- 
 fere greatly with mining, and will prevent the exhaustion of the auriferous de- 
 posits for many years. In eastern Oregon and in Idaho there is enough timber 
 to supply the miners for many years. In Nevada and in western Arizona there 
 is a great scarcity, and wood can be obtained in few places without high ex- 
 pense. Good firewood costs from two to four dollars per cord in most of the 
 mining towns of California, and from ten dollars upwards in Nevada. 
 
 SECTION 9. 
 
 Annotated catalogue of tlie principal mineral species hitherto recognized in Cal- 
 ifornia, and the adjoining States and Territories : by William P. Blalte. 
 March, 1866. 
 
 Actinolite. Occurs with garnets in steatite at Petaluma. 
 
 Alabaster. In Los Angeles county. Specimen in cabinet of the author, re- 
 ceived from Mr. Tyson, of Arizona. 
 
 Andalusite. Mariposa county. In the drift of the Chowchillas river, near 
 the old road to Fort Miller, there is a great abundance of fine crystals of anda- 
 lusite which show the dark lines or crosses in a remarkably perfect and interest- 
 ing manner. They are found also in the stratum of conglomerate which caps 
 the hills along the stream, and are doubtless in place in the slates a little higher 
 "up the river. 
 
 Smaller and less. perfect " macles " occur in the slates at Hornitos, on the 
 road to Bear valley. Some of the specimens from the Chowchillas river re- 
 semble those from Lancaster, Massachusetts. 
 
 Antimony, (sulphur -et of.) (See Stibnite.) 
 
 Antimony ochre. San Amcdio mountain, with antimony-glance. 
 
 Agates and carnelian. Beautiful pebbles of agate and carnelian are abund- 
 ant along the beach at and near Crescent City. They are much water-worn, 
 and are generally of light colors. Larger pebbles and more highly colored are 
 abundant in the pebbly drift along the Colorado river. Small but very smoothly 
 worn specimens of agate and jasper may be picked up on the shores of Lake 
 Tahoe. 
 
 Arsenic. Monterey county, at the Alisal mines, twenty-five miles from the 
 Mission of San Carlos. 
 
 Arsenical antimony. Ophir mine, Nevada Territory. In reniform, finely 
 crystalline, somewhat radiated masses, of a color between tin-white and iron- 
 black, on a fresh fracture, but grayish black from tarnishing ; associated with 
 arsenolite, calcite, and quartz. (F. A. Gentfi, Am. Jour. Sci., (2) xxxiii, 190.) 
 
 Arsenolite. Occurs in large masses, with native gold, at the Armagosa mine, 
 Great Basin. It is also reported from the Ophir mine with arsenical antimo- 
 ny. (Genth.) 
 
 Asbestos. Calaveras county, Salt Spring valley, at the Kentucky claim. 
 Los Angeles county (?) in large masses. (From Major Stroebel.) 
 
 Azurite, (blue carbonate of copper.) In fine crystalline groups and masses, 
 with malachite, at Hughes's mine, Calaveras county. (1861.) 
 
 Biotite. From the vicinity of Grass valley. (Cabinet of C. W. Smith.) 
 
 Bitumen. Occurs abundantly in numerous places in the coast mountains, 
 south of San Francisco, but especially south of San Luis Obispo, and in the 
 vicinity of Los Angeles. It is frequently seen floating in the Santa Barbara 
 channel. It is abundant in Tulare county, on the west side of the Tulare val- 
 
WEST OP THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 201 
 
 ley, near Buena Vista and Kern lakes, and at this and other localities is associ- 
 ated with petroleum, (which see.) 
 
 Blende occurs sparingly in many of the gold-bearing quartz veins of the 
 State, especially when lead is present, as, for example, at the Princeton mine, 
 Mariposa estate; the Adelaide mine, Hay ward & Chamberlain's mine, and in 
 several of the Grass valley mines in Nevada county ; at Meadow lake, in con- 
 siderable masses, with galena, iron pyrites, and copper pyrites. It is associated 
 with yellow copper in the Napoleon mine and the Lancha Plana ; in Sacra- 
 mento county, at Michigan bar, associated with galena, oxide of iron, and cop- 
 per ore. (Cabinet of Dr. Erey.) Placer county, fifteen miles from Lincoln, 
 towards Nevada* with galena and gold; at the Bloom claim, near Angels camp, 
 Calaveras county ; also in a quartz vein in Coulterville. 
 
 Borax. Lake county, in large crystals in the clay of the Borax lake. 
 
 Boracic acid. Clear lake, Lake county. 
 
 Carbonate of magnesia. (See Magnesite.} 
 
 Carbonate of soda. San Bernardino county, at Soda lake, sink of the Mo- 
 have river ; in Tulare county, along the borders of the smaller lakes, when dry- 
 ing up ; at the borders of the Santa Anna river, near San Bernardino. 
 
 Cassiterite. San Bernardino county, at the " Temescal tin region," about 
 sixty miles faom Los Angeles. Occurs in many veins associated with schorl (?) 
 traversing granite. In most of the ores the tin oxide is found only by crushing 
 and washing. At the "Gun lode" a peculiar drab-colored oxide is found in 
 considerable quantities. It appears to be liberated by the decomposition of an 
 arsenical ore, arsenic being abundant in the samples. The oxide, as collected 
 in that region for examination, is in various degrees of purity, and 'exhibits dif- 
 ferent colors. Some of the samples obtained by washing are black, others 
 brown, and some red and drab-colored. 
 
 Idaho Territory, on Jordan creek, in placers, in beautiful rounded masses, 
 from one-eighth to half an inch in diameter, very pure and clean the variety 
 known as wood tin. (Cabinet of the author, specimens received from Charles 
 T. Blake, esq., of Idaho City.) 
 
 Mexico, State of Durango: wood tin of great purity and beauty occurs 
 abundantly in this State. It closely resembles the stream tin of Idaho. 
 
 Cerusite, (carbonate of lead.) In large crystals resembling those from Siberia, 
 in the Russ district (1} Great Basin, near the Mojave river ; Arizona, in heavy 
 iucrusting masses upon the galena of the Castle Dome district. 
 
 Chalcedony. Large masses of white chalcedony, delicately veined, and in 
 mammillary sheets, occur in Monterey county, near the Panache's ; on Walker 
 river, Washoe; and of a fine pink color near Aurora, Esmeralda. In pear- 
 shaped nodules in the eruptive rocks between Williamson's Pass and Johnson's 
 river, Los Angeles county. 
 
 Chalcopyrite, (yellow copper ore.} This is the chief ore of the copper mines 
 of California 1 , as it is likewise of the mines of Cornwall, England. It is there- 
 fore found at a great number of localities, along the copper-bearing belt which 
 stretches in a nearly unbroken zone from Mariposa county northwesterly to Del 
 Norte county, parallel with and on the western side of the chief gold-producing 
 belt of the State. 
 
 In Calaveras county, the chief localities (for the massive ore) are : The Union, 
 Keystone, Empire, Napoleon, Campo Seco, and Lancha Plana mines. In good 
 crystals, implanted on and among clear quartz crystals, at the Noble copper 
 claim on Domingo creek. (Collection of Dr. Jones, Murphy's.) In Mariposa 
 county, the La Victoire mines in Hunter's valley, and Haskell's claims, below 
 Mariposa town, and claims along the Chowchillas river. Amador county, at 
 the Newton mine; Eldorado county, at the Cosumnes mine, Hope Valley 
 mine, at the Bunker Hill mine, El Dorado Excelsior, and other claims at and 
 near Pilot Hill. Plumas county, at the Genessee and Cosmopolitan mines. It 
 
202 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 occurs, also, in small quantities in Contra Costa county, in the rocks of Mount 
 Diablo and in those of the Coast mountains south and north of San Francisco; 
 in Los Angeles county, at Richmond district, and at Big Meadow district, both 
 on the interior slope of the mountains at the margin of the Great Basin. ( Vide 
 Geol. Rec., Cal., p. 290 ) 
 
 Lower California : a few leagues south of San Diego, at the Winder claims. 
 
 Arizona: at the Apache Chief mine, after getting below the "surface" ores. 
 At the San Pedro mines, near Fort Buchanan. Near Caborca, in northwestern 
 Sonora. 
 
 Chloride of silver. At the mines about Austin, Lander county, Nevada, this 
 species is abundant in the surface ores, being derived from the decomposition of 
 the mixed sulphurets of silver below the water level. It was also found in the 
 decomposed ores of the upper portions of the Comstock lode, and is common to 
 all the silver 'veins of the Great Basin. Some remarkably fine specimens were 
 
 obtained at the mine in Slate Range district, California. - Occurs also in 
 
 the Willow Springs district, and in the veins of El Dorado canon, Arizona. 
 
 Chrysocolla, , (silicate of copper.} Not 'common in California, where the 
 sulphurets in decomposing give carbonates and oxides ; but in Arizona, along 
 the Colorado river, very common at and" near the surface where the veins con- 
 taining copper glance are decomposed. Fine specimens were taken from the 
 Great Central claim, about twenty miles from La Paz and at the Blue lode. 
 
 Chromic iron. Monterey county, in masses, with green crusts and coatings 
 of emerald nickel. Santa Clara county, near the North Almaden mine. 
 
 Chrysolite. In serpentine, near San Francisco, and at New Almaden, Santa 
 Clara county. 
 
 Cinnabar, (sulphuret of mercury ) This is the characteristic mineral of the 
 Coast mountains, from Clear lake on the north to San Luis Obispo on the 
 south. It appears to be connected chiefly with the secondary rocks, though at 
 San Luis Obispo Prof. B. Silliman collected a group of fossils which appear to 
 be miocene tertiary. (See a notice by Mr. Gabb, Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci.) 
 The principal .locality is the well known mine of New Almaden, in Santa Clara 
 county, and the adjacent mines of the Enriqueta and the Guadalupe. The ore 
 occurs massive, in large bunches and " strings," and is associated with calc 
 spar, bitumen, and pyrites. The total production of quicksilver, chiefly from 
 the New Almaden, up to January, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, was three 
 hundred and seventy-one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three flasks, valued 
 at about fifteen million of dollars in gold. At the North Almaden, on the east 
 side of the San Jose" valley, and nearly opposite the New Almaden, considerable 
 quantities of cinnabar have been taken out of prospecting pits at this place, at 
 several different points. A heavy ferruginous outcrop shows the general course 
 of the metalliferous belt. The rock is hard and flinty, and is frequently beauti- 
 fully streaked with brilliant red cinnabar, the whole sufficiently compact to give 
 fine specimens for polishing by the lapidary. It occurs abundantly, and in 
 very handsome cabinet specimens, at the New Idria mines, in Monterey county, 
 at which work has recently been resumed. There are many localities in Napa 
 county, and in the vicinity of Clear lake and the Geysers. In small crystals 
 in hornstone, at Buckhorn ranch, north of Berreyesa valley. 
 
 In Mariposa county, near Coulterville, in finely colored crystals in quartz in 
 a gold vein. Nevada county, about four miles from Grass valley, washed out of 
 sluice boxes, and entirely different from the New Almaden ore in appearance. 
 Arizona, about eighteen mJes from the Colorado river : at Olive City, at the 
 Alma claim, and the Eugenie, located by Mr. Ehrenberg, associated with silver. 
 Reported to exist in Idaho, on the Qwyhee river. 
 
 Corundum. Los Angeles county, in the drift of the San Francisquito Pass, 
 in small crystals. (Baron Richthofeu.) 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 203 
 
 Copper, native This species is common in small quantities in the surface 
 ores of the principal copper mines of the State, but is not found below the 
 permanent water level. No veins of this metal like those of Lake Superior ar^ 
 known upon the Pacific coast, but the abundance of large drifted masses of solid 
 copper in one or more streams upon the northwest coast, (Russ. Poss.,) leave 
 little doubt that such veins do exist in that high latitude. Calaveras county, 
 at the Union mine, some very fine masses of dendritic or moss copper have been 
 taken out. (Cabinet of J. B. Header.) The Keystone mine, adjoining the 
 Union, also produced some good specimens in 186 1. Found also at the Na- 
 poleon and the Lancha Plana mines ; and in Sacramento county, at the 
 Cosumnes mine. In Santa Barbara county, occurs disseminated in grains in 
 the midst of serpentine rock. Arizona, on the Gila river, about ninety miles 
 from Fort Yuma, at the Arizona Copper Company's mine ; associated with red 
 oxide of copper and green carbonate, and spread in crystalline masses through 
 a gangue of calc spar. Cabinet of the author.) For the ores of copper, see 
 C/ialcopyrite, Red copper, Vitreous copper, Sfc. 
 
 Copper glance. Los Angeles county, at the Maris mine, Soledad district, in 
 grains and irregular masses in a sienitic granite. It contains suver. The de- 
 composition of this ore at and near the surface gives metallic copper, and metallic 
 silver, incrusting the surfaces of the granite where fissured. This locality was 
 known and worked as early as 1853. In Arizona this is the most common ore 
 of copper, especially in Weaver district, near La Paz, or Olive City. It is 
 usually argentiferous, and is there associated with gold in quartz veins. Found 
 also in the Chahuabi valley, the Tajo, and the San Pedro mines, and near 
 Caborca, in northwestern Sonora. 
 
 Derbyshire spar. Castle Dome district. (See Fluor spar) 
 
 Diamond. Butte county, Cherokee Flat, ten miles from OroviHe. In well 
 formed, highly modified crystals, from one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch 
 in diameter, and generally of a pale straw yellow color. Crystallization tetra- 
 hedral, like figure 267, page 24, Dana's System of Mineralogy. 
 
 Idaho. Reported to exist on the Owyhee river. 
 
 Diallogite, (carbonate of manganese) Occurs abundantly in the silver - 
 bearing veins about Austin, Nevada. By decomposition it becomes black, and 
 discolors the upper parts of the vein, but at and below the water-line, with the 
 unchanged ores of silver, it has a delicate flesh-red or pink color. 
 
 Dolomite. Amador county, in narrow, snow-white reins, traversing a talcose 
 chloritic rock, and bearing coarse free- gold. (Cabinet of the author, specimen 
 presented by Mr. James.) Calaveras county, Angels Camp, in the Winter, 
 Hill's and other mines, massive, with the quartz veins, and bears gold. Some- 
 times in fine crystals, lining cavities. San Bernardino county, at the Armagosa 
 mine, bearing coarse gold. 
 
 Embohte. Is believed to occur in the surface ores of Lander county, Nevada, 
 near Austin, and of Washington district, further south, but has not been cer- 
 tainly identified. 
 
 Emerald nickel. Monterey county, with chrome ore. 
 
 Feldspar. San Diego county, in crystals. (See Orthoclase.) 
 
 Fluor spar. In crystals and large cleavable masses of various tints. white, 
 pink, and purple and green, like the specimens from Derbyshire, England, in 
 the veins of galena and blende, Castle Dome district, Colorado river, Arizona. 
 Sparingly, in small white cubes, with the copper ore, at Mount Diablo. 
 
 Galena, (sulphuret of lead.) This common ore of lead has not yet been 
 found in finely crystallized cabinet specimens on the Pacific coast. The locali- 
 ties of the massive or granular ore are numerous, it being found in small quanti- 
 ties in many of the gold-bearing veins of the State, especially at the following : 
 Mariposa county, at Marble Springs mine ; Priceton mine ; Adelaide. Cala- 
 veras county, at the Barnes and Silver Elephant claims, at Murphy's ; at the 
 
204 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Star of the West, Blue Mountain district, and the Good Hunter claims, with 
 gold. In Sacramento county, at Michigan bar, with blende and pyrites/ Nevada 
 county, at Meadow lake, with blende. Tuolumne county, at the Soulsby mine, 
 with blende and iron pyrites and gold. In Nevada county, in several of the 
 veins at Grass valley, with free gold. In Tehama county, on Cow creek ; and 
 abundantly in veins on the island of Santa Catalina. In Arizona it is abun- 
 dant in the veins of the Castle Dome district, twenty-five miles from Fort Yuma, 
 and in the Eureka district on the same river, about twenty-five miles further 
 north ; also in the Piccacho district, and in the Weaver district, near La Paz ; 
 at the Santa Rita mine, with gray copper ore ; in the Tajo. vein, with copper 
 glance, blende, tetrahedrite, and gold ; in the Santa Cruz mountains, south of 
 Fort Buchanan ; at the Mowry and Patagonia mines ; at San Xavier, on the 
 Santa Cruz, (Pumpelly.) In Nevada it is abundant on Walker's river, north of 
 Esmeralda, and at Steamboat Springs, Galena district. It is also found in por- 
 tions of the Comstock lode, Washoe, associated with the silver sulphurets ; but 
 where it is associated in that vein with much blende and copper pyrites, it is not 
 rich in silver forming the ore commonly known there as " base rnetal." 
 
 Garnet. Iifl Dorado county, at Fairmount mine, three miles from Pilot Hill, 
 in large blocks and masses two feet thick or more. Associated with specular 
 iron, calc spar, iron pyrites, and copper pyrites, with actinolite in steatite, near 
 Petaluma, Sonoma county ; in large semi-crystalline masses, weighing ten to 
 twenty pounds, and of a light color, from the Coso mining district. (Specimens of 
 this were brought to San Francisco under the supposition that it was tin ore.) 
 A beautiful green garnet, grossular, is found with the copper ore of the Rogers 
 claim, Hope valley, El Dorado county, and similarly in copper ore at the 
 Mountain Meadows, Los Angeles county. In Russian America, Stickeen river, 
 in finely formed trapezohedral and dodecahedral crystals imbedded in mica slate, 
 and much resembling specimens from Monroe, Connecticut. 
 
 Gold, (crystalline.) Placer county, at Irish creek, three miles from Colo- 
 ma, in arborescent and crystalline masses covered with octahedrons. (Eighteen 
 hundred and fifty-four, cabinet of author.) At Forrest Hill, in the same county, 
 in the placer claims of the Messrs. Deidesheimer, in flattened and distorted 
 octahedra. One crystal is a partially formed octahedron, with a rectangular 
 base one inch long by seven-eighths of an inch wide. At Mameluke Hill, near 
 Georgetown, in ragged crystalline masses, in a quartz vein. In El Dorado 
 county, at Spanish Dry Diggings, in large masses of irregular dendritic crystal- 
 lizations. One mass recently obtained weighed about sixteen pounds, and was 
 purchased by Mr. Dickinson, of New York, for preservation. Calaveras county, 
 a large partly formed crystal with octahedral edges ; if perfect would be two 
 inches in diameter. Tuolumne county, flattened, distorted octahedrons from 
 the Whiskey Hill mine. Mariposa county, octahedrons from the placers near 
 Coulterville, but very rare. At the Priceton mine, rarely, in nests and bunches 
 of octahedrons, with brilliant faces. 
 
 Small delicate microscopic prisms of gold have been found in the vicinity of 
 Sonora. They appear to be terminated with crystalline planes at both ends, 
 and probably are elongated octahedrons. (From the collection of Doctor Snell.) 
 
 Crystals of sporjgiforrn gold, from one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch in di- 
 ameter, and as light almost as cork, were washed out by Doctor Hill from a 
 claim near Angels. This- is a condition of native gold which, it is believed, 
 has not been hitherto noticed. 
 
 In Plumas county, Sherman lode, Light canon, on coatings of green and blue 
 carbonates of copper, proceeding from the decomposition of variegated copper 
 pyrites or vitreous copper in part. This gold was apparently deposited after 
 the deposition of the carbonate of copper. The specimens are beautiful'. (Cabi- 
 net of Mr. Waters, Sacramento.) Mariposa county, in a narrow vein of calcite 
 or dolomite, two inches wide, cutting slates ; precise locality not known. The 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN* 205 
 
 gold was in coarse masses and strings in the middle of the vein. Amador 
 county, near Dry town, in a vein of pearl spar, which is very pure and white, 
 and without admixture with quartz or pyrites. The gold is in coarse masses in 
 the midst of the pearl spar. (Specimens collected by Mr. James, and presented 
 to the author.) 
 
 Gold in small quantities occurs at many places in the Coast mountains, and 
 associated with cinnabar. Some specimens of coarse' gold have been found in 
 the cinnabar veins of Colusa county. In Excelsior district gold occurs with 
 molybdenite. In San Bernardino counjby, at the Armagosa mine, in feldspar 
 and in calc spar, in a granitic rock, associated also with arsenolite. 
 
 Many large masses of gold have been taken from the placers of California at 
 various times, of which no authentic record or description has been kept. In 
 1864, a large mass, one hundred and eighty-seven ounces, (fifteen and seven-- 
 twelfths pounds,) was taken from the middle fork of the American river, about 
 two miles from Michigan bluffs, Placer county. 
 
 The Carson Hill quartz claim, in Calaveras county, is celebrated for the size 
 and weight of the masses of gold taken from it, some of which weighed six and 
 seven pounds. (For further observations upon gold, its geology and distribution, 
 see an article at the end.) 
 
 Gold and tellurium. (See Tellurium.) 
 
 Gray copper ore. With gold in the Pine Tree mine, Mariposa grant, and 
 similarly at the lona Company's claim, and others upon the same belt near 
 Coulterville. (See Tetrahedrite) 
 
 Graphite. About twenty miles above the Big Tree Grove, in crystalline 
 scales ; also at the mine of the Eureka Plumbago Company, (locality not known.) 
 
 Gypsum. Los Angeles county, in the Great Basin, near the entrance to the 
 Soledad or "New Pass." San Diego county, along the banks of Carizzo creek, 
 and on the slope of the desert. Tuiare county, at the vein of stibnite, in crys- 
 tals. Nevada county, near the Truckee Pass, in beautiful stellar radiations, 
 from o^e half of an inch to three inches in diameter. (Cabinet of C. W. Smith, 
 Grass valley.) 
 
 Hematite, (specular iron ore.) This is a very abundant ore in California, 
 and Arizona, on the Colorado river, near Williams's Fork. Some of the dry 
 arroyos or canons in that region are crowded with blocks of the pure ore, from 
 one to two feet in diameter. It is broken from beds and seams in an impure 
 metamorphic limestone. The structure is granular, passing into micaceous, and 
 freshly broken surfaces are extremely brilliant. Specimens of similar ore were 
 brought in by Jules Marcou, in eighteen hundred and fifty-three, from the val- 
 ley of Williams's Fork, further north. This ore occurs also in Humboldt valley, 
 and abundantly on the coast of Mexico, south of Acapulco, 
 
 Hessite. Eldorado county. (See Tefiuret of silver ?f 
 
 Hornblende. At San Pablo. At Soledad, in sienite. At Yallecito, near 
 Murphy's. 
 
 Hyalite. Associated with semi-opal, in the Mount Diablo range, about thUty 
 miles south of Mount Diablo. (In cabinet of J. B. Meader, Stockton.) 
 
 Jdocrase. Siegel lode, Eldorado county. (?) 
 
 Iodide of mercury.' Santa Barbara county. (?) 
 
 Hmenite. Eldorado county, near Georgetown, from the golcl washings; a 
 very fine crystal, about an inch in diameter, with brilliant planes. 
 
 Iron ores. (See Magnetite and Hematite.) 
 
 Iridosmine. With platinum and gold in the beach sands of the northern coun- 
 ties. An analysis by C. Kurlbaum, jr., in Pr. Genth's laboratory, of a sample 
 of the residue from gold washing and amalgamation, obtained by the author in 
 eighteen hundred and fifty-four, gave 48.77 per cent, of iridosmine. Found also 
 as a residue in melting large lots of placer dust. 
 
 Iron pyrites. Found in most of the gold-bearing quartz veins, either crystal- 
 
206 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 line or massive; usually from one to five per cent, of trie whole weight of the 
 ore. The value for gold varies greatly. At Grass valley the concentrated sul- 
 phurets are worth from one hundred dollars to three hundred dollars per ton. 
 Cabinet specimens of this mineral may be had in very large crystals, cubes, at 
 the Fairmount claim, three miles from Pilot Hill, Eldorado county. It is there 
 associated with garnets, .brown spar, and specular iron. Found in brilliant 
 druses lining fissures in the rocks of the E Pluribus Unum tunnel, three miles 
 from Murphy's, Calaveras county. In brilliant but small cubical crystals in 
 the gold ore of the Mameluke claim, near Georgetown, Eldorado county. Mari- 
 posa county, in large and perfect crystals in the slates near the Deville mine, 
 south of Princeton Hill. Placer county, in large crystals, near the Grizzly Bear 
 House, between Auburn and Forrest Hill. 
 
 Jasper. Very fine masses of brown and yellow jasper are abundant near 
 Murphy's, Calaveras county, in the quartz veins, and in the debris from them. 
 
 Kcrargyrite. (See Chloride of silver.) 
 
 Lignite. San Francisco county, Contra Costa county, Monterey county; in 
 Amador county, in thick beds at the base of the Sierra Nevada; used in lone 
 City for steam boilers ; Santa Barbara county, Humboldt county, along the Eel 
 river ; Klamath county, at Gold Bluff, four hundred feet below the surface. 
 (Lieutenant Tuttle, U. S. army.) Del Norte county, at Point St. George. (Pro- 
 fessor Sherman Day.) In Nevada, "Washoe county, along the Truekee river; 
 in Lyon county, at the "Whitman mines." 
 
 Limonite. Mariposa county, at Burns's creek, near the old road to Fort 
 Miller, in a heavy outcrop of quartz ; solid blocks of limonite, from two to four 
 feet thick, are found there. (See Geol. Rec. Cal., p. 290.) Oregon, sixteen 
 miles from Portland, in an extensive bed ; specimens were sent by Governor 
 Gibbs to the Mechanics' Fair exhibition in 1864. 
 
 Made. Mariposa county. (See Andalucite.) 
 
 Magnecite, (carbonate of magnesia.) Tulare county, near Visalia, between 
 Four creeks and Moor's creek, in the foot-hills, in solid beds of pure white, 
 massive carbonate of magnesia, hard, fine grained, and like unglazed porcelain 
 in texture. The beds are from one to six feet thick, and are interstratified with 
 talcose slates and serpentine. Similar beds are described to me as existing in 
 the Diablo range. Alameda county, about thirty miles south of the mountain. 
 Mariposa county and Tuolumne county: a heavy bed of magnesian rock, 
 chiefly magnesite, charged with crystals of iron pyrites, accompanies the chief 
 gold-bearing quartz vein of thoso counties. This rock is charged also with 
 nickel and chrome talc in green films, like the magnesite of Canada. 
 
 Magnetite. In large beds, massive, and of superior quality, in Sierra county ; 
 also in octahedral crystals, forming beautiful cabinet specimens. In Plumas 
 county, near the line, fin groups of octahedrons associated with garnet (?) and 
 epidote. (?) Mariposa county, just east of the Mariposa estate, on the trail to 
 Yosemite. Placer county, at Utt's ranch, six miles from Auburn. At the 
 Caiiada de las Uvas, Los Angeles county, in a vein about three feet thick, in 
 limestone ; in the sienitic granite of the mountains between the Great Basin 
 and Los Angeles; seen in drift fragments in the valley of Soledad, or "Wil- 
 liamson's Pass." Eldorado county, at Volcanoville, on the middle fork of the 
 American river, near the great quartz vein. This locality was noted by the 
 writer in eighteen hundred and fifty-three. Thia ore is, perhaps, titaniferous, 
 but specimens are not at hand for examination. Trinity county, near Weaver- 
 ville, in small veins. (Trask, 3d report, 1865, p. 56.) Nevada county, three 
 miles from Grass valley. Eldorado county, fine octahedral crystals, in slate, 
 near the Boston copper mine ; in small brilliant crystals, with quartz, pyrites! 
 and calc spar; at the Eldorado Excelsior copper claim. 
 
 Malachite, (green carbonate of copper.) In remarkably fine specimens, 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS, 207 
 
 associated with crystalline blue carbonate, at Hnghes's mine, Calaveras county, 
 (1861.) 
 
 Manganese, oxide. (See Pyrolusite.) 
 
 Manganese, carbonate of. (See Dialogite.) 
 
 Mercury. Native quicksilver is found in Napa (?) county, near the Geysers, 
 at the Pioneer claim, in a silicious rock. 
 
 (For sulphuret of mercury, see Cinnabar.) 
 
 Mercury, iodide of. Santa Barbara county, (Mr. G. E. Moore.) 
 
 Mispickel. Grass valley, Nevada county, at Betsey mine, with gold. This 
 mineral is a common associate of gold in the quartz of the State. Crystals of 
 mispickel are sometimes penetrated with gold. 
 
 Molybdate of had. State of Nevada, Comstock lode, in the upper part of 
 the California mine, in the "rusty lode," in small yellow crystals; in good 
 crystals in the (?) mine, "Weaver district, Arizona. 
 
 Molybdenite. Occurs in fine specimens at several localities in the gold re- 
 gion .; Nevada county, at the Excelsior mine, Excelsior district, abundantly 
 with gold. 
 
 Mountain cork. Tuolumne county, 
 
 Nickel. (See Emerald nickel.) 
 
 Orthoclase. San Diego county, in granite veins along the road between 
 Santa Isabel and San Pasquale, associated with tourmalines and garnet. Fresno 
 county, at Fort Miller, in coarse-grained granite, under the edge of the lava 
 plateau. 
 
 Opal semi-opal. A white milky variety of opal is found in Calaveras 
 county, at Mokelumne Hill, or on the hill near that place known as Stockton 
 Hill,. on the west side of Chile gulch. A shaft has been sunk there three hun- 
 dred and forty-five feet, and the opals are found in a thin stratum of red gravel. 
 They vary in size from a kernel of corn to the size of walnuts. Many of them 
 contain dendritic infiltrations of manganese oxide, looking like moss. About a 
 bushel of these stones are raised in one day, and are said to have a market 
 value. A white milky variety, similar to the above, and without " fire," is 
 found with magnesite in Mount Diablo range, thirty miles south of the moun- 
 tain ; also in the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada, at the Four Creeks. 
 
 Pearl spar. (See Dolomite.) 
 
 Petroleum. Abundantly distributed throughout the coast counties, from San 
 Diego in the south to Crescent City in the north. The purest and most limpid 
 natural oils have thus far been obtained from the localities north of San Fran- 
 cisco, in Humboldt and Colusa counties. These oils are green by reflected 
 light, and resemble the best samples from Pennsylvania. No abundantly flow- 
 ing wells have yet been found. In Humboldt county there are many springs, 
 giving both oil and gas, and numerous wells are in progress. So also in Colusa 
 county, at Bear valley, about twenty-five miles west of Colusa, several springs, 
 giving a fine quality of lubricating oil and much gas ; also at Antelope dis- 
 trict, nineteen miles west of Colusa. In Contra Costa county, ten miles from 
 Oakland, there are petroleum springs, and a very superior oil has been obtained 
 from the region of Mount Diablo. In Tulare county there is an extensive 
 region where oil and gas springs abound. The localities are numerous in the 
 counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Los Angeles. 
 
 Platina. With iridium and iridosmine, on the coast at Cape Blanco, south- 
 ern Oregon. Analysis of a sample of the mixed metals from Port Orford, in 
 eighteen hundred and fifty -four, gave forty-three and fifty-four one-lmndredths 
 per cent, of platina. 
 
 Proustiie, (light red silver ore.) In the veins about Austin, Lander county, 
 Nevada. At the Daney mine, and occasionally in the ore of the Comstock 
 lode. 
 
 Pyrargyrite, (dark red silver ore.) (See Ruby silver.) 
 
208 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Pyrolusite. Red Island, Bay of San Francisco, in vein or bed 3' to 4' wide, 
 in the metamorphic jaspery shales the "prasoid" rocks. This is a remarkably 
 pure ore of manganese, and has been extensively mined for shipment. 
 
 Pyrophyllite occurs in the gold region ; locality not known. 
 
 Pyroxene. In fine crystals, dark green, near Mud springs, Eldorado 
 county. 
 
 Pyromorpliite, (phosphate of had.) In Nevada, in the outcrops of the 
 Comstock lode, especially the back ledges of the Ophir ground, giving green 
 coats and crusts on the surface of the quartz. 
 
 Pyrrhotine, (magnetic pyrites ) Mariposa county, at the Ion a Copper 
 Company's tunnel, north side of the Merced river, on the trail from Bear valley 
 to Coulterville. 
 
 Quartz. This abundant mineral is obtained in fine crystals in the quartz 
 veins in various parts of the State, and in the mines of Wafhoe. Some large 
 and well-formed crystals, from three to four inches or more in diameter, have 
 been found at Red Hill, in Placer county, (cabinet of C. W. Smith, Grass 
 valley,) and in the placer claims in the vicinity of Placerville, where, also, a 
 fine large crystal of smoky quartz was found. Mariposa county, on Whitlock's 
 and Shirlock's creeks, in the quartz veins, in fine groups of crystals ; also at 
 the Mariposa mine, and in the eastern parts of the Princeton vein. Calaveras 
 county, at the Noble claim, on Domingo creek. Nevada county, in the Grass 
 Valley mines, often supporting gold between the crystals, and at the " French 
 lode," (Eureka?) crystals of a light greenish tinge, like that of datfyolite. 
 
 Red oxide of copper occurs sparingly in thin crusts and sheets with the 
 surface ores of the principal copper mines in Calaveras county, especially the 
 Union and Keystone. In Mariposa county, at La Victoire mine, with green 
 and blue carbonates of copper. Del Norte county, at the Evoca, Alta, and 
 other mines, in very good cabinet specimens, the cavities being lined with crys- 
 tals. In Piumas county, and in the upper parts of most of the copper veins of 
 the State. Arizona, at the Arizona Copper-Mining Company's claim, near the 
 Gila river, in large masses, with native copper and thin crusts of green car- 
 bonate. At the claim known as No. 15, Yavapais district, with native copper. 
 
 Ruby silver, (pyrargyrite.) This beautiful ore of silver was first discov- 
 ered in the Daney mine, Washoe, by the writer, in eighteen hundred and sixty- 
 jane, and has since been found sparingly in the Ophir and the Gould & Curry. 
 In the latter mine some very fine specimens were obtained by Mr. Strong, and 
 are deposited in the cabinet of the company, at the office in Virginia City. This 
 ore is abundant in the veins about Austin, Ileese river, and is often so thoroughly 
 spread through the quartz of the gaugue as to give it a decided reddish color. 
 It is generally associated with sulphuret of silver. No good crystals have yet 
 been found. 
 
 Salt roc7v salt. Abundant in the dry season as an incrustation throughout 
 California. Found in large quantities in Nevada, in the beds of desiccated lakes 
 at numerous places. About twelve miles north of Armagosa mine, in large 
 masses. In the Wasatch mountains, southeast of Lake Timpanogos, on the 
 headwaters of a small creek tributary to Utah lake, in thick strata of red clay. 
 (Fremont's Geog. Mem., 67.) This is said to be the same locality mentioned 
 by Father Escalante in his journal, and noted by Humboldt on his map as 
 " Montagnes de Sd Gemmed Salt crystallizes from the spray of the waters of 
 the Great Salt lake, and is found abundantly on its shores, and on twigs and 
 shrubs. The Great Salt lake is a saturated solution of common salt. The 
 shores in the dry season are incrusted with salt, and shallow arms of the lake 
 present beds of salt for miles. Plants and shrubs are incrusted to a thickness 
 of an inch or more with crystallized salt deposited by the spray. Five gallons 
 of the wat^r tnken in the month of September, and evaporated by Colonel Fre- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 209 
 
 moDt over a fire, gave fourteen pints of salt, which analysis showed to have th<3 
 following proportions (Fremont's Memoir, 9 :) 
 
 Chloride of sodium , 97.80 
 
 Chloride of calcium 0.61 
 
 Chloride of magnesium 0.24 
 
 Sulphate of soda 0.23 
 
 Sulphate of lime 1.12 
 
 Schorl, (see Tourmaline.) Selenite. In beautiful stellar crystallizations 
 on the crossing of the Little Truckee, Henness Pass road. The blades compos- 
 ing these aggregates are from half an inch to two inches in length, and from 
 one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch in width. They are perfectly clear, and 
 most of them hemitroped so as to form arrow-headed crystals. (Cabinet of C. 
 W. Smith.) 
 
 Selenid of mercury In large masses from the vicinity of Clear lake. 
 
 Silver, native. This metal, in its native state, is rare in the State of Cali- 
 fornia. At Silver Mountain district (formerly Eldorado county) it occurs in 
 the decomposed surface ores. Los Angeles county, in the decomposed parts of 
 the Maris vein, Soledad, covering surfaces of syenite. Sonora, at the celebrated 
 Planchas de la Plata, just south of the Arizona line, and near the meridian 
 of Tubac. According to the best Mexican and Jesuit authorities, large 
 masses of native silver were discovered there in 1769. One mass is reported 
 to have weighed three thousand six hundred pounds. No vein has been 
 found; the deposit is a placer. (Pumpelly.) Nevada Story county, in 
 the Comstock lode, in filaments, and matted, hairy masses "wire silver," 
 usually closely associated with silver glance and stephanite. At the Burn- 
 ing Moscow claim (Ophir) some large masses of ore were taken out in 
 1864 completely charged with the metal. Occurs also at the Daney mine, 
 with native gold and sulphuret of silver. Lander county, in the veins about 
 Austin, associated with the surface ores, such as the chloride and bromide of 
 silver, and green and blue carbonates of copper. Idaho Territory, in large 
 masses at the " Poor Man's lode," or " Candle-box mine," where it was said 
 the lumps of silver were as large as candle boxes. That a great quantity 
 of large masses of the metal was taken out there is no doubt. It is common in 
 the silver lodes of the Owyhee, and is usually very filamentous and finely 
 divided and embedded in granular quartz. 
 
 Silver, (telluret of.) A single specimen was obtained by the author in 
 1854, near Georgetown, in Eldorado county. It had been washed out from 
 the gold drift, and the parent vein has never been found. (Rep. Geol. Rec, 
 Cal., 302.) 
 
 Smoky quartz. A large crystal about six inches in diameter, from Placer 
 county, and in the cabinet of Dr. White, Placerville. 
 
 Sphene. In small hair-Drown crystals in the granite of the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 Stephanite, (brittle sulpJmret of silver.) Very fine crystals of stephanit 
 were obtained from the Ophir and Mexican mines, Nevada, soon after they were 
 opened. These crystals were from half an inch to two inches in length, but 
 were generally imperfectly formed. They greatly resemble the crystallizations 
 of vitreous copper from the Bristol mine in Connecticut. A large collection of 
 these was made by R. L. Ogden in 1859 and 1860, and were noticed by the 
 writer in the Mining Magazine. They are now more rare, but have been found 
 in nearly all the principal claims upon the Comstock lode. Some very good 
 specimens were taken from the Gould & Curry, preserved in the cabinet 
 by C. L. Strong, in 1864. They are frequently implanted among quartz crys- 
 tals in nests or geodes, and are covered with a hairy growth of wire silver. 
 
 Crystals of silver ore from Silver Mountain district are probably this specie*. 
 
 St^bmte. Tulare county, in a large vein near the Pass of San Amedio 
 H. Ex. Doa 29 14 
 
210 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 (vide Rep. Geol. Rec Cal., pp. 292-3.) It occurs in large, solid masses, 
 boulders of which are numerous in the beds of the arroyos leading from the vein. 
 In Nevada, at or near the Gem mine, Dunglen ; at the Sheba mine, in beauti- 
 ful needle-like crystals, and at the De Soto and other mines in that vicinity ; 
 in Russ district, Great Basin. 
 
 Stroymeyerite. Arizona. Heintzelman mine. 
 
 Sulphur. Colusa county ; Napa county, at the Geysers. In Nevada, in 
 extinct solfataras, Humboldt valley. 
 
 Sulphuret of silver Nevada, Comstock lode ; occurs with stephanite in the 
 Ophir, Mexican, Gould & Curry, and other mines upon that line of claims. 
 It is also present in the ore of the vein at Gold Hill, and appears to be the chief 
 source of the silver in those ores. It has not been observed in crystals. In 
 the large chamber of the Ophir mine, in eighteen hundred and sixty-one, it was 
 very abundant, in irregular masses ramifying through the fragmentary white 
 quartz so as to hold it together in hand specimens. Large masses of vein-stuff 
 could be broken down, in which the sulphuret of silver constituted at least half 
 of the whole weight. Native gold was commonly associated with it in that 
 part of the mine. ' It is now more frequently found associated with copper 
 pyrites and galena. This species is also found in small crystals in the ore of 
 the Daney mine, associated with native silver, gold, and ruby silver. It is 
 eommon in the ores of Reese river, associated with ^'uby silver and manganese 
 spar. It is probably the chief ore of silver in the Cortez district. 
 
 Sulphuret of iron (See Iron pyrites?} 
 
 Telluret of silver. El Dorado county. (See Silver.) 
 
 Tetrakedrite, (gray copper.) Mariposa county, with the gold in the Pine 
 Tree vein; also with the gold in the same or similar vein at the Crown lode, 
 Emily Peak, and at Coulterville in several claims. Calaveras county, at Carson 
 Hill, in the large vein, and associated with gold. This ore, in decomposing, 
 leaves a blue stain of carbonate in the quartz, and where it is found the rock is 
 generally rich in gold. In Nevada it occurs abundantly in the Sheba mine, 
 Humboldt county, massive and rich in silver. It is associated with the follow- 
 ing species, which were noted from time to time by Mr. Moss, the superintend- 
 ent, and in part by the author : Ruby silver, argentiferous galena, antimonial 
 galena, iron pyrites, blende, cerusite, calcite, quartz with acicular antimony, 
 sulphuret of antimony in delicate needles and massive native silver, bournonite. 
 Found also in Lander county, with the silver ores of the veins near Austin ; at 
 the Comet lode, Veatch canon, south of Austin. Los Angeles county at the 
 Zapata claim, San Gabriel mountains. Arizona at the Heintzelman mine, 
 containing from one to one and a half per cent, of silver. (Pumpelly.) Also, 
 at the Santa Rita mine, associated with galena. 
 
 Tellurium and gold, (tetradyrmte ?) At the Melones and Stanislaus mines, 
 one mile south of Carson Hill, Calaveras county, very beautiful specimens of 
 native gold, associated with tellurium, were taken out of a vein from six to 
 eighteen inches thick, and at a depth of two hundred feet from the surface. 
 This tellurct has a tin-white color, and is not foliated like the tetradymite 
 from the Field vein in Georgia. Its exact specific character is not yet de- 
 termined. 
 
 Tin ore, (oxyd of tin.) (See Cassiterite.) 
 
 Topaz. In clear, colorless crystals, finely terminated, from one-eighth of an 
 inch to half an inch in diameter, found in the tin washings of Durango, Mexico. 
 (Cabinet of the author, 1864.) Noticed by C. F. Chandler, American Journal 
 of Science, 1865. 
 
 Tourmaline. San Diego county, north side of the valley of San Felipe, in 
 feldsoathic veins, (for description and figures see Rep. Geol. Rec. Cal., Blake, p. 
 304;) Tuolumne county. 
 
 Tremolite. White and fibrous in limestone, Columbia, Tuolumne county. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 211 
 
 Tung-state of manganese. With tungstate of lime, in the Mammoth mining 
 district, Nevada. (C. T. Jackson, Proc. Cal. Acad., iii, 199.) 
 
 Variegated copper ore, ("Horseflesh ore.") Sigel lode, in Plumas county. 
 Vitreous copper. (See Copper Glance,) 
 Zinc. (See Blende.) 
 
 Principal public and private mineralogical and geological collections in Cali- 
 fornia, known to the author. 
 
 I. PUBLIC COLLECTIONS. 
 
 STATE GEOLOGICAL COLLECTION Sacramento and San Francisco ; not 
 arranged, and in part destroyed by fire in eighteen hundred and sixty-five, at 
 the Pacific warehouse. 
 
 STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY'S At Sacramento ; partly in cases, hut not 
 classified or arranged. 
 
 SAN JOAQUIN AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY At Stockton ; collected chiefly hy 
 Dr. Holden ; not large, nor well arranged. 
 
 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES At San Francisco; not 
 arranged ; in boxes, and stored, awaiting a suitable room or building for their 
 display. This collection was made in great part by and through the exertions 
 of Dr. J. G. Trask, and has many valuable specimens taken from our mines 
 soon after their discovery. 
 
 COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA At Oakland. A collection of minerals and fos- 
 sils of California ; partly arranged. 
 
 SANTA CLARA COLLEGE. (No particulars known.) 
 
 ODD FELLOWS' LIBRARY ASSOCIATION At San Francisco. A valuable 
 miscellaneous collection of minerals, ores, fossils, and curiosities, chiefly the 
 donation of the members of the Order ; arranged in cases, at the Hall. The 
 Order is indebted, chiefly, for this valuable addition to their rooms, to the zeal 
 and enthusiasm of their president, S. H. Parker, esq. 
 
 OCCIDENTAL HOTEL Lewis Leland, San Francisco. A collection contain- 
 ing many very choice and valuable specimens of ores and precious metals of the 
 Pacific coast. 
 
 II. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. 
 
 W. P. BLAKE At San Francisco and Oakland. A collection of minerals, 
 ores, geological specimens, and fossils, from California, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, 
 Mexico, the eastern States, Japan, and China, with some European minerals. 
 About sixty boxes of this collection were destroyed in the Pacific warehouse, 
 by fire, in eighteen hundred and sixty-five. A portion, stored at the college and 
 elsewhere, was uninjured. It is now partly in boxes, and partly in cases, in 
 San Francisco, and at the College of California, Oakland. There are probably 
 five thousand to six thousand specimens, a great part of them selected by the 
 owner at the localities. It contains a valuable and extensive suit of crystalline 
 gold. 
 
 Dr. J. M. FREY Sacramento. A large and valuable miscellaneous collec- 
 tion of Pacific coast minerals, including a fine suit of gold in crystals. Arranged 
 in part, in cases, in Sacramento. 
 
 Dr. JOHN HEWSTON, Jr. San Francisco. Miscellaneous collection. 
 
 Dr. JONES Murphy's, Calaveras county. A miscellaneous collection, 
 chiefly local. 
 
 A. P. MOLITOR San Francisco. Miscellaneous collection. 
 
 K. L. OGDEN San Francisco. A miscellaneous collection of copper and 
 gold ores. A large collection made by this gentleman up to eighteen hundred 
 ind sixty-one, was purchased by W. P. Blake, in eighteen hundred and sixty-one. 
 
212 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 AUGCSTE EEMOND San Francisco. (No particulars known.) 
 
 Dr. SNELL Sonora, Tuolumne county. A rich and valuable collection of 
 fossils and aboriginal relics from the auriferous gravel under Table mountain, 
 and of minerals and ores from that region. This is the richest collection of 
 relics of the mastodon and the mammoth in California. 
 
 T. J. SPEAR San Francisco ; formerly at Georgetown, in eighteen hundred 
 and sixty- two and three. A small miscellaneous collection, which included an 
 ammonite, from the gold slates of the American river ; valuable to science as 
 one of the evidences of the secondary age of the gold-bearing rocks of California. 
 
 Dr. STOUT San Francisco. A miscellaneous collection of Eastern and 
 European specimens, arranged in cases. 
 
 C. W. SMITH -Grass valley, Nevada county. An interesting collection, 
 arranged in cases, afid containing some choice specimens from the mines of 
 Grass valley. 
 
 Dr. WHITE Placerville, El Dorado county. A miscellaneous collection, 
 containing many interesting specimens from that region, and some foreign mine- 
 rals, by exchange. 
 
 W. R. WATERS Sacramento. Miscellaneous collection of minerals and 
 ores, arranged in case. 
 
 Notes on tlie geographical distribution and 'geology of the precious metals and 
 valuable minerals on tlie Pacific slope oj' the United States. 
 
 If we attempt to delineate by colors upon a map the geographical distribution 
 of the gold, silver, copper, and quicksilver localities of the Pacific slope, we ob- 
 tain a series of nearly parallel belts or zones, following the general course or 
 trend of the mountain chains and of the coast. So, also, if we enter the Golden 
 Gate and travel eastward across the country to the Rocky mountains, we pass 
 successively through zones or belts of country characterized mineralogically by 
 different metals and minerals. 
 
 In the Coast mountains, for example, quicksilver is the chief, and the highly 
 characteristic economical mineral. The localities of its ore are strung along the 
 mountains through the counties north and south of the Golden Gate. We have 
 also petroleum, sulphur, and calcareous springs, nearly coincident in their dis- 
 tribution. Passing from this grouping of minerals eastward over the coal beds 
 of Mount Diablo, and crossing the great interior valley of California, (probably 
 underlaid by lignite,) we rise upon the slope of the Sierra Nevada, and reach 
 the copper-producing rocks. These form a well marked zone, which has been 
 traced almost uninterruptedly from Mariposa to Oregon, following the lower 
 hills of the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 East of the copper belt, (and in the central counties, over a chain of hills 
 known as "Bear mountains,") we find the great gold-bearing zone, characterized 
 by lines of quartz ledges, following the mountains in their general northwesterly 
 and southeasterly course. This gold belt is composite in its character the 
 veins traversing either slates, limestones, sandstones, or granite. 
 
 Crossing the snow-covered crest of the Sierra, where in some parts iron ores 
 have been found, we leave the region of gold and enter that of silver, mingled 
 with gold, extending up and down the interior eastern slope of the Sierra through- 
 out California, into Arizona and Mexico on the south, and Idaho on the north. 
 
 At the Reese River mountains, further east, towards Salt Lake, the gold is 
 replaced by silver, associated with copper, antimony, and arsenic ; and this 
 grouping is in its turn replaced by the gold-bearing sulphurets of the Rocky 
 mountains. This is the general distribution of the precious metals. There are, 
 doubtless, local exceptions. 
 
 It is evident that this distribution of the metals and minerals in zones has 
 been determined by the nature of the rocky strata, and by their condition of 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 213 
 
 metamorphism. It is worthy of note that the minerals of the coast ranges are 
 chiefly the more volatile and soluble, such as cinnabar, sulphur, petroleum, and 
 borax, distributed in rocks ranging from the tertiary to the cretaceous, inclu- 
 sive. 
 
 The longitudinal extension of the gold-bearing zone is yet undetermined. 
 The metal has been traced through the whole length of California, through Ore- 
 gon and Washington, into British Columbia, and beyond, along the Russian 
 possessions, towards the Arctic sea. Southward, it is prolonged into Sonora 
 and Mexico, and there is every reason to believe that its extension is. coincident 
 with the great mountain chain of North America in its course around the globe, 
 into and through Asia. 
 
 After years of laborious search for fossils by which the age of the gold- 
 bearing rocks might be determined, I had the pleasure, early in 1863, to 
 obtain a specimen containing Ammonites from a locality on the American 
 river, preserved in the cabinet of Mr. Spear. This fossil was of extreme 
 importance, being indicative of the secondary age of the gold bearing slates, 
 and was therefore photographed, and copies of it sent to the Smithsonian 
 Institution at Washington, for description. It was subsequently noticed in the 
 proceedings of the California Academy of Natural Sciences, September, 1864, 
 The same year, when at Bear valley, Mariposa county, upon the chief gold- 
 bearing rocks of California, I identified a group of secondary fossils from the 
 slates contiguous to the Pine Tree vein, and noticed them at a meeting of the 
 California Academy, October 3, 1864, announcing the Jurassic or cretaceous age 
 of these slates. The best characterized fossil was a Plagwstoma,(oY Lima,} to 
 which I provisionally attached the name Erringtoni* The attention of the 
 geological survey having been directed to this locality by my announcement and 
 exhibition of the fossils in San Francisco and at the academy, Mr. Gabb, the 
 palaeontologist of the survey, visited the locality and obtained specimens. These 
 fossils were of such interest and importance to science, and to the geological 
 description of the State, that an extra plate was engraved for them and pub- 
 lished in the appendix to the volume on the geology, recently issued.! 
 
 Fossils of the secondary age from Genesee valley, in the northern part of the 
 State, were common in collections in 1864, and are described by the State Geo- 
 logical Survey, volume one, " Palaeontology." It appears also, from the same 
 source, that Mr. King, a gentleman connected with the survey, had obtained 
 bclemites from the Mariposa rocks in 1864, but no figures or description are 
 given. 
 
 We may thus regard the secondary age of a part, at least, of the gold-bearing 
 rocks of the Sierra Nevada as established, a result of no small importance prac- 
 tically, for it destroys the dogma, which has been very generally accepted, that 
 the Silurian or Palaeozoic rocks are the repositories of the gold of the globe. 
 We may now look for gold in regions where before it was generally presumed 
 to be absent, because the formations were not Silurian or Palaeozoic. 
 
 The Silurian age of the gold rocks of California has not always been assumed. 
 It has been repeatedly questioned. In the preface to the writer's " Report of a 
 Geological Reconnoissance in California," it is stated that a considerable part of 
 the gold-bearing slates of California are probably carboniferous. The absence of 
 all evidence of Silurian fossils west of the Rocky mountains is also distinctly 
 noted, (p. 276.) The opinion of the comparatively modern age of the gold 
 
 * In honor of Miss Errington, a lady residing on the estate, who drew my attention to some 
 impressions on the slates which she had picked up on the English trail, which proved to be 
 fossils. 
 
 tl regret to observe that in this publication, as well as in Mr. Gabb's notice of the fossils, 
 no mention is made of my previous announcement, and that my part in the discovery 
 and publication of the secondary age of the Mariposa gold rocks is studiously and wholly 
 ignored. 
 
214 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 rocks has been steadily gaining strength and support for years past, and has 
 been the subject of discussion in the daily journals. 
 
 The prevalence of gold in the Coast mountains, in or in close proximity to 
 rocks of tertiary age, leads us to question whether it may not occur in the rocks 
 of this late period also. The fact, recently ascertained, that gold is very gener- 
 rally associated with cinnabar, makes it more than probable that the metal has 
 been deposited in formations as recent even as the Miocene, (or middle tertiary,) 
 for, according to the best evidence we now have, this is the age of a part, at 
 least, of the quicksilver-bearing rocks. 
 
 Such a result need not surprise us, although so far in opposition to generally 
 existing views of the geological association of gold. The geological age of the 
 rocks has .manifestly nothing to do with the deposition of gold ; it is only neces- 
 sary that the rocks should have a favorable mineral composition and a suitable 
 degree of metamorphism. On this general view, we may be prepared to find 
 gold in rocks of any geological period, from the tertiary to the Laurentian or 
 Huronian rocks, inclusive. 
 
 The lithology of the chief gold-bearing zone or belt of rocks of California is 
 interesting. The chief or " mother vein" extends through several counties, with 
 occasional breaks or interruptions ; and throughout its course preserves its dis- 
 tinguishing characters. It follows also the same geological horizon or zone, 
 keeping between well-marked geological and geographical boundaries, so that a 
 description of the strata adjoining it at one place will serve to give a general 
 view of them throughout. A cross-section in considerable detail was made on 
 the Mariposa estate in eighteen hundred and sixty-four. This estate includes 
 the southern end of the " Great Vein," there known as the " Pine Tree." It 
 also includes several veins lying west of the line of the Pine Tree, of which the 
 most important is the " Princeton," noted for its richness and large production 
 of gold. This group of veins follows a long valley between two high ridges 
 Bear Mountain on the west, and Mount Bullion on the east. Those ridges are 
 formed of hard rocks ; the rocks of the valley are argillaceous and sandy slates 
 and sandstones. The stratification of these slates is remarkably regular and dis- 
 tinct ; their thin outcrops standing sharply out at intervals in long lines in the 
 ravines and on the hillsides, mark their trend, and show that they are nearly 
 vertical, or have a slight inclination northeast or easterly. The general direc- 
 tion of the outcrops and of the valley is northwest and southeast ; but there are 
 several local variations. 
 
 These slates are generally light colored or drab at the surface ; but in depth 
 they are black, like roofing slate, and break up into rhomboids. This is partic- 
 ularly well shown at the Princeton vein. There are numerous intercalations of 
 sandy layers passing into sandstones sometimes into coarse grits, and even 
 pebbly beds, and beds of slaty conglomerate. The softer and most finely lami- 
 nated portion of the group is generally found near the medial line of the valley, 
 and is the point at which the Princeton vein occurs. It is near this part of the 
 series, at the northern end of the estate, that the Jurassic fossils occur. 
 
 The following is an approximate geological section of the estate, at right 
 angles to the course of the rocks, and nearly over the Princeton vein. It is a 
 composite section, being made up of three distinct portions where the observa- 
 tions, had extended, but all near together, so as to present a fair view of the se- 
 quence of the formations. The whole embraces a distance of about four miles, 
 according to the scale of the small published map of the estate. The southwest- 
 ern end is taken along Bear creek, the middle portion across the Princ- ton vein, 
 and the remainder on a line near Upper Agua Fria, northeasterly to Bullion 
 ridge. The following is the sequence of formations from west to east : 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 215 
 
 SECTION ACROSS THE MARIPOSAS. 
 
 1. Coarse r heavy conglomerates, metamorphosed Bear mountains, 
 
 2. Compact crystalline slates ; crystalline cleavage. 
 
 3. Conglomerate ; slaty. 
 
 4. Argillaceous slates, regularly stratified ; thick series. 
 
 5. Sandstone and sandy beds, (thin.) 
 
 6. Princeton gold vein ; quartz three feet thick. 
 
 7. Argillaceous slates and quartz veins ; the horizon of the Jurassic fossils. 
 
 8. Magnesian rock and quartz veins. 
 
 9. Pine Tree, or " Mother Vein," or its extension. 
 
 10. Argillaceous slates. 
 
 11. Conglomerate; slaty. 
 
 12. Compact slates. 
 
 13. Greenstone, limited in extent ; probably a metamorphosed sandstone. 
 
 14. Sandstones and sandy slates. 
 
 15. Serpentine and magnesian rocks the northern extension of Buckeye ridge. 
 
 16. Compact slates, crystalline and much metamorphosed. 
 
 17. Conglomerates and sandstones, heavy and massive; the so-called " green- 
 
 stone " of Mount Bullion range. 
 
 This is the general outline of the formations. Both of the bounding ranges of 
 the valley are formed by the heavy metamorphic conglomerates, so much altered 
 and changed as to be scarcely recognizable. They are generally supposed to 
 be formed of greenstone, and in some places they do not give any evidence of 
 their sedimentary origin ; in others, the outlines of the pebbles and boulders are 
 distinct. These boulders are remarkably large and heavy. From the general 
 similarity of the rocks of these two ranges Bear mountain on the west, and 
 Bullion range on the east together with the succession and character of the. 
 formations between, I am led to regard the whole series as a fold or plication, 
 and the valley as either synclinal or anticlinal probably the former.* 
 
 Bear mountain range is prolonged far to the north into Calaveras county, and 
 there forms the separation between the valley of Copperopolis, traversed by the 
 Reed or Union copper lode, and the gold quartz region of Angel's camp and 
 Carson Hill. The whole belt of formations from Amador county, southeastward, 
 through Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Mariposa counties, is an interesting field for 
 a geologist to work up, to show not only the geographical extent of the rocks 
 and the veins, but the structure or folding of the whole. The two lines of hard 
 conglomerate forming the high ridges are distinct for nearly the whole distance. 
 The serpentine rocks which accompany the gold formation are probably the 
 result of local metamorphic action, for they often occur in lenticular or elipsoidal 
 patches in the other rocks. So also the greenstone, in places, appears to be an 
 altered portion of rocks, which at other points are distinctly sedimentary, and 
 exhibit slaty stratification. 
 
 * The above section of the gold formation of the estate, and the substance of the observa- 
 tions upon it, were given in a report to F. L. Olmsted, esq., in eighteen hundred and sixty- 
 four. Inedited. 
 
216 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 SECTION 10. 
 
 LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS IN RELATION TO THE 
 OCCUPANCY OF MINERAL LANDS AND THE WORKING OF MINES. 
 
 1. The crown right. 2. Permanent titles to the mineral lands of the United States. 
 
 1. THE CROWN RIGHT. 
 
 [Compiled from references in the New Alinaden ca^se.] 
 
 By the civil law all veins and mineral deposits of gold and silver ore, or of 
 precious stones, belonged, if in public ground, to the sovereign, and were part 
 of his patrimony ; but if on private property, they belonged to the owner of the 
 land, subject to the condition that if worked by the owner he was bound to 
 render a tenth part of the produce to the prince, as a right attaching to his 
 crown ; and that, if worked by any other person by consent of the owner, the 
 former was liable to the payment of two-tenths, one to the prince, and one to 
 the owner of the property. Subsequently it became an established custom in 
 most kingdoms, and was declared by the particular laws and statutes of each, 
 that all veins of the precious metals, and the produce of such veins, should vest 
 in the Crown, and be held to be part of the patrimony of the King or sovereign 
 prince. That this is the case with respect to the empire of Germany, the elec- 
 torates, France, Portugal, Arragon, and Catalonia appears from the laws of 
 each of those countries, and from the authority of various authors. 
 
 And the reason is, that the metals are applicable to the use of the public, 
 who ought not to be prejudiced by any impediments being thrown in the way 
 of the discovering and working of their ores ; besides which their products 
 rank', not among those of an ordinary description, but among the most precious 
 the earth affords ; and, therefore, instead of being appropriated to individuals, 
 are proper to be set apart for the sovereign himself, whose coffers being thus 
 enriched, he will be enabled to lighten the burdens of the people ; all which is 
 set forth at length by the authors above referred to. 
 
 This question, as is observed by the great Cardinal de Luca, has not received 
 any general or uniform determination, but is decided by the laws and customs 
 of each particular kingdom or principality ; for upon the breaking up of the 
 Roman empire the princes and states which declared themselves independent 
 appropriated to themselves those tracts of ground in which nature had dis- 
 pensed her more valuable products with more than ordinary liberality, which 
 reserved portions or rights were called rights of the Crown. Among the chief 
 of the valuable products are the metallic ores of the first class as those of 
 gold, silver, and other metals proper for forming money, which it is essential for 
 sovereigns to be provided with in order to support their warlike armaments by 
 sea or land, to provide for the public necessities, and to maintain the good 
 government of their dominions. And such is the course mentioned in the first 
 book of Maccabees to have been pursued by the Romans with regard to the 
 mines of Spain, and such also is the plan adopted by our sovereigns with 
 regard to those of the Indies, some of which they have reserved to themselves, and 
 the remainder they have left to their subjects, charged with the payment of 
 a fifth, tenth, or twentieth part of the produce. 
 
 According to the law of England the only mines which are termed royal, 
 and which are the exclusive property of the Crown, are mines of silver and 
 gold ; and this property is so peculiarly a branch of the royal prerogative 
 that it has been said that though the King grant lands in which mines are, and 
 all mines in them, yet royal mines will not pass by a general description, 
 
 This prerogative is said to have originated in the King's right of coinage, in 
 order to supply him with materials. It may be observed, however, that the 
 
WEST OP THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 217 
 
 right of coinage in the earlier periods of European society was not always ex- 
 clusively exercised by the Crown ; that the same reason might apply to other 
 metals as copper and tin and that in those rude times the prerogative was 
 perhaps as likely to have its origin in the circumstance of those rare and 
 beautiful metals having always been among the most cherished objects of am- 
 bition, and which were, therefore, appropriated to the use of the Crown, like 
 the diamonds of India, in order to sustain the splendor and dignity of its rank. 
 
 Whatever reason may be assigned for this right of the Crown, and of what- 
 ever value the right may be, it has been long decided not only that all the mines 
 of gold and silver within the realm, though in the lands of subjects, belong ex- 
 clusively to the Crown by prerogative, but that this right is also accompanied 
 with full liberty to dig and carry away the ores, and with all other such inci- 
 dents thereto as are necessary to be usual for getting them. 
 
 This right of entry is disputed by Lord Hardwicke, in a case where there 
 was a grant from the Crown of lands with a reservation of all royal mines, but 
 not of a right of entry. The lord chancellor said he was of opinion that there 
 was by the terms of the grant no such power in the Crown, and that by the royal 
 prerogative of mines the Crown had given no such power, for it would be very 
 prejudicial if the Crown could enter into a subject's lands, or grant a license to 
 work the mines ; but that when they were once opened it could restrain the 
 owner of the soil from working them, and could either work them itself or grant 
 a license for others to work them. 
 
 In the days of Queen Elizabeth the rights of miners were discussed in a legal 
 controversy, in which some of the ablest men in England participated. Two 
 men, named Howseter and Thurland, went, without permission, upon the lands 
 of the Earl of Northumberland, and commenced digging for copper ore. The 
 earl warned them off. They made complaint to the Queen's attorney general, 
 stating that the ores contained some silver or gold, and he prosecuted the earl 
 for resisting the efforts of these miners in extracting the precious metals from 
 the earth, for the reason that all the gold and silver in the earth within the 
 realm belonged to the Queen and not to the owner of the land. All the justices 
 of England heard the argument and took part in the discussion. 
 
 The question principally debated was, whether by the prerogative of the 
 Crown all ores containing silver or gold belonged to the Crown as a part of 
 regalia. 
 
 The judges decided that all gold or silver ores belonged to the Crown, 
 whether in private or public lands ; that any ores containing neither gold nor 
 silver belonged to the proprietor of the soil ; that the King could grant away 
 mines of gold or silver, but not without express words in his patent demon- 
 strating his intention to sever the mines from his royal patrimony. 
 
 Some of the reasons upon which the arguments were based were expressed in 
 felicitous though quaint languag-'e, and are worthy of being reproduced : 
 
 1. " And the reason is that metals are applicable to the use of the public, 
 &c. ; besides which, their products rank, not among 
 those of an ordinary description, but among the most precious the earth af- 
 fords, and, therefore, instead of bfcing appropriated to individuals, are proper to 
 be set apart for the sovereign himself, whose coffers, being thus enriched, &c. 
 
 Among the chief of the valuable products are the metallic 
 ores of the first class, as those of gold, silver, and other metals proper for form- 
 ing money, which it is essential for the sovereign to be provided with in order 
 to support their warlike armaments by sea and land, to provide for the public 
 necessities, and to maintain the good government of their dominions," &c., &c. 
 {And. Plowdin, 315.) 
 
 2. "As to the first of these three points Onslow alleged three reasons why 
 the King shall have the mines and ores of gold or silver within the realm in 
 whatever land they are found. The first was in respect to the excellency of the 
 
218 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 thing ; and the common law, which is founded upon rea- 
 
 son, appropriates everything to the person whom it best suits, as common and 
 trivial things to the common people, things of more worth to persons in a higher 
 and superior class, and things most excellent to those persons who excel all 
 others ; and because gold and silver are the most excellent things which the 
 soil contains, the law has appropriated them (as in reason it ought) to the per- 
 son who is most excellent, and that is the King." 
 
 3. " For the same reason, he says, it has given him "whales and sturgeons " 
 which are in the sea in England that is, "in the arms of the sea or water within 
 the land, so that the excellency of the King's person draws to it things of an 
 excellent nature. The second reason was in respect of the necessity of the 
 thing ; for the King is the head of the public weal, and the subjects are his 
 members, and the office of the King, to which the law has appointed him, is to 
 preserve his subjects ; and their preservation consists in two things, viz : in an 
 army to defend them against hostilities, and in good laws. And an army cannot 
 be had and maintained without treasure, for which reason some authors, in their 
 books, call treasure the sinews of war. And, there- 
 
 fore, as God has created mines within this realm as a natural provision of treas- 
 ure for the defence of the realm, it is reasonable that he who has the govern- 
 ment and care of the people* whom he cannot defend without treasure, should 
 have the treasure wherewith to defend them. The third reason was in respect 
 f its convenience to the subjects in the way of mutual commerce and traffic ; 
 but one has need of the things which another has, and they cannot sell or buy 
 together without coin. It belongs to the King only to fix the value of coin, and 
 to ascertain the price of the quantity, and to put the print upon it ; for if he 
 (a subject) makes coin, it was high treason by the common law." 
 
 Act of Congress for tlie occupation and sale of the mineral lands of tlie United 
 
 States. 
 
 In the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury for the year 1865, the 
 substitution of an absolute title in fee for the indefinite possessory rights or 
 claims under which the mines were held by private parties was earnestly rec- 
 ommended. 
 
 The following extracts from the Secretary's report embody the main consid- 
 erations by which Congress was governed in the passage of the act approved 
 August, 1866: 
 
 " The attention of Congress is again called to the importance of early and 
 definite action upon the subject of our mineral lands, in which subject are iiv 
 volved questions not only of revenue, but social questions of a most interesting 
 character. 
 
 " Copartnership relations between the government and miners will hardly be 
 proposed, and a system of leasehold, (if it were within the constitutional 
 authority of Congress to adopt it, and if it were consistent with the character 
 and genius of our people,) after the lessons* which have been taught of its 
 practical results in the lead and copper districts, cannot of course be recon> 
 mended. 
 
 "After giving the subject as much examination as the constant pressure of 
 official duties would permit, the Secretary has come to the conclusion that the 
 best policy to be pursued with regard to these lands is the one which shall 
 substitute an absolute title in fee for the indefinite possessory rights or claims 
 now asserted by miners. 
 
 " The right to obtain a fee simple in the soil ' would invite to the mineral 
 districts men of character and enterprise ; by creating homes, (which will not 
 be found where title to property cannot be secured,) it would give permanency 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 219 
 
 to the settlements, and, by the stimulus which ownership always produces, ft 
 would result in a thorough and regular development of the mines. 
 
 " A bill for the subdivision and sale of the gold and silver lands of the United 
 States was under consideration by the last Congress, to which attention is 
 respectfully called. If the enactment of this bill should not be deemed expe- 
 dient, and no satisfactory substitute can be reported for the sale of these lands 
 to the highest bidder, on account of the possessory claims of miners, it will 
 then be important that the policy of extending the principle of pre-emption to . 
 the mineral districts be considered. It is not material, perhaps, how the end 
 shall be attained, but there can be no question that it is of the highest import- 
 ance, in a financial and social point of view, that ownership of these lands, in 
 limited quantities to each purchaser, should be within the reach of the people 
 of the United States who may desire to explore and develop them. 
 
 " In this connection it may be advisable for Congress to consider whether the 
 prosperity of the treasure-producing districts would not be increased, and the 
 convenience of miners greatly promoted, by the establishment .of an assay 
 office in every mining district from which an annual production of gold and 
 silver amounting to tejpnaaillions of dollars is actually obtained." 
 
 F?'n "' 
 
 IryAfONNE 
 
 >NNES, chairman of the Committee on Mines and Mining of the Senate, 
 ic the following report, May 28, 1866 : 
 
 The Committee on Mines and Mining, to whom was ^referred Senate bill No, 
 257, "An act to regulate the occupation of mineral lands, and to .extend the 
 right of pre-emption thereto" have had the same under consideration, and 
 beg leave to report a substitute, and to recommend its passage. 
 
 By this bill it is only proposed to dispose of the vein mines, and to provide 
 for the segregation of the agricultural lands lying within the mineral regions. 
 The proposition contained in it is to transfer the title of the United States to 
 the possessors at a reasonable rate, and as a part of that rate to secure the pay- 
 ment of a percentage of the net proceeds of the vein mines into, the treasury, 
 until the present burdensome public debt shall be paid ; this percentage to be in 
 lieu of all tax imposed upon bullion at the mints and assay offices under ex- 
 isting laws. 
 
 It is not proposed to interfere with, or impose any tax upon, the miners en- 
 gaged in working placer mines, as those mines are readily exhausted, and not 
 generally remunerative to those engaged in working t!iwi 
 
 Your committee, in arriving at the conclusions they have;'and recommending 
 the passage of an act to" pro vide for investing the miners of the country with the 
 fee-simple to their vein mines, have not been unmindful of what the country 
 owes to the enterprising men who have gone into the forests and recesses of the 
 western States and Territories, and who have developed to the commerce of 
 the world the heretofore hidden treasures therein ; they who, by patient and 
 often ill-requited toil, without aid from the government in any manner whatever, 
 have shown the ample foundation of the national credit in the mineral resources 
 of the public domain. That policy by which the greatest amount of the precious 
 metals shall be produced, and the greatest individual and aggregate wealth 
 amassed by our own people, must be the wisest and b<\~t. 
 
 There has been constant fear felt by those who &re engaged in promoting 
 these results that some disturbance and interference with vested rights of 
 property would occur. Measures for the sale of the mines and for the taxation 
 of those engaged in working them have, from time to time, been proposed, 
 creating the deepest apprehensions and most seriously affecting mining property. 
 It is a first duty that all such doubts and fears shall be set at rest by the pro* 
 
220 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 mulgation of a policy which shall give full and complete protection to all exist- 
 ing possessory rights upon liberal conditions, and with full and complete legal 
 guarantees, and to provide the most generous conditions looking toward further 
 explorations and developments. 
 
 There are widely differing opinions as to the course proper to be pursued be- 
 tween the population of the mining regions and the people of the east, whose 
 representatives in Congress too often, without exact knowledge on the subject, 
 propose heavy burdens upon the mining industry. The mass of people living in 
 the mines feel that the mines should be left free and open to and within the 
 reach of the hardy explorer and adventurer without tax or impost whatever ; nay, 
 feeling the many disappointments and failures to which they are subject in their 
 efforts to acquire wealth from this source, they believe that the government of- 
 the United States, which they love, should rather offer rewards from the public 
 treasury for the discovery of mines, than that such discovery should be but the 
 signal for measures of taxation. 
 
 They also fear all systems of sale, lest any which should be adopted might 
 result in a monopoly of the mines and their concentration into few hands. 
 They are jealous of all systems for the disposition of the mineral lands which 
 shall allow the lands to be bought by the fortunate possessors of large capital, 
 in extensive bodies, to the exclusion of the men whose only capital consists in 
 their labor. They, nevertheless, will readily acquiesce in any plan which shall 
 confirm existing rights at reasonable rates, and which shall be safe against the 
 evils to which your committee have referred. 
 
 The amount proposed is five dollars per acre for the vein mines and all the 
 land adjoining necessary for working them, and the payment of three per cent, 
 of the net product of all such mines into the treasury of the United States, 
 which shall be in lieu of the present impost. 
 
 It will be remembered that the present tax was adopted in preference to the 
 five per cent, tax on the gross proceeds of the mines proposed by the House of 
 Representatives in 1864. Any tax on the gross product of mines must be 
 purely a tax upon effort, and must result, as the- recent tax on crude petroleum 
 did, in the ruin of those engaged in the business, arid a serious limit on pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Another feature of the bill recommended is, that it adopts the rules and regu- 
 lations of miners in the mining districts where the same are not in conflict with 
 the laws of the United States. This renders secure all existing rights of prop- 
 erty, and will prove at once a just and popular feature of the new policy. Those 
 " rules an$ regulations" are well understood, and form the basis of the present 
 admirable system in the mining regions : arising out of necessity, they became 
 the means adopted by the people themselves for establishing just protection to 
 all. 
 
 In the absence of legislation and statute law, the local courts, beginning with 
 California, recognize those " rules and regulations," the central idea of which 
 was priority of possession, and hare given to the country rules of decision so 
 equitable as to be commanding in its natural justice, and to have secured uni- 
 versal approbation. The California reports will compare favorably, in this re- 
 spect, with the history of jurisprudence in- any part of the world. Thus the 
 miners' " rules and regulations" are not only well understood, but have been 
 construed and adjudicated for now nearly a quarter of a century. 
 
 It will be readily seen how essential it is that this great system, established 
 by the people in their primary capacities, and evidencing by the highest possible 
 testimony the peculiar genius of the American people for founding empire and 
 order, shall be preserved and affirmed. Popular sovereignty is here displayed 
 in one of its grandest aspects, and simply invites us not^to destroy, but to put 
 upon it the stamp of national power and unquestioned authorityTJ 
 
 This should be dont; generously, 'for the nation's sake, "Chose brave men 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 221 
 
 who have established a high civilization on the far-off Pacific, whose hearts, in 
 the nation's trials, beat so true, and who are now fast closing in upon the civili- 
 zation of your owfi west, should he made to feel, not that you are masters, but 
 brethren and friends. 
 
 By their loyalty they gave you peace where your power was scarcely felt ; 
 by their industry they gave the solid base of silver and gold to the national 
 issues and the . national credit, and it is left to history to balance and to tell 
 how, without that peace their patriotism so well preserved, and that silver and 
 gold which their industry gave the nation, the national cause could have been 
 equally benefited. From their earnings, too, came those contributions which 
 will forever form so beautiful a chaplet around their own brows. They set the 
 highest example of a Christian people, patriotic a.nd peaceful, sturdy and loyal 
 
 tnjfcepfloTn. industrious and charitable. It is for such a people that we legislate. 
 [ The necessity for the segregation of the agricultural part of the public domain 
 from that which is purely mineral is of the first character. It will be remem- 
 bered that mining alone cannot supply a single human want, and no community 
 would' eventually be so poor as a mining community purely. But the miner is 
 nearly always the pioneer of society where mines exist shortly, however, to be 
 followed by the agriculturist and the artisan. Mutual production and ex- 
 change result, and society is established. Nothing renders society so stable 
 as giving to the people the title to the land upon which they live. They learn 
 to love, it, and are the first to find out its greatest value, and consequently to 
 employ it for the highest uses. Homes of a permanent character are thus"e"s\. 
 tablished, and the school-house and church follow to light the path and to 
 cheer the way through life. To these ends the earliest ownership should be 
 given to him who, by patient and virtuous toil, proposes to become a corner- 
 stone to community. Every wise consideration demands that the segregation 
 of the agricultural lands from those purely mining should be made, and this bill 
 makes such provision. 
 
 Your committee are aware that they tread new ground, but they bring many 
 years of experience to the task, and the light has been used to reach the end 
 which wi^jDromote the greatest happiness of the citizen and the glory of the 
 republicJJL/ 
 
 > Ate**C'^<' 
 
 [The following is &,copy of the act of Congress approved August , 1866, to 
 legalize the occupation of the mineral lands, and for other purposes : 
 
 SECTION 1. That the mineral lands of the public domain, both surveyed and 
 unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and occu- 
 pation by all citizens of the United States, and those who have declared their 
 intention to become citizens, subject to such regulations as may be prescribed 
 by law, and subject also to local 'custom or rules of miners in the several mining 
 districts, so far as the same may not be in conflict with the laws of the United 
 States. 
 
 SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever any person or association 
 of persons claim a vein or lode of quartz, or other rock in place, bearing gold, 
 silver, cinnabar, or copper, having previously occupied and improved the same 
 according to the local custom or rules of miners in the district where the same 
 is situated, and having expended in actual labor and improvements thereon an 
 amount not less than one thousand dollars, and in regard to whose possession 
 there is no controversy or opposing claim, it shall and may be lawful for said 
 claimant or association of claimants to file in the local land ofiice a diagram of 
 the same, so extended laterally or otherwise as to conform to the local laws, 
 eustoms, and rules of miners, and to enter such tract and receive a patent 
 therefor, granting such mine, together with the right to follow such vein or 
 
 * See Congressional Globe for debates on this bill 
 
222 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 lode, with its dips, angles, and variations, to any depth, although it may enter 
 the land adjoining, which land adjoining shall be sold subject to this condition. 
 
 SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That upon the filing of the diagram as 
 provided in the second section of this act, and posting the same in a conspicu- 
 ous place on the claim, together with a notice of intention to apply for a patent, 
 the register of the land office shall publish a notice of the same in a newspa- 
 per published nearest to the location of said claim, and shall also post such 
 notice in his office lor the period of ninety days ; and after the expiration of 
 Baid period, if no adverse claim shall have been filed, it shall be the duty of the 
 surveyor general, upon application of the party, to survey the premises and 
 make a plat thereof, indorsed with his approval, designating the number and 
 description of the location, the value of the labor and improvements, and the 
 character of the vein exposed ; and upon the payment to the proper officer of 
 five dollars per acre, together with the cost of such survey, plat, and notice, 
 and giving satisfactory evidence that said diagram and notice have been posted 
 on the claim during said period of iJfcnety days, the register of the land office 
 shall transmit to the General Land Office said plat, survey, and description ; 
 and a patent shall issue for the same thereupon. But said plat, survey, or de- 
 scription shall in no case cover more than one vein or lode, and no patent shall 
 issue for more than one vein or lode, which shall be expressed in the patent 
 issued. 
 
 SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That when such location and entry of a 
 mine shall be upon unsurveyed lands, it shall and may be lawful, after the ex- 
 tension thereto of the public surveys, to adjust the surveys to the limits of the 
 premises according to the location and possession/and plat aforesaid, and the 
 surveyor general may, in extending the surveys, vary the same from a rec- 
 tangular form to suit the circumstances of the country and the local rules, laws, 
 and customs of miners : Provided, That no location hereafter made shall ex- 
 ceed two hundred feet in length along the vein for each locator, with an addi- 
 tional claim for discovery to the discoverer of the lode, with the right to follow 
 such vein to any depth, with all its dips, variations, and angles, together with 
 a reasonable quantity of surface for the convenient working of the same as fixed 
 by local rules : And provided further, That no person may make more than 
 one location on the same lode, and not more than three thousand feet shall be 
 taken in any one claim by any association of persons. 
 
 SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That as a further condition of sale, in the 
 absence of necessary legislation by Congress, the local legislature of any State 
 or Territory may provide rules for working mines involving easements, drain- 
 age, and other necessary means to their complete development ; and those con- 
 ditions shall be fully expressed in the patent. 
 
 SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That whenever any adverse claimants to 
 any mine located and claimed as aforesaid shall appear before the approval of 
 the survey, as provided in the third section of this act, all proceedings shall be 
 stayed until a final settlement and adjudication in the courts of -competent juris- 
 diction of the rights of possession to such claim, when a patent may issue as in 
 other cases. 
 
 SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States 
 be, and is hereby, authorized to establish additional land districts, and to ap- 
 point the necessary officers under existing laws, wherever he may deem the 
 same necessary for the public convenience in executing the provisions of this act. 
 
 SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the right of way for the construe 
 tion of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby 
 granted. 
 
 SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That whenever, by priority of possession, 
 rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other pur- 
 poses, have vested and accrued, and the same are. recognized and acknowledged 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 223 
 
 by "the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and own- 
 ers of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same ; and 
 the right of way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes 
 aforesaid is hereby acknowledged and confirmed. Provided, however : That 
 whenever, after the passage of this act, any person or persons shall, in the con- 
 struction of any ditch or canal, injure or damage the possession of any settler 
 on the public domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable 
 to the party injured for such injury or damage. 
 
 SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That wherever, prior tothe passage of 
 this act, upon the lands heretofore designated as mineral lands, which have been 
 excluded from survey and sale, there have been homesteads made by citizens of 
 the 'United States, or persons who have declared their intention to become citi- 
 zens, -which homesteads have been made, improved, and used for agricultural 
 purposes, and upon which there have been no valuable mines of gold, silver, 
 cinnabar, or copper discovered, and which are properly agricultural lands, the 
 said settlers or owners of such homesteads shall have a right of pre-emption 
 thereto, and shall be entitled to purchase the same at the price of one dollar and 
 twenty-five cents per acre, and in quantity not, to exceed one hundred and sixty 
 acres ; or said parties may avail themselves of the provisions of the act of Con- 
 gress approved May 20, 1862, entitled "An act to secure homesteads to actual 
 settlers on the public domain," and acts amendatory thereof. 
 
 SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That upon the survey of the lands afore- 
 said, the Secretary of the Interior may designate and set apart such .portions of 
 the said lands as are clearly agricultural lands, which lands shall thereafter be 
 subject to pre-emption and sale as other public lands of the United States, and 
 subject to all the laws and regulations applicable to the samej 
 
 2. PERMANENT TITLES TO MINERAL LANDS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 In glancing back over the history of California for the last eighteen years, 
 we cannot overlook the fact that the State has, for the want of a permanent 
 mining population, lost what would be worth more than a hundred millions of 
 money. The work has been done mostly by men who had no homes, and who 
 did not intend to remain in California. Their enterprises generally were under- 
 taken for the purpose of making the most profit in a brief time. There was 
 no proper care for ,1 distant future ; and without such care no society is sound, 
 no State truly prosperous. If a claim could, by hastily washing, be made to 
 pay $10 per day to the hand for three months, or $6 for three years by a care- 
 ful washing, the hasty washing was preferred. If a fertile valley that would 
 have yielded a revenue of $5 per acre for century after century to a farmer 
 could l?e made to yield $5 per day to a miner for one summer, its loam was 
 washed away, and a useless and ugly bed of gravel was left in its place. The 
 flukes, the ditches, the dwellings, the roads, and the towns were constructed 
 with almost exclusive regard to immediate wants. The good turnpike roads 
 were private property* on which heavy tolls were levied, so that not unfre- 
 quently a gentleman in a one-horse buggy would have to pay $5 or $10 toll in 
 a day's travel. The claims were made small, so that everybody should have a 
 chance to get one ; but the pay-dirt was soon exhausted, and then there mut be 
 a move. In such a state of affairs miners generally could not send for iheir 
 families or make elegant homes. Living alone and lacking the influences and 
 amusements of home-life, they became wasteful and wild. Possessing no title 
 to the land, they did nothing to give it value, and were i;eady to abandon it at 
 any moment. The farmers, merchants, and other fixed residents of the mining 
 counties are agitated and frightened nearly every year by the danger of a 
 migration of the miners to some distant place. One year it is Peru ; another it 
 is British Columbia, Idaho, Reese river, Pahranagat, or Arizona ; and it may 
 next be Brazil, Liberia, or Central Africa, for all we know. 
 
224 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 The losses to individuals and to the State have been so great from these 
 migrations that for years past there has been an increasing desire for some 
 .change in the tenure of mining ..lands, so that the mining population shall be 
 attached to the soil, and thus have an opportunity and a motive for establish- 
 ing permanent homes and a personal interest in improving and enriching the 
 country. The act of Congress passed at the last session for the granting of 
 fee-simple titles to lode mines, and to the agricultural lands in the mineral dis- 
 tricts, is the beginning of a new and better era in the history of the Pacific 
 coast. So so<an as the necessary surveys can be completed, many applications 
 will be made for patents, and in a few years great and beneficial changes will 
 result. Such is the general opinion among the more intelligent miners and 
 public men of the coast. As an indication of the manner in which the news of 
 the passage of the act was received, the following passages are quoted from 
 leading editorials in influential newspapers : 
 
 The San Francisco Bulletin, in its issue of July 31st, said : 
 (^No measure of equal consequence to the material, and, we may add, to the 
 moral interests of the Pacific States, was ever before passed by Congress. 
 * The passage of the bill, whatever defects it may develop when 
 more critically examined and enforced, marks a change in the public land policy 
 equal in importance to the adoption of the pre-emption and homestead system ; 
 indeed its practical effect will be to extend the now unquestionable benefits of 
 that system to the vast field of the opineral regions which have hitherto been 
 largely excluded from those benefits^! * * * It was one of the,greatest 
 evils of the negative policy of Congress regarding the mineral lands that, while 
 it prevented our own people from acquiring titles to them, it opened their trea- 
 sures freely to the transient adventurers from abroad, who only came to take 
 them away without leaving any equivalent. As a measure calculated to give 
 homogeneity and fixedness to our population, security to titles, and encourage- 
 ment to investments of capital and labor, the new mining law is full of promise. 
 We believe it will have the effect also to stimulate exploration and production 
 in the mining districts. |jts good features are apparent ; its bad ones will appear 
 in time and can be easily remedied^ 
 
 The Alta Californian of the same date, said : 
 
 " The passage of the bill will be regarded in future timea as an epoch in the 
 history of the State. It offers a patent to every lode miner who desires it ; it 
 opens all the agricultural land in the mineral districts to pre-emption and home- 
 stead claims, and it will give secure titles, build up comfortable homes, and fix 
 a large permanent population in the rich mining country of the Pacific slope." 
 
 The Mining and Scientific Press, in its issue of the 14th of July, 1866, spoke 
 thus, editorially : , 
 
 " The papers generally throughout the State (California) and Nevada appear 
 to approve the bill; and so far as we can judge there is, general feeling favor- 
 able to its passage, as a necessity for quieting the public mind upon this vexa- 
 tious question." 
 
 The Stockton Independent of January 8, 1866, spoke thus of some of the 
 evils which this bill was designed to cure : 
 
 M There are now over one hundred thousand adult men asd women in the mines 
 of California and Nevada without homes or the possibility of acquiring them 
 Shall we let this preposterous rule go on from generation to generation, until 
 from hundreds of thousands this nomadic population amounts up to millions and 
 tens of millions ? From the twenty-seventh to the forty-seventh meridian of 
 longitude, and from latitude thiriy-four to the extremest northern line of the 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 225 
 
 
 
 United States, all is mineral land all has been prospected" and proven to be 
 such. 
 
 Is it the part of wise statesmanship to adopt as a permanent law the rule that 
 the millions who are in the next quarter of a century to occupy this vast area 
 over one-third of our territory shall be without homes ? Such a thing is 
 horrible to contemplate. Compared with it the anarchy and social demorali- 
 zation which have reigned in Mexico, Peru, and other Spanish American coun- 
 tries for the last half century are as nothing. The policy is wholly opposed to 
 the instincts and habits of the Anglo-Saxon race opposed to the idea of law 
 and government. It invites the nation to anarchy and offers a premium to 
 crime and pauperism. 
 
 It is high time that the rule were changed. All the mineral lands ought to 
 be surveyed in small lots and sold, or at least given away in fee to the occupants. 
 
 These people should have homes and the means of acquiring permanent 
 property and status as citizens." 
 
 The Sacramento Union of the 23d of June said : 
 
 " There are many miners who feel as deep an interest in the matter as others 
 who devote themselves exclusively to farming, for prosperous miners, who do not 
 wish to abandon the hills and valleys where they have harvested fortune, have 
 a passion for pretty homes and a blooming ranch. Upon the whole, this bill 
 has been framed with a more intelligent regard for the interests of the people of 
 the Pacific coast than any other previous measure that we can now recall, and 
 it is probable that its provisions can be executed without inflicting injury upon 
 the rights which accrued under the policy hitherto pursued by the government . 
 It is a great stride towards the final adjustment of a dangerous question, and a 
 vast improvement upon the measures broached at Washington at various periods 
 during the past three years." 
 
 Governor McCormick, of Arizona, in his annual message delivered to the 
 legislature on the 8th of October, 1866, said : 
 
 " The act of Congress to legalize the occupation of mineral lands, and to ex- 
 tend the rights of pre-emption thereto, adopted at the late session, preserves all 
 that is best in the system created by miners themselves, and saves all vested 
 rights under that system, while offering a permanent title to all who desire it, 
 at a mere nominal cost. It is a more equitable and practicable measure than 
 the people of the mineral districts had supposed Congress would adopt, and 
 credit for its liberal and acceptable provisions is largely due to the influence of 
 the representatives of the Pacific coast, including our own intelligent delegate. 
 While it is not without defects, as a basis of legislation it is highly promising, 
 and must lead to stability and method, and so inspire increased confidence and 
 zeal in quartz mining." 
 
 The Virginia Enterprise, the leading journal of the State of Nevada, in its 
 issue of July 13, advocating the passage of the bill, said : 
 
 " The bill proposes nothing but what already exists,except giving a perfect title 
 to the owners of any mine who may desire it. But the effect of this single title 
 clause, if the bill becomes a law, will be of wonderful benefit to our tate. Do- 
 mestic, and especially foreign capitalists, who have been restrained from invest- 
 ing in our mines on account of the uncertain tenure by which they were held, 
 and the general insecurity of title, will not hesitate to invest when they are 
 guaranteed unmolested and permanent possession by the government. It will 
 give an impetus to prospecting, for discoveries will be salable ; to develop- 
 ments and heavy operations generally, for titles will be quiet and secure. It 
 will create an unprecedented demand for labor, and inaugurate enduring pros- 
 perity throughout the State. The poor and the rich, the workingman and the 
 capitalist, will be equally benefited by it." 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 15 
 
226 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 
 
 It may be useless to regret past mistakes, and there is some difference of 
 opinion among miners whether any serious mistake has been made, but it is evi- 
 dent that if the mining population could have been made permanent residents 
 of the various counties as early as 1849, California would now be thrice as rich, 
 in a pecuniary point of view, as she is at present. Her gold produce alone has 
 been $900,000,000; and the produce of her agriculture and other branches of 
 industry has been nearly as much, and yet the total assessed value of the tax- 
 able property of the State is only $180,000,000, of which nearly half is land 
 alone; so it seems California, with all her wonderful wealth, intelligence, and in- 
 dustry, has made only five per cent, profit on her business in a period of twenty 
 years of such an abundance of gold and comparative cheapness of the necessaries 
 of life as were never witnessed elsewhere in the world. 
 
 SECTION 11. 
 
 1. Mining laws. 2. Need of congressional legislation. 3. Customary limitation of size. 4. 
 Proposed width of claims. 5. Work required to hold claims. 6. Proposed change as to 
 work required. 7. Law needed for centuries of mining. 8. Congress alone can estab- 
 lish uniformity. 9. Miners' regulations in Nevada county. 10. Miners' regulations in 
 Sierra county. 11. Miners' regulations in Tuolumne county. 11 J. 'Miners' regulations 
 in Sacramento county. 12. Miners' regulations in Columbia district. 13. Miners' regu- 
 lations in North San Juan district. 14. Miners' regulations in Pilot Hill district. 15. 
 Miners' regulations in New Kanaka camp. 16. Miners' regulations in Copperopolis dis- 
 trict, 17. Statute of -Nevada. 18. Blank district, Nevada 19. Virginia district, Ne- 
 vada. 20. Regulations of Reese River district. 21. Quartz statute of Oregon. 22. 
 Quartz statute of Idaho. 23. Quartz statute of Arizona. 24. The mining laws of 
 Mexico. 
 
 1. MINING LAWS. 
 
 Mining for gold and silver is a business new in Anglo-Saxon life, and not 
 provided for in our laws. Suddenly the American government has found itself 
 in the possession of the richest deposits of the precious metals in the world, 
 with the certainty that the mining industry based upon them will be one of the 
 greatest and most permanent* interests of the country. It is necessary now to 
 foster this industry, to protect it, to frame a code of laws that will leave every 
 possible liberty to the miner who wishes to work fairly in extracting the metal 
 from the earth, and will throw every possible obstruction in the way of the 
 drones and swindlers who wish to defraud the honest laborer by compelling him 
 to pay for the right of working mines that should be open to him without 
 charge. 
 
 And, first, let us look at the regulations adopted by the miners and the 
 statutes adopted by certain States and Territories in regard to mining for gold 
 and silver. 
 
 It is impossible to obtain, within the brief time allowed for this preliminary 
 report, a complete collection of the mining regulations, and they are so nume- 
 rous that they would fill a volume of a thousand pages. There are not less 
 than five nundred mining districts in California, two hundred in Nevada, and 
 one hundred each in Arizona, Idaho, and Oregon, each with its set of written 
 regulations. The main objects of the regulations are to fix the boundaries of 
 the district, the size of the claims, the manner in which claims shall be marked 
 and recorded, the amount of work which must be done to secure the title, and 
 the circumstances under which the claim is considered abandoned and open to 
 occupation by new claimants. The districts usually do not contain more than 
 a hundred square miles, frequently not more than ten, and there are in places a 
 
WEST OP THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 227 
 
 dozen within a radius of ten miles. In lode raining, the claims are usually two 
 hundred feet long on the lode ; in placers the size depends on the character of 
 the diggings and the amount of labor necessary to open them. In hill diggings, 
 where the pay dirt is reached by long tunnels, the claim is usually a hundred 
 feet wide, and reaches to the middle of the hill. Neglect to work a placer claim 
 for ten days in the season when it can be worked is ordinarily considered as an 
 abandonment. The regulations in the different districts are so various, however, 
 that it is impossible to reduce them to a few classes comprehending all their 
 provisions. The States of Nevada and Oregon and the Territories of Idaho 
 and Arizona have each adopted statutes in regard to the size and tenure of 
 mining claims, and these statutes, so far as they conflict with the district regu- 
 lations, probably supersede them, although the act of the last session of Con- 
 gress to legalize the occupation of the mineral lands provides for the issue of 
 patents to only the^ holders of those lode claims which are occupied and im- 
 proved according to the local custom or rules of miners in the district where the 
 same is located.* 
 
 Question might arise whether the statute of the State or Territory is to be 
 recognized as of any force in determining the right of claimants to patents. The 
 congressional act mentions only " the local custom or rules of miners in the dis- 
 trict;" and those words certainly do not describe a statute; and yet the statute 
 should be preferred, because it is uniform, clear, preserved in unquestionable 
 records, accessible to all, and of precise jurisdiction ; whereas the local customs 
 and rules are various, and in many districts indefinite, unrecorded, almost inac- 
 cessible, and conflicting in their jurisdiction. 
 
 The evils of the system of local customs and rules are well stated in a report 
 made to the senate of Nevada on the 23d February last by the committee on 
 mines and mining. The subject under consideration was the adoption of a 
 general statute to supersede these local customs and rules. The committee 
 say: 
 
 " In the establishment of a code of mining laws in this connection there are 
 certain self-evident principles which should be adopted 
 
 " First. The interest in question being coextensive with the area of the State, 
 and intimately blended with every part of it, the laws which seek to regulate it 
 should be general in their character, uniform in their application, and universal 
 in their dissemination. 
 
 " Second. It being a vital and permanent interest, the laws which govern it 
 should have the vitality and stability of legislative enactment, 
 
 " Third. It being an interest pertaining to our own people, but valueless to them 
 without foreign aid, the aim of the laws should be twofold, to give protection 
 to our citizens and encouragement to capital." 
 
 Does the present system answer all or any of these requirements ? 
 
 1. As to uniformity : there is now nothing approaching it. There never was 
 confusion worse confounded. More than two hundred petty districts within the 
 limits of a single State, each one with its self-approved code; these codes, dif- 
 fering not alone each from each other, but presenting numberless instances of 
 
 * SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever any person or association of per- 
 sons claim a vein or lode of quartz, or other rock in place, bearing- gold, silver, cinnabar, or 
 copper, having previously occupied and improved the same according to the local custom 
 or rules of miners in the district where the same is situated, and having expended in actual 
 labor and improvements thereon an amount not less than one thousand dollars, and in re- 
 gard to whose possession there is no controversy or opposing claim, it shall or may be lawful 
 for such claimant or association of claimants to file in the local land office a diagram of the 
 same, so extended laterally or otherwise as to conform to the local laws, customs, and rules 
 of miners, and to enter such tract and to receive a patent therefor, granting such mine, to- 
 gether with the right to follow such vein or lode with its dips, angles, and variations to any 
 depth, although it may enter the land adjoining, which land adjoining shall be sold subject 
 to this condition. 
 
228 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 contradiction in themselves. The law of one point is not the law of another 
 five miles distant ; and a little further on will be a code which is the law of 
 neither of the former, and so on ad infinitum, with the further disturbing fact 
 superadded that the written laws themselves may be overrun by some peculiar 
 " custom " which can be found nowhere recorded, and the proof of which will vary 
 with the volume of interested affidavits which may be brough.t on either side to 
 establish it. 
 
 Again, in one district the work required to be done to hold a claim is nominal ; 
 in another, exorbitant ; in another, abolished ; in another, adjourned from year to 
 year. A stranger, seeking to ascertain the law, is surprised to learn that there 
 is no satisfactory public record to which he can refer ; no public officer to whom 
 he may apply who is under any bond or obligation to furnish him information 
 or guarantee its authenticity. Often in the newer districts he finds there is not the 
 semblance of a code, but a simple resolution adopting the code of some other dis- 
 trict, which may be a hundred miles distant. What guarantee has he for invest- 
 ment of either capital or labor under such a system ] 
 
 Again, under the present loose organization of districts, with their vagueness 
 of boundary, it is often impossible to determine by which code of laws a location 
 is governed. Cases of this kind have already arisen in several districts, and are 
 liable to do so again in any part of the State; and, tinder the present system, 
 there is no means of guarding against it, except by an actual survey of the 
 boundaries of every district an incalculable expense. 
 
 2. As to permanency of regulations, even such as they are, there is now no 
 guarantee even of that. A miners' meeting adopts a code; it apparently is the 
 law. Some time after, on a few days' notice, a corporal's guard assembles, and, 
 on simple motion, radically changes the whole system by which claims may be 
 held in a district. Before a man may traverse the State, the laws of a district, 
 which by examination and study he may have mastered, may be swept away, 
 and no longer stand as the laws which govern the interest he may have acquired; 
 and the change has been one which by no reasonable diligence could he be ex- 
 pected to have knowledge of. But if the laws be uniform, "and registered upon 
 the statute book of the State, he will have security in his tenure, and reasonable 
 notice of any change therein. 
 
 3. As to protection to the miner and encouragement to the capitalist, the 
 present system, or lack of system, affords neither. The cause of uncertainty of 
 titles to land in our sister State did not, through fifteen years of her history, 
 more paralyze her progress than the uncertainty of mining titles in the outside 
 districts now retards our development. Five years ago a horde of greedy 
 prospectors from every part of the Pacific coast swept over our State, leaving their 
 notices of location on every "dip, spur, and angle," "thick as leaves inVallam 
 brosa;" and, after a year or two of feverish unrest, swarmed away again to the 
 newer fields of Idaho and Montana, leaving nothing to mark their passage but 
 their faded " notices " mouldering on the hillside, their pitiful burlesque of 
 development in the way of assessment-work, and the threatening terrors of the 
 common-law doctrine as to "vested rights." This is what the true citizens of 
 Nevada, those who, never losing faith in her future, have adhered to her for- 
 tunes in sunshine and gloom, now reap from the ruinous system of ttnlegalized 
 district laws. They see thousands of claims in which capital would be eager to 
 engage, could satisfactory title be given, now lying neglected because there is 
 no system of abandonment as yet, or sufficient legislative or judicial sanction to 
 gain the confidence of business men. Such will not be satisfied with a " general 
 belief," or an " evident tendency of decisions ; " they insist on definite enact- 
 ment or positive adjudication. In vain do our people relocate abandoned mines 
 in accordance with the only laws which govern the matter. When such titles 
 are presented to the capitalist his first inquiry is : " What is the authority for so 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 229 
 
 doing 1 Has your legislature authorized it ? Has your judiciary sanctioned it 1 
 If not, where is the security for investment ?" 
 
 As an instance of the manner in which the mining regulations are changed 
 and the mining records neglected, the experience of North San Juan, one of 
 the most prosperous and permanent mining towns, may be given here. 
 
 The Sweetland mining district was organized and a series of regulations 
 adopted for it in 1850, when claims were restricted to thirty feet square. In 
 1 852 the size was enlarged to eighty by one hundred and eighty feet, and the 
 regulations were changed several times in other respects. In 1853 the Sweet- 
 land district was subdivided into three smaller districts, of which North San 
 Juan is one. This latter adopted a set of regulations at the time of its organi- 
 zation, arid adopted the set now in force a year later. A mining recorder was 
 elected in 1854, but he has been absent from the district for five years, and no 
 one has been chosen to fill the place. The regulations are treated , by many 
 persons as if they were no longer in force at least, as regards certain points ; 
 and in many cases it would be difficult to ascertain whether there is any good 
 title to claims under the regulations. 
 
 2. NEED OF CONGRESSIONAL MINING LAW. 
 
 I would suggest that the act of last session should be so amended that, in 
 the granting of patents, State and territorial statutes in regard to the size, 
 possession, working, and abandonment of claims should be regarded as of 
 higher authority than the "local custom or rules;" and I venture to recommend 
 further that a congressional act should be passed prescribing the manner of * 
 taking up, recording, working, and abandoning mining claims so long as the * 
 title remains in the United States, so that uniformity shall prevail throughout 
 the whole country. Such an act, based on the laws and regulations of which 
 copies are given on subsequent pages, would, I am confident, give general satis- 
 faction to the miners, as securing their equal rights. As it is now, there is 
 great diversity. 
 
 The following list shows some of the differences in the size of the claims : 
 
 Arizona, under statute, 600 feet square. 
 
 Oregon, under statute, 300 feet on the lode by 150 feet wide. 
 
 Idaho, under statute, 200 feet on the lode by 100 feet wide. 
 
 Nevada, under statute, 200 feet en the lode by 200 feet wide. 
 
 Nevada county, California, miners' regulations, 100 feet. 
 
 Tuolumne county, California, miners' regulations, 150 feet on the lode and 
 150 feet on each side. 
 
 Sierra county, California, miners' regulations, 250 feet on the lode and 250 
 feet on each side. 
 
 Copperopolis district, California, miners' regulations, 150 feet on the lode and 
 250 feet on each side of the lode by 300 feet wide. 
 
 In most districts of Nevada and in many of California a miner may claim for 
 each person in his company 200 feet on the lode, but he acquires no exclusive 
 right of possession to the adjoining land, except in so far as he may have to 
 occupy it in his mining operations. In Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, and some dis- 
 tricts of California and Nevada, the mine may take a considerable tract on the 
 sides of. the lode. If we compare the size of the claims simply in relation to 
 the length on the lode, we see that, taking the space allowed to the miner in 
 Nevada county, California, as the unit of measurement, the miner in .the State 
 of Nevada gets twice as much, in Oregon thrice as much, and in Arizona six 
 times as much. There is no good reason why the claims should not be .of the 
 same size in all these places. The act of Congress provides in section 4 " That 
 no location hereafter made shall exceed two hundred feet in length along the 
 vein for each locator, with an additional claim for discovery to the discoverer 
 
230 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 of the lode, with the right to follow such vein to any depth, with all its dips, 
 variations, and angles, together with a reasonable quantity of surface for the 
 convenient working of the same as fixed by local rules : And provided further, 
 That no person may make more than one location on the same lode, and not 
 more than three thousand feet shall be taken in any one claim by anv associa- 
 tion of persons." These provisions reduce the length of the claims to be located 
 hereafter in Arizona and Oregon to two hundred feet for each person ; but they 
 do not authorize any enlargements of the claim in the districts where the limit 
 is less than the two hundred feet. And yet justice and sound policy require 
 that a miner should be permitted to take up as large a claim in Nevada county 
 or in Tuolumne county, California, as in Oregon or Arizona. 
 
 3. THE CUSTOMARY LIMITATION OF SIZE. 
 
 The limitation is, however, more apparent than real. If John Smith sup- 
 poses a lode to be rich, he selects a portion three thousand feet long, puts a 
 stake at each end, with a notice, and files with the recorder of the district or 
 county, a notice that he and fourteen associates have taken up that claim. If 
 he imagines that there is some rich ground outside of the three thousand feet, 
 he takes another claim of three thousand feet, in the names of fifteen friends 
 not mentioned in the first notice. He may have no authority from those persons 
 to take claims for them, but.no one objects in such a case. If John Smith now 
 desires to own more than his two hundred feet, he goes to the men whose names 
 he has put down, and requests them to give him a bill of sale for one hundred 
 feet, or one hundred and fifty feet each, and as they owe their claims to him, 
 they cannot refuse. Then, instead of being the owner of only two hundred 
 feet, he can become, with little trouble or expense, the owner of three or four 
 thousand feet. He can hold as many feet by purchase as he pleases. There is 
 no limitation in any county to the amount of mining claim that can be held by 
 one person by purchase ; but in Mexico no company can locate more than four 
 times as much as the claim of a single individual, and there is less opportunity 
 for the abuse of which mention has been made. It would be advisable, in my 
 opinion, to amend the act of last session so that no claim for any company shall 
 exceed sixteen hundred or two thousand feet in length. Th3 Mexican law fixes 
 the limitation at two hundred varas, or about twenty-two hundred feet. I 
 would recommend further that, in the proposed change in the length of claims, 
 each individual should be entitled to hold by location not more than five hundred 
 feet. The valuable claims are usually found by solitary miners, or by small 
 parties of not more than three. When such, or a miner or party, finds a place 
 in a rich lode, there is no good reason why he or they should be compelled by 
 the law to give most of it away to friends, as is done under the present law and 
 custom. Three locators get only six hundred feet out of three thousand, or one- 
 fifth. They may request their friends to convey to them one-half of the remain- 
 ing four-fifths, but oftentimes they fear that such request would give offence, and 
 if the claim turns out to be valuable, most of the benefit goes to persons who 
 have done nothing to discover the mine. It would be better to offer a larger 
 reward to the miner, and not compel him to give so much to his friends. Two 
 hundred feet is not enough on ordinary lodes for a mining enterprise; the pay- 
 streak of rock may run down obliquely lengthwise in the vein, and the miner 
 wants to know that he can follow it for a considerable distance in his claim. If 
 two miners should find a rich place in a quartz lode, and could trace it for eight 
 hundred feet along the lode, and were satisfied that the mine would prove profit- 
 able from the start, and were doubtful whether any part of the lode beyond the 
 eight hundred feet would pay, it is evident that they would rather own the eight 
 hundred feet by location than be compelled to give half of it to other persons. 
 The knowledge that location could acquire more than two hundred feet by loca- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 231 
 
 tion would encourage prospecting. If, on the other hand, the lode contained 
 only a moderate quantity of valuable ore, and could not be made to pay until 
 after an investment of more capital than the two had at their command, then 
 they could make up the original company of ei^ht persons, with one hundred 
 feet to each ; or they could take up the claim in their two names, and each could 
 sell or give away portions of his share to friends who would furnish money. By 
 increasing the amount that each individual can hold by location, the miner has 
 everything to gain and nothing to lose. If the mine will pay from the start, the 
 profit goes to the man who deserves it ; if the mine requires outside capital for 
 its development, the miner can obtain it as readily as at present. The Spanish 
 iaw which was framed in 1783, after an experience of two hundred and fifty 
 years, and is now in force throughout Spanish America, allows each locator to 
 hold two hundred varas, or five hundred and fifty feet. The quartz regulations 
 of California were most of them framed about 1852 and 1853, with no experi- 
 ence, and under the influence of persons familiar only with the small claims cus- 
 tomary in the placers. It is true that many of the regulations have been re- 
 enacted at later dates, but the old influences have not been broken up. There 
 is now a disposition to find fault with the California regulations, and to prefer 
 the provisions of the Mexican law, as to the size of claims. 
 
 4. PROPOSED WIDTH OF CLAIMS. 
 
 - 
 
 A claim should cover not only the lode but a certain area on both sides. The 
 act of Congress allows a reasonable quantity of surface for the convenient work- 
 ing of the same, as fixed by ' local rules." Here again the "local rules" alone 
 are recognized. What is a " reasonable" quantity of surface ? In Arizona it is 
 three hundred feet on each side of the middle of the lode ; in Oregon it is twenty- 
 five feet on each side of the lode ; in Idaho it is a tract one hundred feet wide ; 
 in Tuolumne county, California, it is one hundred and fifty feet on each side of 
 the lode ; in Sierra county, California, it is two hundred and fifty feet wide on 
 each side ; in the Copperopolis district it is three hundred feet wide ; in the State 
 of Nevada, Nevada county, California, and in many other counties of California, 
 it is all the land that is actually occupied by the works of the company or miner, 
 and no more. Under the customs in those districts in which the miner obtained 
 no fixed quantity of surface, he never laid claim to any portion outside of his 
 lode, except as he occupied it for his tunnel, shaft, mill, dwelling, ditch, dump, 
 reservoir for tailings, or something of the sort ; if he had all his works at one end 
 of his claim, he had no title to any of the surface of the other end ; any other 
 miner might then take up another lode within ten feet of his and work it. The 
 law of Mexico, the statutes of Arizona, Oregon and Idaho, and the regulations 
 of Tuolumne and Sierra counties, authorize the miner to occupy a specific amount 
 of surface, and all the minerals within that area belong to him, whether he 
 has discovered all the lodes within it or not. It often happens that large veins 
 have branches or spurs, which at the surface appear as if they were parallel 
 veins, and when the main vein is opened and found to be ridh, outsiders, if not 
 forbidden by the laws or regulations, make a custom of claiming the spurs and 
 branches, in the hope that they may prove to be independent lodes, or in the 
 , expectation of making money out of them before the connection can be proved, 
 or for the purpose of compelling the owner of the main lode to buy them out, 
 and thus save the expense of litigation. Such claims upon spurs, and the liti- 
 gation resulting from them, have been among the most important facts in the his- 
 tory of Virginia City, and they have been common in many of the quartz districts 
 of California. They are among the greatest evils that beset lode mining in cer- 
 tain counties. It was mainly to prevent this kind of fraud, for it is scarcely 
 possible to give any oiJjer name to it as generally practiced, that the law of 
 Mexico authorized the imner to hold a tract five hundred and fifty feet wide at 
 
232 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 right angles to the course of the lode, and thus he could cover any ground which 
 he found interlopers might want to claim. The purpose was not so much to give 
 him room for working, as to secure his title and protect him from litigation and 
 troublesome neighbors. Under every set of regulations, customs, or local rules, 
 arid under every code of mining law, the owner of the main vein under the first 
 location owns all the spurs ; but he may not be able to prove for years that it is 
 a spur. This was the case in several important suits in Virginia City, where the 
 spur was not traced to its union with the main vein until the miners had gone 
 down five hundred feet, and they did not reach that depth till after years of 
 working. There may be, and no doubt are, cases in which two valuable and 
 independent lodes are found within two hundred feet of each other ; and in such 
 instances it would perhaps be injurious to the mining interest to let the first 
 claimant have both lodes, but such cases would be very rare. As a matter of 
 fact there is no complaint among miners of any evil caused by giving a claim to 
 a fixed area of surface, whereas there is great complaint about the license of 
 taking claims on spurs within a few feet of the main lode. The latter evil is 
 common ; the former is almost unknown ; the general sentiment among the miners 
 favors the recognition of a surface claim at least two hundred feet wide across 
 the lode. 
 
 5. WORK REQUIRED TO HOLD CLAIMS. 
 
 One of the greatest evils that besets lode mining at present is that a vast 
 number of claims are held without being worked, and without any expectation 
 on the part of the claimants of working them. Most claims are taken up merely 
 as a matter of speculation, and not for. the purpose of mining ; and many of the 
 claimants are persons who have never done any regular work at quartz mining. 
 When a rich vein is found, a multitude of persons rush to the place, and each 
 one gets a claim, if possible, in every vein in the district. He puts down the 
 names of enough associates ,to make up a claim a thousand or two thousand feet 
 long, and thus all the lodes of the district are soon appropriated. Two or three 
 of the associates may be present with him or perhaps not one,of them has ever 
 been near the place. He has taken his claims and he now waits for others to 
 develop the district and prove that they are valuable. If by the opening of the 
 adjacent mines, his claims are proved to be rich, he sells out at a handsome 
 profit ; if not, he has lost little. Then if a miner goes into one of the quartz 
 mining districts and wishes to prospect a vein thoroughly, he will find that most 
 of these lodes which he would prefer to work are held as claims, though no 
 substantial work has been done in them. He cannot afford to buy, because he 
 might have to buy dozens before finding one that would yield anything before 
 being examined ; and he cannot afford to prospect before buying, because any 
 discovery that he might make would enhance the price, and be to the profit of 
 the claimant. The system that recognizes the validity of unworked claims is a 
 great check to mining industry and to the development of mineral wealth. The 
 individuals who profit by it are usually of a class who thrive at the expense of 
 the industrious and enterprising. The miner desiring to get a claim with the 
 intention of working it has everything to lose and nothing to gain by the sys- 
 tem. It is true that the local regulations require the claim-holder to do a cer- 
 tain amount of work every year to secure his title, but this requirement is in 
 most districts a mere form,* and it is evaded by shamf work, or the require- 
 
 *The San Francisco Mining and Scientific Press, a recognized authority among miners, 
 says in its issue of the 14th of July, 1866 : 
 
 " With regard to the performance of labor to perfect a title, every miner knows that the 
 ru]e, as at present established, is a mere farce." 
 
 tGovernor McCormick of Arizona, in his message delivered to the territorial legislature on 
 the 8th of October, 1866, says : 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 233 
 
 ment is' a nullity because no provision is made for ascertaining whether the 
 work has been done, and the title is held to be good until, when some adverse 
 claim is made, the first -claim is pronounced invalid by a court, after a trial 
 in which the result does not necessarily go with justice. The presumption is 
 always with the first claimant in such cases. A considerable portion of the 
 community being interested in similar sham claims, it is difficult to get a jury 
 to give a verdict against them, even if the testimony were against them ; but the 
 law is so framed that usually if one witness swears that a certain amount of 
 work has been done to hold a claim, the adverse party cannot disprove it. Now 
 let us see what amount of work is necessary to hold a lode claim in various dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 In the course of the year 1866, eighty miles of quartz claims were taken up 
 in Nevada county, *and most of these claims are held to-day by a good titje 
 under the mining regulations, though not five miles of the eighty to-day are 
 worked, and the OAvners of the remaining seventy -five have no intention of work- 
 ing their claims soon. 
 
 The Nevada Transcript, (Nevada county, California,) in a number published 
 in October, 1866, said : 
 
 "It is safe to estimate the mining locations of the past two years in this 
 county, including water privileges, gravel and quartz claims, at about 373 miles. 
 The locations of the present year amount to over 177 miles. Of these fully 
 one-half are quartz claims. This estimate will suffice to show the great import- 
 ance to which quartz mining has grown within a very short period. Very few 
 of the many ledges located have yet become yielding mines, and a large number 
 are now un worked, the owners, having done work enough to bold them, are 
 .waiting for more enterprising men to develop the neighboring claims." 
 
 Under the statute of Nevada a claim may be held for one year by the excava- 
 tion of fifty cubic feet of rock for each two hundred feet, or by the payment of 
 two cents per foot. 
 
 Under the statute of Oregon a claim may be held for a year by work to the 
 amount of fifty dollars for each three hundred feet, or for the share of each 
 original locator. 
 
 In Idaho, under the territorial statute, work to the amount of one hundred 
 dollars for the claim of each original locator gives a perpetual title. 
 
 According to the territorial statute of Arizona the claimant or claimants must 
 sink a shaft thirty feet deep, or cut a tunnel fifty feet long, within the first ten 
 days, to establish a claim, which may then be held for two years without further 
 work by filing an annual affidavit of intention to work the claim ; and after 
 two years the claim, no matter how many feet it contains, may be held by thirty 
 days' work annually. 
 
 Under the local regulations of the Virginia district, three days' labor would 
 secure the. title to two hundred feet for one month, or work to the amount of 
 forty dollars for six months. 
 
 The local regulations for Reese River district do not provide for any forfeiture 
 
 n i i ft J 
 
 lor lack ot work. 
 
 The local regulations of Nevada county, California, require twenty days' work 
 or labor to the amount of one hundred dollars to secure a claim for one year. 
 
 " It is also important that, excepting in districts where active hostility on the part of the 
 Indians absolutely prevents, the actual occupation and improvement of claims shall be made 
 requisite to their possession, unless pre-empted under the congressional law. The lack of 
 such a requirement hitherto has seriously retarded the development of our mineral resources 
 and the general prosperity of the Territory, and proved discouraging to new comers, especi- 
 ally in the counties on the Colorado river, where hundreds of lodes, taken up in years past by 
 parties now absent from the Territory, are nnworked ; and yet, under the existing law, no one 
 has a right to lay claim to them, be he ever so able or anxious to open them." 
 
234 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 In the Copperopolis district seven days' work holds a company's claim for 
 a year. 
 
 Under the local regulations of Tuolumne county, California, one day's work 
 will hold a claim for a month, or labor to the value of one hundred dollars will 
 hold it for six months. 
 
 6. PROPOSED CHANGE AS TO WORK REQUIRED. 
 
 There is no uniformity here, nor is the same amount of labor required by any 
 two codes. Diversity implies injustice to individuals and injury to the State, 
 If it were wise to give a perpetual title in Idaho, after labor to the value of one 
 hundred dollars had been, done, it cannot be wise to require labor worth fifty 
 dollars annually in Oregon, or one hundred dollars in Nevada county, California, 
 All the statutes and regulations require some work, except the State of Nevada, 
 whicji enables the claimant by paying two cents per lineal foot annually, to hold 
 his claim forever. The two cents are to go into the State treasury, and the coin 
 mutation, if maintained, will have a very prejudicial effect on the mining interest 
 It will enable men to hold claims without working them, and that is precisely the 
 result which the laws should prevent. One of the evils with which lode mining 
 has now to contend is that the miners who are willing and anxious to work lodes 
 lying idle on public land cannot get possession of them. The law should be 
 strict against those who hold claims without working them. Every presumption 
 should be against titles that are not founded on continued occupation and work. 
 The statutes should be so framed that the miner who desires to work, and who 
 does work in good faith, shall have every advantage over the drone who takes 
 claims and tries to hold them iintil their great value is proved by others, so 
 that he can sell them out, after having incurred little expense or risk. 
 
 In Mexico it is expected that the miner will keep at least four men employed 
 continually at his mine, and if Ije omits to have so many as four for a period of 
 four months, except in time of war, famine, or pestilence, he forfeits his title. 
 The constant labor of one, two, or three men, or the employment of a dozen 
 during the year, is not enough. The Mexican law, however, is too strict on 
 this point for the present wants of the American mining districts. Wages are 
 so high that many companies, which really intend to open the mines, and are at 
 work in good faith with one or two men, would abandon their claims rather 
 than undertake to pay four men continuously. Nevertheless, severe as Mexi- 
 can law is on individuals, it is admirably fitted to develop the mining interest, 
 The Spanish maxim is that the man who does the most work in the mine 
 has the most right to it. 
 
 7. LAW NEEDED FOR CENTURIES OF MINING. 
 
 It is evident to all who have made themselves familiar with the. history of 
 mining in other countries, and who have examined the mineral resources of the 
 Pacific States, that our gold and silver mining industry will last for centuries, 
 and will grow to be far more important and to employ many more laborers than 
 at present. It is evident, too, after the consideration of the various statutes and 
 local regulations that some further legislation is necessary to protect and foster 
 the development of this great industry. If further legislation 'be necessary, 
 wisdom suggests that action should not be postponed for a time. The mining 
 industry is too important to the interests of individuals and to the wealth and 
 growth of the State to be neglected. It is now, while the business is still in its 
 infancy, that the proper principles should be laid down, so as to secure the miner 
 in the safe enjoyment of the treasures which he brings to light. The land on 
 which the mining industry is based belongs to the Union, and Congress has 
 the exclusive jurisdiction over the tenure of claims until the time when they 
 "^become private property. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 235 
 
 The act of the last session is an excellent foundation on which to build up 
 gradually a code suited to our wants, and the local mining regulations suggest 
 many important provisions. The interests involved, both public and private, 
 are so great that much caution is necessary ; and yet the necessity of some uni- 
 form and comprehensive system is undeniable. It is better to legislate too little 
 than too much, and the first statutes should be confined to a few general and 
 fundamental principles, to which additions can be made as experience is gained 
 and the wants of the miners are better understood. The main purpose of legis- 
 lation, in mining, should be to protect the working miner, and encourage him in 
 the development of the mineral resources of the country. His interest in this 
 matter is intimately associated with the prosperity of the nation. 
 
 8. CONGRESS ALONE CAN ESTABLISH UNIFORMITY. 
 
 i 
 
 Congress alone can establish uniform rules, applicable equally to all the 
 mining districts. Experience has shown that if the matter be left to the several 
 States and Territories in which the mineral deposits are found, each will have 
 its own system. Local, personal, arid immediate interests have far more influ- 
 ence in local legislatures than in Congress ; which last, from the manner in 
 which it is constituted, must pay more regard to general, permanent, and public 
 interests. It is therefore in every respect to be desired that Congress should 
 exercise its power and fix by a comprehensive act the terms upon which claims 
 to mines on the public land may be held. A wise and generous basis for such 
 legislation was laid by the -act of last session. The equity of the miner's title 
 was acknowledged ; the courts were directed to protect him in his possession ; 
 and the validity of the local rules was for the time recognized. The subject was 
 too extensive to dispose of it all at once. It is better to do the work slowly 
 than to do it ill. Step by step we shall advance to have a superior law, worthy 
 of the superior energy, intelligence, and industry of our miners, and the superior 
 richness and extent of our mineral deposits. 
 
 The following are the miners' regulations in some of the principal mining 
 districts : 
 
 9. MINERS' REGULATIONS. QUARTZ REGULATIONS OF NEVADA COUNTY, 
 
 CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ARTICLE 1. The jurisdiction of the following laws shall extend over all quartz 
 mines and quartz mining property within the county of Nevada. 
 
 ART. 2. Each prospector of a quartz claim shall hereafter be entitled to one 
 hundred feet on a quartz ledge or vein, and the discoverer shall be allowed one 
 hundred feet additional. Each claim shall include all the. dips, angles, and va 
 riatious of the vein. 
 
 ART. 3. On the discovery of a vein of quartz, three days shall be allowed to 
 mark and stake off the same in such manner, by name of the owner and number 
 of the claim, or otherwise, as shall properly and fully identify such claims. 
 Parties having claims may cause a map or plan to be made and a copy filed with 
 the recorder, if deemed requisite to more particularly fix the locality. 
 
 ART. 4. Work to the extent of one hundred dollars in value, or twenty days' 
 faithful labor, shall be performed by each company holding claims, within thirty 
 days of the date of recording the same, as provided for in article sixth of these 
 laws ; and the duly authorized representative of a company making oath that 
 such money has been expended, or that such labor has been performed, shall be 
 entitled to a certificate from a county recorder or deputy, guaranteeing undis- 
 puted possession of said claim for the term of one vear ; and a like sum of 
 money or amount of labor expended or performed wifnin twenty days of each 
 succeeding year, duly acknowledged as herein named, shall entitle the claimant 
 
236 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 or company, from year to year, to further certificates of undisputed proprietorship 
 and possession ; and a company having a mill contracted for in good faith, to 
 the amount of five thousand dollars, for the working of its claim or claims, the 
 proper representatives of the company making oath of the same, shall be entitled 
 to receive from said county recorder a title-deed to said claim or claims, guaran- 
 teeing to the claimant or company, their successors and assigns, undisputed pos- 
 session and proprietorship forever under these laws ; provided that nothing 
 in this article shall at any time be inconsistent with the laws of the United States. 
 
 ART. 5. Whenever the requisite amount of money or labor has not been, ex- 
 pended within- thirty days from the adoption of these laws, the claim or claims 
 thus neglected shall be considered abandoned and subject to be relocated by 
 any other party or parties. 
 
 ART. 6. Any person a citizen of the United States, or any person having taken 
 the necessary steps to become a citizen of the United States, shall be entitled^o 
 hold one quartz claim as provided for in article first, and as many more as may 
 be purchased in good faith for a valuable consideration, for which certificates of 
 proprietorship shall be issued by the county recorder. 
 
 ART. 7. The regularly elected county recorder of Nevada county shall serve 
 as recorder of this county in quartz claims, authenticating his acts by the county 
 seal. He shall appoint as his deputy such person for Grass valley as may be 
 elected by the district of Grass valley, and he shall pass his records to his 
 successor. 
 
 ART. 8. The fees of the recorder and deputy shall be the same as the statute 
 fees for recording per folio. 
 
 ART. 9. No title to a claim hereafter taken up or purchased shall be valid 
 unless recorded in the books of the aforesaid county recorder or deputy within 
 ten days of its location or purchase. 
 
 Adopted December 20, 1852, and still in force. 
 
 10. QUARTZ REGULATIONS OF SIERRA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ARTICLE 1. A claim on any quartz ledge in this county may have a length 
 of two hundred feet along the same, and. a width of -two hundred and fifty feet 
 at right angles with the ledge, on each side of the same, to include all quartz 
 found within the above-mentioned limits. 
 
 ART. 2. Any person discovering a gold-bearing ledge, not previously located, 
 shall be entitled to two claims, being one claim for discovery. 
 
 ART. 3. No person but a discoverer shall be entitled to hold more than one 
 claim by location, in a company. 
 
 ART. 4. No one but an American citizen, or a foreigner who has and exhibits 
 his foreign miner's tax receipt, shall be allowed to hold a claim by location on 
 any quartz ledge in. this county. 
 
 ART. 5. It shall be necessary for claimants to post a notice on some conspicu- 
 ous place on the claims located, setting forth the number of feet claimed, and 
 from what point, upon which the real names of the locators shall appear in full. 
 Said notice shall hold good for ten days, at the expiration of which time a copy 
 of said notice shall be placed upon the records of this county. The notice and 
 record as above shall hold said claims, without further improvements, from and 
 after the first day of November until the first day of May following, if recorded 
 after said first day of November. But upon all claims located between the first 
 day of May and the first day of November following, labor to the amount of 
 eight dollars per claim shall be expended toward the prospecting or developing 
 the same in each thirty days after such location. 
 
 ART. 6 To hold quartz claims for the first twelve months after location, it 
 shall be required of eacft claimant to expend at least one hundred dollars upon 
 each claim of two hundred feet in such improvements as may be required in the 
 development of the same. 
 
WEST OF THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 237 
 
 ART. 7. Quartz claims, which have been duly located in accordance with the 
 foregoing rules and regulations, persons are entitled to hold without limit as to 
 number, by afterwards conforming to the requirements set forth in these by- 
 laws. 
 
 ART. 8. All quartz claims in this county heretofore located, upon which no 
 permanent improvements have been made, will be declared forfeited within 
 thirty days after the publication of these by-laws, unless the notice of location 
 is renewed and recorded, if not already upon the records of the county, and 
 labor expended upon the same in accordance with the foregoing regulations for 
 holding quartz claims. 
 
 11. QUARTZ REGULATIONS OF TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The following are the quartz regulations of Tuolumne county : 
 
 ARTICLE 1. The jurisdiction of the following laws shall extend over and 
 govern all quartz mining property within Tuolumne county : 
 
 ART. 2. Each proprietor or locator of a quartz claim shall be 'entitled to 
 one hundred and fifty (150) feet in length of the vein, including all its dips and 
 angles ; also one hundred and fifty (150) feet on each side of said vein, together 
 with the right of way on eiiher side of said vein, to run tunnels and drifts any 
 distance that may be necessary in order to work said vein ; provided that the 
 right to one hundred and fifty (150) feet herein granted on each side of the vein 
 shall not be deemed to conflict with or detract from the right of any subsequent 
 locator who may discover a vein outside of said one hundred and fifty (150) 
 feet, to follow Ins vein through said ground. 
 
 ART. 3. The original dicoverer of a vein shall be entitled to hold three hun- 
 dred (300) feet in length on said vein, by virtue of discovery. 
 
 ART. 4. No man shall, by virtue of pre-emption, be entitled to hold more 
 than one cl dm on the same vein, except as provided in article third. 
 
 ART. 5. All quartz claims hereafter taken up or located shall be plainly 
 marked by notices posted, containing the claimants' names and the number of 
 feet claimed. 
 
 ART. 6. The parties locating a quartz claim shall put at least one full day's 
 work on said vein in every thirty days, in order to hold the same. A day's work 
 shall be eight hours' labor ; provided, however, that the sum of one hundred 
 dollars ($100) expended on said claim shall hold the same for six months from 
 the date of its expenditure. * 
 
 ART. 7. Any individual, company, or companies erecting machinery for 
 working quartz shall, by virtue of said machinery, hold the vein or veins be- 
 longing to said individual, company, or companies. 
 
 ART. 8. These laws shall be in full force and effect from and after the first 
 day of September, A. D. 1858. 
 
 11|. QUARTZ REGULATIONS OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY. 
 
 ARTICLE 1. The jurisdiction of the following laws shall extend over all quartz 
 mines and quartz mining property within the county of Sacramento. 
 
 ART. 2. Each proprietor 'oif a quartz claim shall hereafter be entitled to two 
 hundred feet of a quartz ledge or vein, and the discoverer shall be allowed two 
 hundred feet additional. Each claim shall include all the dips, angles, and 
 variations of the vein. 
 
 ART. 3. On the discovery of a vein of quartz, three days shall be allowed to 
 mark and stake off the same, in such manner, by name of the owner, ami num- 
 ber of the claim, or otherwise, as shall properly and fully identify such claims. 
 Parties having claims may have a map or plan made* and a copy filed with 
 the recorder, if deemed requisite to more particularly fix the locality. 
 
238 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 ART. 4. Work to the extent of sixty dollars in value or twenty days' faithful 
 labor shall be performed by each company holding claims, within thirty days 
 from the date of recording the same, as provided in article six of these'laws, and 
 the duly authorized representative of a company making oath that such money 
 has been expended, or that such labor has been performed, shall be entitled to 
 a certificate from recorder guaranteeing undisputed possession of such claims 
 for the term of one year ; and a like sum of money or amount of labor ex- 
 pended or performed within twenty days of each succeeding year, duly acknowl- 
 edged as herein named, shall entitle the claimants or company, from year to year, 
 to certificates of undisputed proprietorship and possession ; and a company hav- 
 ing a.mill contracted for in good faith to the amount of five thousand dollars for 
 the working of its claim or claims, the proper representative of the company 
 making oath of the same, shall be entitled to receive from said county recorder 
 a title-deed of said claim or claims, guaranteeing to the claimants or company, 
 their successors or assigns, undisputed possession and proprietorship forever 
 * under these laws ; provided that nothing in this article shall be at any time 
 inconsistent with the, laws of the United States. 
 
 ART. 5. Whenever the requisite amount of money or labor, as provided for in 
 article four, has not been expended within sixty days from the adoption of these 
 laws, the claim or claims thus neglected shall be considered abandoned, and 
 subject to be located by any other party or parties. 
 
 ART. 6. Any person, a citizen of the United States, or any person having 
 taken the necessary steps to become a citizen of the United States, shall be 
 entitled to hold one quartz claim, as provided for in article second, and as many 
 .more as may be purchased in good faith for a valuable consideration, for which 
 a certificate of proprietorship shall be issued by the recorder. 
 
 ART. 7. The discoverer of a new ledge or vein of quartz shall be entitled to 
 two hundred feet for his discovery, and one claim additional, even though he is 
 already in the possession of another claim taken up by himself, and the same 
 benefit may be claimed for each and every discovery, although many discoveries 
 may be made by .one person. 
 
 (The above regulations were adopted by a meeting of the quartz miners of 
 Sacramento county, held at Ashland, January 22, 1857, and are still in force. 
 There are, however, very few quartz claims of any value in the county.) 
 
 12. PLACER REGULATIONS OF COLUMBIA DISTRICT, CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The following regulations for the placer mining district of Columbia, Tuolumne 
 county, California, are considered to be as good as any in the State : 
 
 ARTICLE 1. The Columbia mining district shall hereafter be considered to 
 contain all the territory embraced within the following bounds : Beginning at 
 the site of M'Kenny's old store, on Springfield flat, and running in a direct line 
 to a spring on a gulch known as Spring gulch said gulch running in a south 
 ern direction from Santiago Hill. Thence, in a direct line from said "spring, to 
 the angle of the road leading from Saw-mill flat to Kelly's ranch, near Wood's 
 creek. Thence, running along the ridge on the west of Wood's creek, to the 
 southern bounds of Yankee Hill district. Thence, following the ridge, to the 
 high flume between Columbia and Yankee Hill. Thence, following the New 
 Water Company's ditch, to Summit pass. Thence, in a direct line to the head of 
 Experimental gulch including said gulch. Thence, following the upland, to a 
 point opposite Pine Log crossing. Thence, following the upland, to the head of 
 Fox gulch, and including said gulch. Thence, following the upland around, the 
 head of Dead Man's gulch, to the site of the Lawnsdale saw-mill. Thence in 
 a direct line to the place of beginning. 
 
 ART. 2. A full claim for mining purposes, on the flats or hills in this district, 
 shall consist of an area equal to that of one hundred feet square. A full claim 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 239 
 
 on ravines shall consist of one hundred feet running on the ravine, and of a 
 width at the discretion of the claimant, provided it does not exceed one hundred 
 feet. 
 
 ART. 3. No person or persons shall he allowed to hold more than one full 
 claim, within the bounds of this district, by location ; nor shall it consist of more 
 than two parcels of ground, the sum of the area of which shall not exceed one 
 full claim ; provided nothing in this article shall be so construed as to prevent 
 miners from associating in companies to carry on mining operations, such com- 
 panies holding no more than one claim to each member. 
 
 ART. 4. A claim may be held for five days after water can be procured at 
 the usual rates, by distinctly marking its bounds by ditches, or by the erection 
 of good and sufficient stakes at each corner, with a notice at each end of the 
 claim, followed by the names of the claimants, and by recording the same ac- 
 cording to the provisions of article 10. 
 
 ART. 5. When a party has already commenced operations upon a claim, and 
 is obliged to discontinue for want of water, or by sickness or unavoidable acci- 
 dent, the presence upon the ground of the torn and sluices, or such machines as 
 are employed in working the claim, shall be considered as sufficient evidence 
 that the ground is not abandoned, and shall serve instead of other notice; the 
 bounds of the claim still being defined, except so far as the marks may have 
 been obliterated by the work which has been done, or by other causes. 
 
 ART. 6. Claims shall be forfeited when parties holding them have neglected 
 to fulfil the requirements of the preceding articles, or have neglected working 
 them for five days after water can be procured at the usual rates, unless pre- 
 vented by sickness or unavoidable accident, or unless the miners have provided 
 by law to the contrary. 
 
 ART. 7. Earth thrown up for the purpose of washing shall not be held dis- 
 tinct from the claim from which it was ta.ken, but shall constitute part and par- 
 cel of such claim. 
 
 ART. 8. Water flowing naturally through gold-bearing ravines, shall not be 
 diverted from its natural course without the consent of parties working on such 
 ravines ; and when so diverted, it shall be held subject to a requisition of the 
 party interested. 
 
 ART. 9. No Asiatics shall be allowed to mine in this district. 
 
 ART. 10. Any or all claims, now located, or that may be located and worked, 
 can be laid over at any time, for any length of time not to exceed six months, 
 by the person or persons holding the same appearing before the recorder of the 
 district, with two or more disinterested miners, who shall certify over their own 
 signatures that the said claim or claims cannot be worked to advantage, and by 
 having the same recorded according to the laws of the district, and by paying a 
 fee of one dollar; provided each claimant shall sign the record in person or by a 
 legal representative, stating at the same time that said claim is held by location 
 or by purchase. 
 
 ART. 11. There shall be a recorder elected, whb shall hold the office for one 
 year from the date of his election, or until his successor be elected, whose duty 
 it shall be to keep a record of all miners' meetings held in the district; to record 
 all claim's, when requested by the claimants, in a book to be kept for that pur- 
 pose, according to article 10 ; and to call miners' meetings, by posting notices 
 throughout the district-, when fifteen or more miners of the district shall present 
 him with a petition stating the object of the meeting, and paying for printing 
 notices ; provided that, in the absence of the recorder, the above-named number 
 of miners shall not be disqualified to call a meeting, at the place specified in ar- 
 ticle 16. He shall at all proper times keep his record book open for inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 ART. 12. No company or companies of miners, who may occupy the natural 
 channel through any gulch or ravine for a tail-race or flume, shall have the ex- 
 
240 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 elusive right of such channel, to the exclusion of any company of miners who 
 may wish to run their tailings into the same. 
 
 ART. 13. Any party Or parties locating claims in gulches or ravines where 
 such flumes or tail-races exist, shall first confer with the party or parties owning 
 said tail-races or flumes, for the use of the same on such conditions as they may 
 agree upon ; and in case of a disagreement, each party shall choose two disinter- 
 ested miners, and the four shall choose a fifth, who may determine the matter or 
 matters in dispute. 
 
 ART. 14. Any company or companies of miners shall have the right to run 
 their water and tailings across the claim or claims below them, if it can be done 
 without injury to the lower claims. 
 
 ART. 15. The limits of this district shall not be changed without the con- 
 sent of a regularly called mass meeting of the miners of the district. 
 
 ART. 16. No miners' meetings held outside of Columbia, for the purpose of 
 making laws to govern any portion of the district, or to amend these laws in any 
 manner, shall be considered as legal. 
 
 ART . 17. All mining laws of this district, made previous to the foregoing, 
 are hereby repealed. 
 
 13. PLACER REGULATIONS OF NORTH SAN JUAN DISTRICT. 
 
 ARTICLE 1. The boundaries of the district of San Juan shall be as follows : 
 On the east the public road leading to Hess's crossing; on the south the road 
 leading from the village of San Juan to Kentz's tavern, and the ravine extending 
 thence to Hatfield's crossing on the Middle Yuba ; and on the west and north 
 the Middle Yuba. 
 
 ART. 2. The dimensions of a mining claim in this district shall n,ot* exceed 
 one hundred and eighty feet in length by eighty feet in breadth. 
 
 ART. 3. No person shall be entitled to more than one claim by location, but 
 the right to hold by legal purchase shall be unlimited. 
 
 ART. 4. To indicate possession of any claim or claims it shall be the duty of 
 the owner or owners thereof, if not habitually at work thereon, to post on some 
 conspicuous part of such claim or claims a notice stating the boundaries and di- 
 mensions thereof, and his or their intention thereon ; and also to designate the 
 prominent lines or corners thereof by suitable stakes or blazes. But in a claim 
 or set of claims whereon work is being regularly performed, the presence of the 
 owners thereof, or their representatives, shall be deemed a sufficient excuse for 
 the absence of the notice hereinbefore specified. 
 
 ART. 5. It shall be the duty of the owners of all that class of claims specified 
 in the first clause of article 1 (i. e., those wherein work is not being regularly 
 performed) to renew their notices once in every thirty days, except in the ab- 
 sence of water from the diggings, when it shall not be necessary. 
 
 ART. 6. If a person or persons in prospecting any claim or set of claims shall 
 have expended thereon the sum of five hundred dollars in money or labor, (labor 
 to be estimated at the rate of wages current at the time,) his or their right to 
 such claim or claims shall be secure for the period of two years from the time 
 such expenses were incurred ; but after the expenditure of the said two years 
 said. rights shall be subject to the restrictions specified in articles 4 and 5 of these 
 laws. 
 
 ART. 7. It shall be the duty of a recorder to be elected annually by the mi- 
 ners of the district ; to make a record on application of the owners of the boun- 
 daries and dimensions of each and every claim or set of claims in the district, 
 for which he shall be entitled to a fee of fifty cents for each record. On the 
 sale or transfer of any claim in this district it shall be the duty of the purchaser 
 to have such sale or transfer recorded. 
 
 ART. 8. It shall be the duty of all owners of claims that have been located or 
 
OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 241 
 
 purchased previous to the date of this meeting to have such claim recorded on 
 or before the first day of December, A. D. 1854, and all claims located or pur- 
 chased after the date of this meeting shall be recorded within oue week from the 
 time of said location or purchase. 
 
 The above regulations were adopted on the 5th November, 1854. North San 
 Juan is the largest hydraulic mining district in California. 
 
 14. PLACER REGULATIONS OF PILOT HILL. 
 
 The following are the regulations of the placer district of Pilot Hill, Calaveras 
 county, California : 
 
 SECTION 1. Each tunnelling and shafting claim shall consist of one hundred 
 feet in width to the man, and running through the hill on a parallel line with the 
 commencement of the tunnel. 
 
 SEC. 2. That each company holding tunnel or shafting claims, in order to 
 hold the same, shall be required to perform work to the amount of twenty-five 
 dollars each week for a period not to exceed twelve months. 
 
 SEC. 3. That each gulch claim shall consist of one hundred and fifty feet 
 in length by fifty in width to each man. 
 
 SEC 4. That each surface claim shall consist of two hundred feet in length 
 by one hundred feet in width to the man. 
 
 SEC. 5. That each gulch aud surface claim shall be worked within three 
 days after the date of location, if water can be obtained. 
 
 SEC. 6. That each tunnelling, shafting, gulch, and surface claim shall be 
 marked off by stakes, or other marks, so that the boundaries of each claim can 
 be distinctly traced. 
 
 (Pilot Hill and Kanaka Camp are not important districts, but their regulations 
 are peculiar in some respects, and are therefore given here.) 
 
 15 REGULATIONS OF NEW KANAKA CAMP. 
 
 The following are the regulations of New Kanaka Camp, inTuolumne county : 
 
 ARTICLE 1. [This article describes the boundaries of the district ] 
 
 ART. 2. Creek claims shall be two hundred feet in length, and from bank to 
 bank. 
 
 ART. 3. Gulch or ravine claims shall be two hundred feet in length and fifty 
 in width. 
 
 ART. 4. All claims on bars or flats shall be two feet in length and fifty feet 
 in width. 
 
 ART. 5. It shall be required that all claims be worked one full day in three, 
 when permanent water can be had, except in cases of sickness or legal cause. 
 
 ART. 6. All miners are entitled to one claim by pre-emption and one by 
 purchase ; provided such claims purchased shall be, on investigation, found to 
 have been obtained in a legal or bonajide manner. 
 
 ART. 7. Chinamen shall not be allowed to own claims in this district, either 
 by purchase or pre-emption. 
 
 ART. 8. All persons who find it necessary to cut a tail-race to their claims 
 shall have the privilege of cutting through any ground below them, owned by 
 other parties, provided it will not result to the injury of such parties. 
 
 ART. 9. It shall be required of all persons owning claims in this district to 
 designate the boundaries of said claims by digging a trench around the same. 
 
 ART. 10. All disputes arising in regard to mining shall be left to arbitration, 
 each party to choose one man, and, in case of disagreement, they to choose an 
 umpire. 
 
 ART. 11. Arbitrators in all cases, for services, shall be paid for all time - 
 sumed at the rate of three dollars per day. 
 H, Ex. Doc. 2916 
 
242 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 ART. 12. All claims may be laid over, by having the same recorded, from the 
 time ditch-water fails until it can be obtained again. 
 
 ART. 13. A recorder shall be chosen, whose duty shall be to keep a book of 
 records, with the number of each claim recorded, from one to an unlimited 
 number. It shall also be the duty of said recorder to go on to each and every 
 claim recorded and post at either end of each claim a piece of tin, with the' 
 number stamped thereon, corresponding with the number on the book of record, 
 
 16. REGULATIONS OF THE COPPEROPOLIS (COPPER) DISTRICT. 
 
 ARTICLE 1. This district shall be known as the Copper Canon district. 
 
 ART. 2. The boundaries of this district shall be as follows, viz : Bounded on 
 the north by the Angels' trail, east by Empire district, south by the O'Byrne 
 Ferry district, and west by Black Oak, Four Spring Run, and Four Spring 
 district. 
 
 ART. 3. A. miner shall be entitled to one claim by location on a lead of one 
 hundred and fifty feet in length and three hundred feet in width. Any miner 
 discovering a new lead or vein shall be entitled to an extra claim of the above 
 extent. 
 
 ART. 4. Claims shall be duly staked at each end, with at least one notice 
 posted in a conspicuous place on the claim, with all the claimants' names 
 therein, and such a notice shall be posted up as aforesaid once a year at least, 
 and during the month of August, in the presence of witnesses. 
 
 ART. 5. Companies of miners having adjoining claims, and working together 
 only one of such claims, shall hold good the balance of claims. 
 
 ART. 6. All claims, whether obtained by location or purchase, shall be 
 represented in person or by proxy whenever they can be worked in conformity 
 with the laws hereby prescribed. 
 
 ART. 7. There shall be one day's work done on each claim, or company's 
 claim, once a month, commencing on the 1st of May and terminating on the 1st 
 of December. 
 
 ART. 8. No claim shall be forfeited by sickness or legal inability of the 
 claimant. 
 
 ART. 9. There shall be a recorder elected, whose duty it shall be to keep a cor- 
 rect copy of all claims in the district. It shall be the recorder's duty to visit the 
 claims in person, and give an accurate description, landmarks, and also names 
 of company occurring therein. His fee shall be fifty cents per claim. 
 
 ART. 10. When any dispute shall arise respecting claims in the district, each 
 party shall select a disinterested miner to act as arbitrator to settle the matter 
 in dispute, and if said arbitrators shall be unable to agree they shall choose 
 another miner or referee, whose decision shall be final. All arbitrators t and 
 referees shall be chosen from the miners of this district. 
 
 Adopted August 3, 1860. 
 
 17.-STATUTE OF NEVADA CONCERNING MINING CLAIMS. 
 
 The following are the main sections of a statute of the State of Nevada 
 approved February 27, 1866 : 
 
 SECTION 1. Any six or more persons who are males of the age of twenty-one 
 years and upwards, holding mining claims in any mining district, or who hold 
 mineral lands not within the boundaries of any established mining district, may 
 form a new mining district embracing said claims, at a meeting of such persons 
 to be called by posting for five days in at least five conspicuous places within 
 the limits of such proposed new district notices in writing stating the place and 
 time for holding such meeting, describing as near as may be the limits of such 
 proposed new district, and signed by not less than five of such persons. At 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 243 
 
 said meeting all males of the age of twenty-one years and upward holding 
 mining claims, or anyinterest therein, within said limits, may vote, and by a 
 majority vote determine whether said new mining district shall be established, 
 and its boundaries, which shall be within the limits named in said notices ; and 
 thereafter the persons so qualified and holding mining claims in such newly 
 established district shall proceed to select a name therefor and elect a district 
 recorder, who shall be qualified as aforesaid. He shall perform all the duties 
 required of him by law, and shall, within thirty days after qualifying, file and 
 record in his office a record of the proceedings of said meeting. No district 
 formed under the provisions of this act shall be divided by any county line. 
 Mining districts now existing may be continued. 
 
 SEC. 22. On and after the second Saturday of July, 1866, all locations ot 
 mining claims shall be made in the following manner : On a monument not less 
 than three feet high, firmly established in a conspicuous place on the claim, 
 there shall be placed a plainly-written notice embracing a description of the 
 ground claimed, the date of location, the name of the claim, the name of the 
 company, and the names of the locators, with the number of feet claimed by 
 each, and a copy of said notice, accompanied by a written request for a survey 
 of said claim by the district recorder, shall, within thirty days after the making 
 of such location, be filed in the office of the district recorder of the district in 
 which said claim is located ; and in case there be no legally authorized district 
 recorder in and for the district, or the claim be outside of the limits of an organ- 
 ized mining district, then, and in that case, said notice may be filed in the office 
 of the county recorder of the county in which said claim is located ; and a written 
 request for a survey by the county surveyor shall be served upon the county 
 surveyor within a reasonable time thereafter; the county surveyor, or his 
 deputy, shall perform all the duties required of a district recorder by the pro- 
 visions of this act. Pie shall keep a record of all his transactions in such cases, 
 -and for such services he may charge and receive the same fees allowed by law 
 for his services in like cases. Within thirty days after the making of such loca- 
 tion there shall be done on said claim, as assessment work, to hold the same up 
 to and including the day preceding the first Saturday of the then following 
 August, excavation involving the removal of fifty cubic feet of earth or loose 
 material, or five cubic feet of solid rock, for each two hundred feet in the claim ; 
 and, as soon as may be thereafter, said district recorder shall survey the same 
 and record the notice of survey as provided in section 14 of this act; and said 
 district recorder shall file and record a certificate in regard to the assessment 
 work, which shall be substantially in the following form : 
 
 DISTRICT, COUNTY, NEVADA, DAY OF MONTH 
 
 OF YEAR. 
 
 This is to certify that on the claim governed by the company, 
 
 surveyed on date, there has been done by or on behalf of said company 
 
 sufficient work to hold said claim up to the first Saturday of August next. 
 
 , District Recorder. 
 
 SEC. 23. Any person may locate mining claims in favor of others, but no per- 
 son shall be entitled to hold by location more than two hundred feet of any one 
 ledge, except by virtue of discovery of the same, for which he shall be entitled 
 to hold two hundred feet additional. In the case of locations made as exten- 
 sions, the location of two hundred feet by virtue of discovery is allowed. No 
 claim shall, in the aggregate, exceed in extent two thousand feet on any one 
 ledge. 
 
 SEC. 24. Any location made on a ledge by authority of this act shall be 
 deemed to include all the dips, spurs, angles, and variations of said ledge. The 
 locators of any ledge shall be entitled to hold one hundred feet on each side of 
 
244 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES. 
 
 the same, not interfering with the mining rights previously acquired by others, 
 and all dips, spurs, angles, variations, veins, cross-ledges, strings, and feeders 
 within such area of two hundred feet, by the extent of the claim on the sup- 
 posed "line of the ledge as located, shall be considered as claimed and held by 
 gaid locators as a part of said ledge, and no ledge in any claim subsequently 
 located shall be followed and worked within the said area without the permission 
 of the holders of said area. All measurement of boundaries shall be horizontal 
 air-lines. Nothing in this act shall be so construed as in any manner to change 
 the amount of ground that may be held in any mining claim located and held in 
 accordance with district mining laws, but on and after the first Saturday of 
 August, 1866, all such claims shall in all other respects be subject to the pro- 
 visions of this act. Locations may be made on blind ledges in the same manner 
 as on cropping ledges, and any person, company, or corporation finding a blind 
 ledge in any excavation made by him or them shall, for ten days after finding the 
 same, have the exclusive privilege of locating the same. 
 
 SEC. 25. No person shall become a locator in more than one claim on the same 
 ledge, and any second location made on the same ledge by or in the name of a 
 party already located on such ledge shall be void. 
 
 SEC. 26. The holders of any claim shall have the right to use so much of the 
 land in the vicinity thereof as may be requisite for dumps, for the erection of 
 the necessary buildings, machinery, and other works connected with said claim, 
 and for the convenient development and working of the same. And in the de- 
 velopment and working of the said claim they may sink shafts and inclines, and 
 run drifts, tunnels, and cuts on any lands in said vicinity, but the prior owner 
 of such lands shall be entitled to reasonable compensation for all damages sus- 
 tained by reason of such dumps, the erection of such works, or the conducting 
 of such operations. If the prior owners of any such lands have duly claimed 
 the same as mining ground, they shall be entitled to all the ores taken out in the 
 course of such operations, and shall not be interfered with in the conducting of 
 their own mining operations on their own claims. The amount of such compen- 
 sation shall be determined by a majority of three commissioners, one of whom 
 shall be appointed by such prior owners, one by the party engaged in such de- 
 velopment or working, and one by the two thus selected. The amount so fixed 
 shall, within fifteen days after the fixing of the same, be paid to said prior own- 
 ers, or deposited in the county treasury, subject to the order of said prior owners. 
 Said commissioners shall, before entering upon their duties, take and subscribe 
 to an oath, before some person duly qualified to administer the same, to make a 
 true appraisement thereof according to the best of their knowledge and belief. 
 
 SEC. 30. For the purposes of this act the term " foot/' when used without 
 qualification in relation to mining ground, is hereby declared to mean twelve 
 lineal inches, horizontal air-line measurement, on the line of the ledge as located; 
 the term "assessment work" is hereby declared to mean the work done partly, 
 in order to hold a claim, and involving the excavation of fifty cubic feet of 
 earth or loose matter, or five cubic feet of solid rock, for each two hundred feet 
 in the claim ; the term " assessment dues " is hereby declared to mean two 
 cents for each foot in a claim, to be paid for the purpose of holding the same one 
 assessment year; and the term "assessment year" is hereby declared to mean 
 the period extending from and including the first Saturday of August of one 
 year to and including the day immediately preceding the first Saturday of 
 August of the following year. ' The doing of assessment work or the payment 
 of assessment dues shall be regarded as evidence of intention to hold the claim 
 on which or with reference to which the same was done or paid, for the period 
 for which the same was done or paid. The payment of assessment dues shall 
 be in lieu of the assessment work heretofore usually required as an evidence of 
 intention to hold a mining claim for a specified period; and such payment shall 
 not be required in any case where the holders of a mining claim are in good 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 245 
 
 faith, and to the extent specified in section thirty-two of this acf, engaged in 
 developing or working the same. 
 
 SEC. 31. On the first Saturday of August, 1866, at which time the first as- 
 sessment year shall begin, this act shall supersede all district mining laws, and 
 thereafter said laws shall be considered as repealed: Provided, Any and all 
 rights heretofore acquired under and by virtue of such district mining laws shall 
 be" determined in accordance with said mining laws existing at the time when, 
 said rights were acquired. During the'period extending from and including the 
 first day of May, 1866, to and including the day immediately preceding the first 
 Saturday of the following August, no claim shall become subject to relocation 
 by reason of the non-performance of assessment work. Locations may be made 
 under this act at any time on and after the second Saturday of July, 1866, at 
 which time the district recorders elected under this act shall, if qualified, enter 
 upon the discharge of their duties, and on and after said second Saturday of 
 July no location shall be made under district mining laws. 
 
 SEC. 32. The doing of assessment work, or the payment of assessment dues, 
 shall not be required in order to hold a claim during any assessment year, if 
 during the year next preceding such assessment year there has been done on said 
 claim, by or on behalf of the claimants thereof, an amount of work costing at 
 a fair valuation not less than fifty cents for each foot in said claim ; but in all 
 other cases assessment work shall be done or assessment dues shall be paid as 
 provided in this act. Assessment dues shall be paid for every assessment year by 
 the parties holding the claim to the district recorder elected under this act, be- 
 fore the first Saturday of August commencing the assessment year for which they 
 are paid, except as otherwise provided in this section. 
 
 SEC. 33. Except as otherwise provided in section 32, every mining claim lo- 
 cated and held under district mining laws, on which before the first day of May, 
 1866, there has been work done involving the excavation of fifty cubic feet of 
 earth or loose matter, or five cubic feet of solid rock, for each two hundred feet 
 in such claim, shall bo subject to assessment dues. On every mining claim lo- 
 cated and held under district mining laws, on which such work has not been 
 done before the first day of May, 1866, assessment work shall be done on or 
 before the day immediately preceding the first Saturday of August, 1S66. The 
 doing of such assessment work or the paying of such assessment dues shall en- 
 able the owner of said claim to hold the same for the next ensuing assessment 
 year, commencing on the first Saturday of August, 1866. 
 
 SEC. 34. The assessment work done within the thirty days after the location 
 of a claim under this act, as provided in section 22, shall hold the same only up 
 to the beginning of the assessment year following the date of said location, and 
 for such next ensuing assessment year and for every year thereafter, except as 
 provided in section 32 of this act, such claim shall be subject to assessment dues. 
 
 SEC. 45. The extraction of gold or other metals from alluvial or diluvial de- 
 posits, generally called placer mining, shall be subject to such regulations as the 
 miners in the several mining districts shall adopt. 
 
 18. REGULATIONS OF THE VIRGINIA DISTRICT, NEVADA. 
 
 The following are the regulations of the district of Virginia City, Nevada, 
 adopted September 14, 1859 : 
 
 ARTICLE 1. All quartz claims hereafter located shall be two hundred feet en 
 the lead, including all its dips and angles. 
 
 ART. 2 All discoverers of new quartz veins shall be entitled to an additional 
 claim for discovery. 
 
 ART. 3. All claims shall be designated by stakes and notices at each corner. 
 
 ART. 4. All quartz claims shall be worked to the amount of ten dollars or 
 three days' work per mouth to each. claim, and the owner can work to the 
 
246 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 amount of forty dollars as soon after the location of the claim as he may elect ; 
 which amount being worked shall exempt him from working on said claim for 
 eix months thereafter. 
 
 ART 5 All quartz claims shall be known by a name and in sections. 
 
 ART. 6 All claims shall b& properly recorded within ten days from the time 
 of location. 
 
 ART 7. All claims recorded in the Gold Hill record and lying in the Vir- 
 ginia district shall be recorded free of charge in the record of Virginia district, 
 upon the presentation of a certificate from the recorder of the Gold Hill district 
 certifying that said claims have been duly recorded in said district ; and said 
 claims shall be recorded within thirty days after the passage of this article. 
 
 ART 9 Surface and hill claims shall be one hundred feet square, and be 
 designated by stakes and notices at each corner. 
 
 ART. 10. All ravine and gulch claims shall be one hundred feet in length, and 
 in width extend from bank to bank, and be designated by a stake and notice at 
 each end. 
 
 ART. 11. All claims shall be worked within ten days after water can be had 
 sufficient to work said claims. 
 
 ART 12 All ravine, gulch and surface claims shall be recorded within ten 
 days after location- 
 
 ART 13. All claims not worked according to the laws of this district shall be 
 forfeited and subject to relocation. 
 
 ART 14 There shall be a recorder elected, to hold his office for the term of 
 twelve months, who shall be entitled to the sum of fifty cents for each claim lo- 
 cated and recorded. 
 
 ART. 15. The recorder shall keep a book with all the laws of this district 
 written therein, which shall at all times be subject to the inspection of the miners 
 of said district ; and he is furthermore required to post in two conspicuous places 
 a copy of the laws of said district. 
 
 ' 19. REGULATIONS OF REESE RIVER DISTRICT, NEVADA. 
 
 The following are the regulations of the Reese River district, Nevada : 
 
 SECTION. 1. The district shall be known as the Reese River mining district, 
 and shall be bounded as follows, to wit : On the north by a distance of ten miles 
 from the overland telegraph line, on the east by Dry creek, on the south by a 
 distance of ten miles from the overland telegraph line, and on the west by Ed- 
 ward's creek, where not conflicting with any new districts formed to date. 
 
 SEC. 2. There shall be a mining recorder elected on the first day of June 
 next for this district, who shall hold office for one year from the 17th of July 
 next, unless sooner removed by a new election, which can only be done by a 
 written call, signed by at least fifty claim-holders, giving notice of a new elec- 
 tion to be held, alter said notice shall have been posted and published for at least 
 twenty days in some newspaper published in or nearest this district ; and the 
 recorder shall be a resident of this district. 
 
 SEC. 3 It shall be the duty of the recorder to keep in a suitable book or 
 books a full and truthful record of the proceedings of all public meetings ; to 
 place on record all claims brought to him for that purpose, when such claim 
 shall not interfere with or affect the rights and interests of prior locators, record- 
 ing the same in the order of their date, for which service he shall receive one 
 dollar ($1) for each claim recorded. It shall also be the duty of the recorder to 
 keep his books open at all times to the inspection of the public ; he shall also 
 have the power to appoint a deputy to act in his stead, for wliDse official acts 
 he shall be held responsible. It shall also be the duty of the recorder to deliver 
 to his successor in office all books, records, papers, &c., belonging to or pertain- 
 ing to his office. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 247 
 
 SEC. 4. All examinations of the record must be made in the full presence of 
 the recorder or his deputy 
 
 SEC. 5. Notice of a claim of location of mining ground by any individual, or 
 by a company, on file in the recorder's office, fchall be deemed equivalent to a 
 record of the same. 
 
 SEC. 6. Each claimant shall be entitled to hold by location two hundred feet 
 on any lead in the district, with all the dips, spurs, and angles, offshoots, out- 
 crops, depths, widths, variations, and all the mineral and other valuables 
 therein contained, the discoverer of and locater of a new lead being entitled 
 to one. claim extra for discovery. 
 
 SEC. 7. The locater of any lead, lode, or ledge in the district shall be entitled 
 to hold on each side of the lead, lode, or ledge located by him or them one 
 hundred feet ; but this shall not be construed to mean any distinct or parallel 
 ledge within the two hundred feet other than the one originally located. 
 
 SEC. 8. All locations shall be made by a written notice posted upon the 
 ground, and boundaries described, and all claimants' names posted on the notice. 
 
 SEC. 9. Work done on any tunnel, cut, shaft, or drift, in good faith, shall 
 be considered as being done upon the claim owned by such person or company. 
 
 SEC. 10. Every claim (whether by individual or company) located shall be 
 recorded within ten days after the date of location. 
 
 SEC. 11. All miners locating a mining claim in this district shall place and 
 maintain thereon a good and substantial monument or stake, with a notice thereon 
 of the name of the claim, the names of the locators, date of location, record, and 
 extent of claim. It is hereby -requested that owners in claims already located 
 do comply with the requirements of this section. 
 
 SEC. 12. The recorder shall go upon the ground with any and all parties 
 desiring to locate claims, and shall be entitled to receive for such service one 
 dollar for each and every name in a location of two hundred feet each. 
 
 SEC. 13. It is hereby made the duty of the mining recorder, upon the written 
 application of twenty-five miners, to call a meeting of the miners of the district 
 by giving a notice of twenty days through some newspaper published in the 
 Reese River district, which notice shall state the object of the meeting and the 
 place and time of holding the same. 
 
 SEC. 14. The laws of this district passed July 17, 1862, are hereby re- 
 pealed. 
 
 SEC. 15. These laws shall take effect on and after the fourth day of June, 
 1864. 
 
 20. QUARTZ STATUTE OF THE STATE OF OREGON. 
 
 SECTION 1. That any person, or company of persons, establishing a claim 
 on any quartz lead containing gold, silver, copper, tin, or lead, or a claim on a 
 vein of cinnabar, for the purpose of mining the same, shall be allowed to have, 
 hold, and possess the land or vein, with all its dips, spurs, and angles, for the 
 distance of three hundred feet in length and seventy-five feet in width on each 
 side of such lead or vein. 
 
 SEC. 2. To establish a valid claim the discoverer or person wishing to 
 establish a claim shall post a notice on the lead or vein, with name or names 
 attached, which shall protect the claim or claims for thirty days; and before 
 the expiration of said thirty days he or they shall cause the claim or claims to 
 be recorded as hereinafter provided, and describing, as near as may be, the 
 claim or claims, and their location; but continuous working of said claim or 
 claims shall obviate the necessity of . such record. If any claim shall not be 
 worked for twelve consecutive months it shall be forfeited and considered liable 
 to location by any person or persons, unless the owner or owners be absent on 
 account of sickness, or in the service of their country in time of war. 
 
 SEC. 3. Any person may hold one claim by location, as hereinafter pro- 
 
248 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 vided, upon each lead or vein, and as many by purchase as the local laws of 
 the miners in the district where such claims are located may allow ; and the 
 discoverer of any new lead or vein, not previously located upon, shall be 
 allowed one additional claim for the discovery thereof. Nothing in this section 
 shall be so construed as to allow any person not the discoverer to locate more 
 than one claim upon any one lead or vein. 
 
 SEC. 4. Every person, or company of persons, after establishing such claim 
 or claims, shall, within one year after recording or taking such claim or claims, 
 work or cause to be worked to the amount of fifty dollars for each and every 
 claim, and for each successive year shall do the same amount of work, under 
 penalty of forfeiture of said claim or claims : Provided, That any incorporate 
 company owning claims on any lead or vein may be allowed to work' upon any 
 one claim the whole amount required as above for all the claims they may own 
 on such lead or vein. 
 
 SEC. 5. It shall be the duty of the county clerk of any county, upon the 
 receipt of a notice of a miners' meeting organizing a miners' district in- said 
 county, with a description of the boundaries thereof, to record the same in a 
 book to be kept in his office as other county records, to be called a " book of 
 record of mining claims ;" and, upon the petition of parties interested, he may 
 appoint a deputy for such district, who shall reside in said district or its 
 vicinity, and shall record all mining claims and water rights in the order in 
 which they are presented for record ; and shall transmit a copy of such record 
 at the end of each month to the county clerk, who shall record the same in the 
 above-mentioned book of record, for which he shall receive one dollar for each 
 and every claim. It shall further be the duty of said county clerk to furnish a 
 copy of this law to his said deputy, who shall keep the same in his office, open 
 at all reasonable times for the inspection of all persons interested therein. 
 
 SEC. 6. Miners shall be empowered to make local laws in relation to the pos- 
 session of water rights, the possession and working of placer claims, and the 
 survey and sale of town lots in mining camps, subject to the laws of the United 
 States. 
 
 SEC. 7. That ditches used for mining purposes, and mining flumes permanently 
 affixed to the soil, be and they are hereby declared real estate for all intents 
 and purposes whatever. 
 
 SEC. 8. That all laws relative to the sale and transfer of real estate, and the 
 application of the liens of mechanics and laborers therein, be and they are hereby 
 made applicable to said ditches and flumes : Provided, That all interests in 
 mining claims known as placer or surface diggings may be granted, sold, and 
 conveyed by bill of sale and delivery of possession, as in cases of the sale of per- 
 sonal property : Provided further, That the bills of sale or conveyances exe- 
 cuted on the sale of any placer or surface mining claim shall be recorded within 
 thirty days after the date of such sale, in the office of the county clerk of the 
 county in which such sale is made, in a book to be kept by the county clerk for 
 that purpose, to be called the record of conveyances of mining claims. 
 
 SEC. 9. Mortgages of interests in placer or surface mining claims shall be 
 executed, acknowledged, recorded, and foreclosed as mortgages of chattels. 
 
 SEC. 10. The county clerk shall be entitled to a fee of one dollar each for 
 every conveyance or mortgage recorded under the provisions of this act, 
 
 21.-QUARTZ STATUTE OF IDAHO. 
 
 The following is the statute of Idaho in regard to quartz claims : 
 
 SECTION 1. That any person or persons who may hereafter discover any 
 
 quartz lead or lode shall be entitled to one claim thereon by right of discovery, 
 
 and one claim each by location. 
 
 SEC. 2. That a quartz claim shall consist of two hundred feet in length along 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 249 
 
 the lead or lode by one hundred feet in breadth, covering and including all dips, 
 gpurs, and angles within the bounds of said claim, as also the right of drainage, 
 tunnelling, and such other privileges as may be necessary to the working of 
 said claim. 
 
 SEC 3. The locator of any quartz claim on any lead or lode shall, at the time 
 of locating such claim, place a substantial stake, not less than three inches in 
 diameter, at each end of said claim, on which shall be a written notice specifying 
 the name of the locator, the number .of feet claimed, together with the year, 
 month, and day when the same was taken. 
 
 SEC. 4. All claims shall be recorded in the county recorder's office, within 
 ten days from the time of posting notice thereon : Provided, That when the 
 claim located is more than thirty miles distant from the county seat the time 
 shall extend to fifteen days. 
 
 SEC. 5. Quartz claims recorded in accordance with the provisions of section 4 
 of this act shall entitle the person so recording to hold the same to the use of 
 himself, his heirs and assigns : Provided, That within six months from and after 
 the date of recording he shall perform, or cause to be performed, thereon work 
 amounting in value to the sum of one hundred dollars. 
 
 SEC. 6. Any person or persons holding quartz claims in pursuance of this act 
 shall renew the notice required in section 3 at least once in twelve months, un- 
 less such claimant is occupying and working the same. 
 
 SEC. 7. The conveyances of quartz claims heretofore made by bills of sale or 
 other instruments of writing, with or without seals, shall be construed in accord- 
 ance with the local mining rules, regulations, and customs of miners in the sev- 
 eral mining districts, and said bills of sale or instruments of writing concerning 
 quartz claims without seals shall be prima facie evidence of sale, as if such con- 
 veyance had been made by deed under seal. 
 
 SEC. 8. Conveyances of quartz claims shall hereafter require the same formal- 
 ities and shall be subject to the same rules of construction as the transfer and 
 conveyance of real estate. 
 
 SEC. 9. The location and pre-emption of quartz claims heretofore made shall 
 be established and proved when there is a contest before the courts, by the local 
 mles, customs, and regulations of the miners in each mining district where such 
 claim is located, when not in conflict with the laws of the United States or the 
 laws of this Territory. 
 
 SEC. 10. This act to take effect and to be in force from and after its approval 
 by the governor. 
 
 Approved February 4, 1864. 
 
 23. STATUTE OF AEIZONA. 
 
 The following is the statute of Arizona on the registry and government of 
 mines and mineral deposits, with the exception of the sections providing the 
 manner in which the rights of miners shall be enforced by the courts : 
 
 SECTION 1. All mining rights on the public lands of the United States, as 
 well as rights acquired by discovery on the lands of private individuals, are 
 possessory in their character only, and such possessory rights shall be limited, 
 regulated, and governed as hereinafter provided. 
 
 SEC. 15. Every mining claim or pertenencia is declared to consist of a super- 
 ficial area of two hundred yards square, to be measured so as to include the 
 principal mineral vein or mineral deposits, always having reference to and fol- 
 lowing the dip of the vein so far as it can or may be worked, with all the earth 
 and minerals therein. But any mining district organized in accordance with the 
 provisions of this chapter may prescribe the dimensions of said mining claim or 
 pertenencia for such district : Provided, That in no case the dimensions so pre- 
 scribed shall exceed the number of yards allowed by this section j and further 
 
250 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 provided, That no such mining district shall diminish the extent of the territo- 
 rial claim to one pertenencia, as defined in this section. 
 
 SEC. 16. Any person discovering or opening a vein or other mineral deposit 
 in this Territory, not actually worked or legally owned by other parties or 
 registered in accordance with this chapter, shall by properly denouncing and 
 registering the same be entitled to claim and hold a possessory right to a tract 
 of land to the extent of two mining claims or perteneucias, including the said 
 vein or mineral deposit, and conforming .as nearly as possible to the general 
 direction thereof, each to be measured two hundred yards long by two hundred 
 yards wide, the direction of the lines to be determined by the person claiming. 
 
 SEC. 17. If two or more persons are associated, and have formed a company 
 for the exploration and working of mines, and one or several shall make dis- 
 coveries of mineral deposits in consequence thereof, said company so engaged 
 in exploration shall be entitled to denounce and register one discovery claim only 
 upon each lode. t - 
 
 SEC. 18. It shall be lawful for the claimants of a mine or mineral lands to 
 locate and take possession of public lands for a mill site and other necessary 
 works connected therewith, which shall not exceed one quarter section, contain- 
 ing a stream or other water suitable for the purpose. They shall have a right 
 to place a dam or other obstructions on such stream, and to divert its water for 
 the above uses and purposes. They shall, within the time and in the manner 
 prescribed in this chapter for the registration and denouncement of mines, pro- 
 ceed to denounce and register the same with the clerk of the probate court, and 
 they shall be known as auxiliary lands. And if within three years from the 
 day their notice of claim is so recorded they shall expend in fitting the same 
 for a mill, or in placing a mill or reduction works thereon, the sum of one hun- 
 dred dollars, they may cause the record of such work to be made and proceed- 
 ings for confirming their title to be instituted as provided in section 29 of this 
 chapter, with like effect, and receive a certificate of title as therein provided, 
 conforming as nearly as they can to the requirements of that section. Instead 
 of the work required by section 32 of this chapter they shall use the machinery 
 or other works erected upon said land for mining purposes at least thirty days 
 in each year. Such claims shall be subject to all the provisions of this chapter 
 which are applicable to mining rights, and may be abandoned and relocated. 
 All rights to auxiliary lands acquired under the laws of any mining district 
 before this act takes effect shall be valid, and the owners of the same, upon 
 complying with the provisions of this section, may take the like proceedings to 
 confirm their titles, with a like effect. 
 
 SEC. 19. It shall be the duty of all claimants of mining claims, mineral lands, 
 and auxiliary tracts, to at once define the extent and boundary of them as 
 nearly as possible, by good substantial monuments or other conspicuous marks, 
 in the presence of the recorder of the mining district, or of some witness who 
 shall prove to the satisfaction of the recorder that the same has been done, and 
 to post up a public notice of their claim at the opening of the principal vein, 
 and to have them properly registered and recorded within three mouths from the 
 time of first claiming them at the office of the mining district recorder accord- 
 ing to the provisions of this chapter. Such record shall give a faithful descrip- 
 tion of the veins, mineral deposits, and tracts of lands, the character and bearing 
 of the veins or deposits, and their connection with natural monuments or con- 
 spicuous objects in the vicinity. 
 
 SEC. 20. No person shall change his original monuments or boundaries of 
 mineral or other lands, but if a subsequent investigation makes this convenient 
 or necessary, and it can be done without prejudice to other parties, then such 
 change shall take place by the sanction of the judge of the probate court, pro- 
 vided they are properly recorded, and the new boundaries and monuments fixed 
 at once when the original ones are removed. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 251 
 
 SEC. 21. All minerals, woods, waters, earths, and vegetation found within the 
 boundaries of any tract of land registered and claimed for mining shall be ex- 
 clusively used by him or them who are legally entitled to the possession of the 
 land wherein r whereon they are situated, so long as they are used for mining 
 purposes only : Provided, That no one shall have the right to prevent transient 
 persons from using the waters along the public highwaya, where they were. 
 provided by nature in natural tanks, springs, streams, or otherwise, nor from 
 making such equitable disposition of the waters as the legislature shall pre- 
 ecribe. 
 
 SEC. 22. No person shall have the right to impede or inconvenience travel- 
 ling by fencing up the public roads, filling them up with rubbish, or undermining 
 them so as to endanger their safety, neither shall any one change their estab- 
 lished direction without sanction of the proper authorities. 
 
 SEC. 23. Whenever two or more persons or parties explore and prospect one 
 and the same vein, and at or about the same time but at different places, and 
 without knowledge of each other, then he or they who shall prove first occu- 
 pancy shall have the right of first location, taking the principal point of exca- 
 vation as the centre of their claim or claims on each side along the general 
 direction of such vein or deposit. The other parties shall proceed by the same 
 laws after the others have fixed their boundaries. Should there be left vacant 
 ground between the different parties, then it shall be at the option of the. first 
 discoverers so to change their boundaries as shall best suit them, and have them 
 recorded accordingly. Any other parties shall locate in the order of the time of 
 their arrival on the vein or mineral deposit. 
 
 SEC. 24. Whenever two or more parties shall select the same mine or mineral 
 Deposit for exploration, and the parties first on the ground, knowing the other 
 parties to be at work, shall fail to give warning, either verbally or in writing, of 
 their priority claim on such vein or deposit, then that portion of the mine situated 
 between the main excavations of the two parties shall be equally divided be- 
 tween them, irrespective of the number of members each company may have : 
 Provided, That the intervening portions shall not exceed the quantity of land 
 allowed by the provisions of this chapter. 
 
 SEC. 25. The laws and proceedings of all mining districts established in this 
 Territory for the denouncement, registration, and regulation of mines, mining 
 claims, mineral lands, and auxiliary lands, prior to the day this act takes effect, 
 are hereby legalized and declared to be as valid and binding in all courts of law 
 as if enacted by this legislative assembly, to the extent and under the conditions 
 and restrictions herein contained. 
 
 I. All rights, claims^ and titles to any veins, mineral lands, or mineral deposits, 
 and auxiliary lands, acquired before this act takes effect, under, by virtue of, and 
 in. conformity to the laws of said mining districts, are hereby declared to be valid 
 and legal, and shall be respected and enforced in all courts of this Territory, 
 when sustained by the evidence herein provided ; but no amount of work done 
 thereon shall be construed to give a perpetual title thereto, but shall give such 
 title only and such rights and privileges as is provided in section 29 of this 
 chapter ; and no person who was at the time of the location of his claim an 
 inhabitant of this Territory shall forfeit his claim because he was not a resident 
 also of the mining district in which his said claim was located. And no such right, 
 claim, or title shall be considered as abandoned provided the claimant shall within 
 eix months from the day this act takes effect file with the clerk of the probate 
 court of the county in which his claim is situated a brief description of the same 
 giving the name of the district in which the lode is situated, and of the lode or 
 lodes, and the extent of his claim thereon, with a declaration that he intends to 
 retain and work the same according to law, unless fcuch claim has been forfeited 
 and subject to relocation under the laws of such mining district before this act 
 takes effect. 
 
252 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 II. All records and all papers required by the laws of said mining districts 
 to be deposited with the recorders of said districts for record shall be received 
 as evidence of their contents in all courts of this Territory, and shall not be re- 
 jected for any defects in their form, when their contents may be understood, but 
 shall be valid to the extent provided by said mining laws, except as hereinbefore 
 restricted : Provided, That such records and papers are deposited with or re- 
 corded by the clerk of the probate court of the county in which said mining dis- 
 trict is located, and within three months from the time this acts takes effect ; and 
 if said records or papers are lost or mutilated, or if such recorder of a mining 
 district shall neglect or refuse to deposit the same as aforesaid, an affidavit of 
 their contents made by any person interested therein, or certified or sworn copies 
 thereof, may be so recorded, and shall have the like effect. 
 
 III. All conveyances of mines, mining rights, mineral and auxiliary lands 
 made prior to the time this act takes effect shall be valid and binding to pass 
 the title of the grantor thereof, although defective in form and execution, if their 
 contents can be understood, and as such shall be received and regarded in all 
 courts of this Territory ; Provided, That such conveyances shall be deposited 
 with or recorded by the clerk of the probate court of the county where said 
 mines are situated, within three months from the time this act takes effect, and 
 if lost or mutilated, copies or affidavits of their contents, executed as aforesaid, 
 may be recorded as provided above. 
 
 SEC. 26. Every recorder, register, clerk, or other recording officer, of every 
 such mining district, or who has at any time acted as such recording officer, 
 within three months after this act takes effect, shall deposit with the clerk of the 
 probate court of the county in which said district or greater part thereof is situ- 
 ated, all records which he has so kept, and all papers deposited in his hands for* 
 record, and papers so made or deposited with his predecessors in said office, 
 which are in his hands as aforesaid, or he shall so deposit certified copies of the 
 same. And such records and other papers shall be securely kept by such clerk, 
 open in office hours to public inspection, and copies of the same duly certified 
 by him shall be received in all courts of justice, and have the same effect as the 
 originals. And any such recorder, register, or other recording officer of each 
 mining district who shall neglect or refuse to comply with the provisions of this 
 section shall be liable in damages to the party injured thereby, and shall be 
 liable to be punished by the judge of probate of the county in which said nrning 
 district, or the greater part thereof, is situated, for contempt, by fine not exceed- 
 ing five thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than one year, and shall bo 
 incapable of holding any such office and mining claim. 
 
 SEC. 27. Mining districts now existing may be continued, or new mining dis- 
 tricts may be established in the manner and for the purposes hereinafter provided. 
 
 I. The recorder of every mining district now existing shall at the same time 
 that he deposits the records of said districts with the clerk of the probate court, 
 as the last preceding section requires, take an oath before the judge of said 
 court that he will faithfully perform the duties of his office until another recorder 
 ehall be elected and qualified in his place, which oath shall be recorded by the 
 clerk of the probate court. He shall record in a book to be kept by him for that 
 purpose all notices of claims or rights to veins, mineral deposits, mineral lands, 
 and auxiliary lands which may be left with him t-o be recorded, and shall note 
 on all papers which may be received by him to be recorded, the time when they 
 were so received by him, and they shall be considered as recorded from that 
 time. lie shall, when requested by any such claimant, go with him to his claim 
 and see that the same is measured by metes and bounds, and mark< d by sub- 
 stantial monuments on the surface of the earth, and shall make a record of the 
 same, arid of the time when it was done, and certify it to be correct, or shall 
 make a record and certificate of the same on the evidence of a credible witness, 
 who was present when the same was done, arid is cognizant of the facts, and 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 253 
 
 whose name shall be entered on the record. He shall, when requested by any 
 such claimant, go with him to his claim and examine any shaft that may be 
 Bunk by him, or tunnels that may be opened to the same, and make measure- 
 ments of the same, and a record and certificate as aforesaid ; and he shall in like 
 manner examine, measure, or estimate, and make and record a certificate of any 
 work which is required by law to be done by a claimant. And the said record- 
 ing officer shall, quarterly, file with the clerk of the probate court of the county 
 in which said district is located a copy by him certified of all records made by 
 him for the three months last preceding, which shall be duly recorded by said 
 clerk, and a copy of said record duly certified by him shall be evidence of its 
 contents in all courts of this Territory. And such recording officer shall be 
 liable to all the penalties provided in the preceding section if he shall neglect or 
 refuse to perform any of the acts and duties required of him by this section, but 
 shall not be required to perform any such service until his fees for the same, to 
 be fixed by the mining districts, are paid him, if he requests it. And if any 
 paper deposited with him for record is required to be recorded by the clerk of 
 the probate court, ho shall at the time said paper is so deposited with him take 
 and receive the fee fixed by law for recording such paper by said clerk, and pay 
 the said clerk said fee when he deposits said paper with him to be recorded as 
 aforesaid. All such mining districts may make laws not inconsistent with the 
 laws of the Territory, may elect officers for the government of such districts, and 
 fix their compensation, but all such acts and proceedings shall be recorded, and 
 all records and papers thereof filed with the clerk of the probate court as aforesaid. 
 
 II. Any number of persons, not less than twelve, owning mining claims in any 
 mining district, or in any contiguous mining districts, or who have discovered 
 and may wish to denounce a mine or mineral lands, not within the limits of any 
 established mining district, may proceed to make a new mining district at a 
 meeting of persons holding claims in such district so to be established, and of 
 claimants in any districts to be divided or to be included therein. They shall 
 cause a notice in writing, and specifying the limits of said contemplated district, 
 signed by them, to be posted in three conspicuous places in said district, and if 
 any part of an established district is to be included therein by leaving a copy 
 of said notice with the recorder of said district at least ten days before the day 
 of said meeting. At said meeting all persons holding claims as aforesaid may 
 vote, and may determine by a majority vote of those present whether said new 
 district shall be established, and its limits, but within the boundaries named in 
 the notice for said meeting, and thereupon the persons holding claims in such 
 newly established district shall proceed to select a name, and make laws therefor, 
 and elect a recorder, who shall be qualified as aforesaid, who shall perform all 
 the duties and be subject to all the liabilities provided in this chapter for such 
 officers, and shall file with the clerk of the probate court as aforesaid a record 
 of the proceedings of this and all subsequent meetings at the time and in the 
 manner herein provided. 
 
 SEC. 28. It shall be the duty of all claimants of mineral tracts to sink at 
 least one shaft of thirty feet in depth, or to run a tunnel of fifty feet in length, 
 in the body of the vein or in the adjoining rock, so as to test the vein from the 
 surface, for the purpose of ascertaining the character and capacity of such mine- 
 ral deposit, within the space of one year from the day of first taking possession 
 thereof, and they shall notify the recorder of the mining district that said shal't 
 or other work is completed, and that they intend working the vein or mineral 
 deposit. And the recorder shall examine said work in person, and make and 
 record a certificate of the result of such examination, which shall contain a 
 statement of the condition and quality of the vein or mineral deposit, the amount 
 of labor perfDrmed, and a general view of the results obtained. Said report 
 shall be accompanied by three specimens taken from different parts of the work, 
 which said specimens, with a copy of the record so made by him, shall be filed 
 
254 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 by him within the time required by this act in the office of the clerk of the 
 probate court. And eaid clerk shall make a record of the same. Such speci- 
 mens shall be numbered and described by him, and be preserved for the use of 
 the mineralogical professorship of the University of Arizona. 
 
 SEC. 29. The judge of the probate court, at any time within thirty days after 
 the record made by the clerk of said court, as provided in the preceding section, 
 upon complaint in writing made to him by such claimants, describing fully their 
 claims, stating the labor performed by them, and the certificate thereof, and 
 that the registration of the same has been made as required by law, and request- 
 ing that their title thereto may be confirmed, shall cause a summons, under the 
 seal of his court, to be issued, requiring all persons interested to appear at a day 
 named therein, and which shall not be less than sixty days from the day the 
 same was issued, and show cause why the title of such complainants and claim- 
 ants should not be confirmed, a copy of which complaint and summons, duly 
 attested by the clerk of the probate court, shall be published twice in the terri- 
 torial newspaper, and be kept posted in the office of said clerk from the day of 
 issuing the same to the return day thereof ; and if no person shall appear on such 
 return day to contest the right of the claimants to such claims, the judge of pro- 
 bate shall examine all the records filed in the office of his clerk relating to such 
 claims, and if he finds that the said claimants have in all respects complied 
 with the provisions of this chapter, he shall make a decree in substance that the 
 complainants having complied with the laws of this Territory relating to the 
 denouncement and registration of mines, have acquired a perfect title to their 
 claims (describing the same) until the 1st day of January, A. D. 1868, and 
 forever after unless abandoned by them. And the said clerk shall give the said 
 claimant a copy of such decree, under the seal of the court, which shall be con- 
 clusive evidence of title in any proceedings relating to such claims, until they 
 are abandoned. And unless the persons adversely interested and contesting 
 the title of the complainants shall appear on the day named in said complaint, 
 and proceed as hereinafter provided, they shall be forever barred from contest- 
 ing the title of said complainants to such claims. And if the contestants shall 
 so appear they shall on that day or some day to be fixed by said judge proceed 
 to file an answer, setting forth their claim and case, and the proceedings shall 
 then be conducted in conformity to the provisions of this chapter and the code 
 of civil practice. And whenever a final decree is made thereon, determining 
 the title to said claim or mine, by said judge, or by any other court on appeal, 
 the said judge shall cause a record to be made in the office of his clerk of such 
 decree, and a certified copy thereof may be made as aforesaid, with the like 
 (ffect. And any claimants of mineral lands who before this act takes effect 
 have in any way or under any law acquired a title to such mineral lands, after 
 filing with the clerk of the court their evidence of title and description of claim 
 as required by this chapter, may cause an examination of the shaft sunk by 
 them or other work done by them to be made as aforesaid, and take the like 
 proceedings for the confirmation of their titles, with the same effect : Provided, 
 This section shall not apply except when the complainants are in possession of 
 such mine or mining rights, claiming title thereto. 
 
 SEC. 30. By reason of the Indian wars and unsettled condition of the country, 
 the time within which a shaft is required to be sunk, or other labor performed 
 on a claim, shall not commence until two years from the day this act takes 
 effect, and all the provisions of this chapter relating thereto are suspended for 
 that time ; but any claimant my sink a shaft or do such other labor, and at 
 any time after the record of their claims with the probate court, and thereupon 
 institute proceedings to confirm their titles, and be entitled to all the rights and 
 privileges provided for in this chapter. 
 
 SEC. 31. No single person or company shall be compelled to sink shafts or 
 make other improvements on more than one of the tracts of land claimed by 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 255 
 
 him or them for the same vein or mineral deposit ; and any number of claimants 
 on the same vein or mineral deposit, who may unite for said purpose, shall be 
 allowed to concentrate labor, capital, and energy to any one single point which 
 to him or them shall be best suited to ascertain to the best advantage the general 
 character, quality, and capacity of that particular vein or mineral deposit, and 
 may take the like proceedings to confirm their titles. 
 
 SEC. 32 After the work required by section 28 of this chapter has been per- 
 formed, and the record thereof made as therein provided, two years shall be 
 allowed, the claimants of mineral lands to develop the same, and procure ma- 
 chinery and provide for working the same ; and during that time the same shall 
 not be considered abandoned, although no work be done thereon : Provided, 
 That in such an event, they shall annually, and before the first day of June 
 in each year, file with the clerk of the probate court an affidavit signed by 
 them that they have not abandoned such claims, but intend, in good faith, to 
 work them ; and said term of two years shall not commence until the first day 
 of January, A. D. 1868. And after the expiration of said teTm of two years, 
 it shall be obligatory upon claimants to such mineral lands to hold actual pos- 
 session of them and work the vein, which obligation shall be considered as com- 
 plied with by doing at least thirty days' work thereon in each year ; but if 
 such claimants are prevented from working such vein by the hostility of Indians 
 or other good cause, rendering said working difficult or dangerous, they may, 
 by authority of the judge of probate first obtained, be relieved from perform- 
 ing labor thereon from time to time, but for notcnore than one year at any one 
 time, during the continuance of such cause. 
 
 SEC. 33. Any person who may discover a mineral vein or deposit as afore- 
 said, which is not included within a mining district, or which may be in a mi- 
 ning district in which there is no legally authorized recorder, may acquire title 
 thereto, and to auxiliary lands, by giving notice as aforesaid, and recording the 
 same with the clerk of the probate court of the county in which the same is 
 situated, and may take the same proceedings, with the like effect, with the 
 clerk of the probate court that are required to be taken with the recorder of a 
 mining district. 
 
 SEC. 34. Discoverers of mines on lands in the legal ownership or possession 
 of others, and not public lands, before doing the work of sinking the shaft re- 
 quired by section 28 of this chapter, shall pay to such parties such compensa- 
 tion for the use of the same as may be awarded by the judge of probate upon 
 complaint of either party, or shall give bond to such parties for payment of 
 the same, and sureties to be approved by said judge; and whenever it becomes 
 necessary or advantageous to construct tunnels for the purpose of drainage, 
 ventilation, or the better hauling of ores or other subterraneous products or mi- 
 ning materials, it shall be lawful for any party or parties to construct such tun- 
 nel or drift through all private and public property : Provided, That all damages 
 arising from such subterranean works to the other parties, to be determined as 
 provided above, shall be paid by the parties for whose benefit such tunnelling 
 is done, to be paid before such work is commenced, or security given to the 
 satisfaction of the jtfdge of probate for the payment of the same ; but no damages 
 shall be paid on public lands when claims for such lands shall be set up after 
 such tunnel shall have been projected or actually in process of construction : 
 Provided, That the lapse of time between projection and actual work shall not 
 exceed ninety days, and that the tunnelling- parties give timely notice of their 
 project to any new claimant of the so affected ground. 
 
 SEC. 35. Whenever such tunnel as mentioned in the preceding section shall 
 intersect or traverse mineral deposits, or run along lodes claimed and held by 
 other parties, then it shall be at the option of the owners of such other mineral 
 deposits either to pay one-half of the expense of excavation for the distance 
 that such tunnel runs through their mineral deposits, and secure the whole of 
 
256 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 the ores excavated, or to divide the ores with the tunnelling parties, the latter 
 paying all expenses of excavation ; or it shall be optional with either party to 
 abandon fill claim to the ores excavated. 
 
 SEC. 36. If, in the construction of such subterranean works, new veins or 
 deposits are encountered in ground not claimed or owned by other parties, they 
 shall become the property of the party for whom such tunnel is constructed, and 
 shall be denounced and registered as is required of new mines, and shall be 
 governed by the same laws as are prescribed in this chapter. 
 
 SEC. 37. Any claimant or claimants not complying with any of the foregoing 
 conditions and obligations shall forfeit all right to any such recorded or unre- 
 corded claims to mineral and auxiliary tracts ; and it shall not be lawful for him 
 or them to register such claims anew within a period of three years after such 
 forfeiture. All such tracts shall be free for working and registry to any but 
 those excepted in this section. 
 
 SEC. 38. All veins and mineral deposits situated on public lands, which have 
 not been worked and occupied from the time of the acquisition of the Territory 
 by the United States up to the time of the passage of this chapter, except as 
 herein provided, shall be considered as abandoned and subject to registry and 
 denouncement. 
 
 SEC. 39. All veins and mineral deposits that have been or may be abandoned 
 hereafter shall, in all cases and respects, be governed by the laws regulating the 
 opening and working of new veins and deposits, as prescribed in this chapter. 
 
 SEC. 40. Whenever any min,e vein, or mineral deposit shall have been aban- 
 doned or forfeited in accordance with the provisions of this chapter, and regis- 
 tered anew by other parties, it shall be obligatory upon such parties to give the 
 former owners warning thereof, so as to remove from the tract within the space 
 of three months anything he or they may think valuable or useful. Such 
 warning shall be given in the nearest newspaper published -in the Territory, and 
 by posting it at three of the most conspicuous places in the county where the 
 mine is situated. Three months after the expiration of such warning, any and 
 all buildings, furnaces, arrastras, metals, and every other species of property 
 which may still remain on the ground of such mine, vein, or mineral deposit, 
 shall become the undisputed property of the new claimant, without compensa- 
 tion of any kind to any person whatever. 
 
 SEC. 41. Any person taking possession of or entering upon a mining claim or 
 auxiliary lands, registered according to the provisions of this chapter, and be- 
 fore it is abandoned, shall be ousted therefrom in a summary manner by the 
 order of the probate judge, and the malfeasor shall be adjudged to pay all dam- 
 ages and costs consequent thereon. 
 
 SEC. 51. It shall be the duty of persons who may discover and claim mining 
 rights or mineral lands, at the same time that they may define the boundary of 
 their claim or claims to any lode or mine as required by the provisions of this 
 chapter, to lay off and define the boundary of one pertenencia as required by 
 the provisions of this chapter, adjoining their claim or claims, which shall be 
 the property of the Territory of Arizona. And at the same time that they pre- 
 sent their notice of claim or claims to be recorded by the recorder of the mining 
 district, they shall also present to such recorder the claim of said Territory. 
 And if said discoverers and claimants shall neglect or refuse to present to such 
 recorder the claim of said Territory as aforesaid, they shall forever forfeit all 
 claim to the mine or ledge so discovered by them. Any recording officer re- 
 cording the claim or claims of such discoverers and claimants, when the claim 
 of said Territory is not filed therewith as aforesaid, shall be subject to all the 
 penalties provided in section 26 of this chapter. Such, claim shall be re- 
 corded as provided in this chapter for like claims, but no work shall be required 
 ,to be done thereon, nor shall it be considered to be abandoned so long as it is 
 the property of the Territory; and if sold, the time within which the purchaser 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 257 
 
 shall be required to work said claim shall commence from the day of sale, ex- 
 cept when the time is suspended as before provided. Every clerk of the probate 
 court, as soon as he records the said claim, shall send a copy of his record to 
 the treasurer of the Territory, and no fees shall be charged by any recording 
 officer in any matter relating to said claim. And the territorial treasurer may 
 at any time after six months from the day he receives such record as aforesaid, 
 and at such time and place as in his opinion will be most for the interest of the 
 Territory, cause such claim to be sold at auction to the highest bidder, but every 
 such sale shall be at least twice advertised in the territorial newspaper, and be 
 held at his office, or the office of the clerk of the probate court, or recorder of the 
 mining district of the county where the claim is situated. And the treasurer is 
 authorized to make a deed of the same to the purchaser in the name of the Ter- 
 ritory ; and the amount received by him shall be added by him to any fund now 
 or hereafter provided for the protection of the people of the Territory of Arizona 
 against hostile Indians, and be expended as provided by law. And after all 
 expenses as are incurred by the territorial authorities for the purpose of de- 
 stroying or bringing into subjection all hostile Indian tribes in this Territory 
 are liquidated, then all remaining or accruing funds, out of all or any sales of 
 territorial mining claims, shall be applied as a sinking fund for school purposes. 
 
 SEC. 52. The extraction of gold from alluvial and diluvial deposits, generally 
 termed placer mining, shall not be considered mining proper, and shall not en- 
 title persons occupied in it to the provisions of this chapter, nor shall any pre- 
 vious section of this chapter be so construed as to refer to the extraction of gold 
 from the above mentioned deposits. 
 
 SEC. 53. This chapter shall be in force and take effect from and after the 1st 
 day of January, A. I). 1865. 
 
 23. THE MINING LAWS OF MEXICO. 
 
 The following are extracts from the royal ordinance of the King of Spain, 
 published in 1783, and ever smce in force in Mexico. The translation is by 
 Rockwell.* Only those portions of the ordinance are copied relating to the 
 location, size, and tenure of claims. The sections not quoted are devoted 
 mainly to a statement of the manner in which the miners are to enforce their 
 legal rights : 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SECTION 1. As it is most just and proper to reward with particularity and 
 distinction those persons who devote themselves to the discovery of new mineral 
 places and metallic veins found therein in proportion to the importance and 
 utility of such discovery, I order and command that the discoverers of one or 
 more mineral mountains, wherein no mine or shaft has been open before, acquire 
 in the principal vein as much as three portions, together or separate, where it 
 best pleases them, according to the measures hereafter signified ; and that, on 
 having discovered more veins, they shall acquire a portion in each vein, fixing 
 on and marking the said portions within the term of ten days. 
 
 SEC. 2. The discoverer of a new vein in a mountain known and worked iu 
 other parts may hold in it two portions, together or separated by other mines, 
 on condition that he specifies them within ten days, as mentioned in the pre- 
 ceding section. 
 
 SEC. 3. He who proposes for a new mine in a vein already known and 
 worked in part is not to be considered a discoverer. 
 
 * A compilation of Spanish and Mexican law in relation to mines and titles to real estate 
 in force in California, Texas, and New Mexico, and in the countries acquired under the 
 Louisiana and Florida treaties when annexed to the United States. By J. A. Rockwell. 
 New York, 1851. 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 17 
 
258 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 SEC. 4. The person referred to in the preceding sections must present a 
 written statement to the deputation of miners in that district, or in case there 
 should not be one in that district, to the nearest thereunto, specifying in it his 
 name, those of his associates, (if he has any,) the place of his birth, his place 
 of habitation, profession, and employment, together with the most particular 
 and distinguishing features of the tract, mountain, or vein of which he claims 
 the discovery; all which circumstances, as well as the hour in which the dis- 
 coverer shall present himself, must be noted down in a register kept by the 
 deputation and clerk, (if they have one ;) and after this the said written state- 
 ment shall, for his due security, be restored to the discoverer, 1 and notices of its 
 object and contents shall be affixed to the doors of the church, the government 
 houses, and other public buildings of the town for the sake of general notoriety. 
 And I ordain that Within, the term of ninety days the discoverer shall cause 
 to be made in the vein or veins so registered a pit of a yard and a half in 
 diameter or breadth and ten yards (varas) in depth, and that immediately on 
 the existence of the vein being ascertained one of the deputies in person shall 
 visit it, accompanied by the clerk, (if there is one,) or if there be no clerk, by 
 two assisting witnesses and by the mining professor of that territory, in order 
 to inspect the course and direction of the vein, its size, its inclination on the 
 horizon, called its falling or declivity, its hardness or softness, the greater or 
 less firmness of its bed, and the principal marks and species of the mineral ; 
 taking exact account of all this in order to add the same to the entry in the 
 register, together with the act of possession, which must immediately be given 
 to the discoverer in my royal name, measuring him his portion, and making him 
 enclose it by poles at the limits as hereafter declared ; after which, an authentic 
 copy of the proceedings shall be delivered to him for the security of his title. 
 
 SEC. 5. If during the above-named ninety days any one should appear assert- 
 ing a right to the said discovery, a brief judicial hearing shall be granted, and 
 judgment given in favor of him who best proves his claim ; however, if this 
 should happen after the stated time, he (the new claimant) shall not be heard. 
 
 SEC. 6. The restorers of ancient mines which iiave been abandoned and left 
 to decay shall enjoy the same privileges as discoverers, of choosing and pos- 
 sessing three portions in the principal vein and one in each of the others, and 
 both revivers and discoverers shall,, as an especial reward, be on all occasions 
 preferred to other persons under parity of circumstances. 
 
 SEC. 7. If there arises any question as to who has been the first discoverer 
 of a vein, he shall be considered as such who first found metal therein, even 
 though others may have made an opening previously ; and in case of further 
 doubt, he who first gets it registered shall be considered as the discoverer. 
 
 SEC. 8. Whoever shall denounce in the terms hereafter expressed any mine 
 that has been deserted and abandoned shall have his denouncement received, if 
 he therein sets forth the circumstances already declared in section four of this 
 chapter, the actual existence of the mine in question, the name of its last pos- 
 sessor, if he is acquainted with the same, and those of the neighboring miners, 
 all of whom shall be lawfully summoned, and if within ten days they do not 
 appear, the denouncement shall be publicly declared on the three following Sun- 
 days ; this meeting with no opposition, it shall be signified to the denouncer 
 that within sixty days he must have cleared and reinstated some work of con- 
 siderable depth, or at least of ten yards perpendicular and within the bed of the 
 vein, in order that the mining professor may inspect its course and inclination 
 and all its peculiar circumstances as is declared in the above-named section four. 
 The said professor should, if it is possible, examine the pits and works of the 
 mine and see if they are decayed, destroyed, or inundated ; whether they contain 
 a draft pit or adit or are capable of such ; whether they have an outer court, a 
 whim, machines, rooms for habitation, and stables ; and an account and register 
 of all these circumstances must be entered in the corresponding book of de- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 259 
 
 n~>uncements, which should be kept separately. And the said examination being 
 made, the portions being measured and bounded by stakes in the ground, as 
 shall hereafter be explained, possession of them shall be given to the denouncer, 
 without regard to any opposition, which cannot be attended to unless made 
 within the term before described; however, if during that time any opposition 
 is brought forward, the parties shall have a brief judicial hearing and the cause 
 be determined accordingly. 
 
 . SEC. 9. If the former mine owner should appear in order to oppose the 
 denouncement when the three public proclamations are over and when the de- 
 nouncer has commenced the sixty days allowed for reinstating the pit of ten 
 yards, he shall not be heard as to the ppssession, but only as to his right in the 
 property; .and if he succeeds in establishing this, he must make good the 
 expenses incurred by the denouncer, unless the latter is proved to have acted 
 fraudulently, in which case he must lose such expenses. 
 
 SEC. 10. If the denouncer does not make or complete the shaft as prescribed, 
 nor take possession within the sixty days, he loses his right, and any other person 
 has the power of denouncing the mine. If, however, from the ground being 
 entirely broken up or otherwise difficult and impracticable, or for any other real 
 and serious obstacle he has been unable to complete the same within the said 
 sixty days, he must have recourse to the respective territorial deputation, when, 
 his difficultif s being examined and proved, the period may be prolonged for as 
 long a time as the deputation may think necessary for the purpose, and no more; 
 no opposition to his claim being admitted after the ordinary term of sixty days. 
 
 SEC. 17. I prohibit any one (not being the discoverer) from denouncing two 
 contiguous mines upon one and the same vein ; but I permit any person to ac- 
 quire and possess one by denouncement, and another or more by purchase, gift, 
 inheritance, or other just title. And I further declare that if any one desires to 
 attempt the re-establishment of several inundated or decayed mines, or other 
 considerable enterprise of this kind, and for this purpose claims the grant of 
 several portions, although they be contiguous and upon the same vein, such 
 claim must be laid before the royal tribunal general of Mexico, in order that, 
 the circumstances and importance of the undertaking being ascertained, they 
 may acquaint the viceroy therewith, who, on finding therein nothing prejudicial 
 to the body of the miners, the public, or my royal treasury, shall grant him this 
 and other privileges, exemptions, and aids, on condition that my royal approba- 
 tion is previously obtained to all such favors, which cannot be granted by the 
 ordinary authority of the viceroy. 
 
 SEC. 18. Beds of ore and other depositories of gold and silver, on being dis- 
 covered, shall be registered and denounced in the same manner as mines or 
 veins, the same being understood of all species of metal. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SECTION 1. To all the subjects in my dominions, both in Spain and the In- 
 dies, of whatever rank and condition they may be, I grant the mines of every 
 species of metal under the conditions already stated, or that shall be expressed 
 hereafter, but I prohibit foreigners from acquiring or working mines as, their 
 own property, in these my dominions, unless they 'be naturalized or tolerated 
 therein by my express royal license. (See decree of President Comonfort.) 
 
 SEC. 2. I also prohibit regulars of religious orders, of both sexes, from de- 
 nouncing, or in any manner acquiring for themselves, their convents, or com- 
 munities, any mines whatever ; it being understood that the working of the 
 mines shall not devolve upon the secular ecclesiastics, as being contrary to 
 the laws, to the orders of the Mexican consul, and to the sanctity and exercise 
 of their profession ; and, therefore, in consequence of this prohibition, all such 
 secular ecclesiastics shall be expressly obliged to sell or place in the hands of 
 
260 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 lay subjects the mines or establishments for smelting ore, and reducing estab- 
 lishments which have devolved on them by inheritance or other cause, the same 
 being completed within the term of six months, or within such time as may be 
 considered necessary to insure a useful result, which is to be fixed by the vice- 
 roy, with a previous intimation to the royal tribunal general of the mines ; 
 provided, that if it is ascertained that by artifice or fraud the effects of this 
 article are attempted to be eluded, to the prejudice of fhe working of such mines 
 and establishments, in which the state is so much interested, they shall be de- 
 nounced and disposed of in the same manner as mines in general. 
 
 SEC. 3. Neither, shall mines be held by governors, inten dents, mayors, chief 
 judges, nor any other public officers whatever, of the mine towns and districts, 
 nor their clerks ; but I permit such persons to hold mi ties in any territory out 
 of their own jurisdiction. 
 
 SEC. 4. Neither shall administrators, stewards, overseers, keepers of tallies, 
 workers or watchers of mines, nor, in general, any person in the service of mine 
 owners, whether of superior or subordinate class, be permitted to register, denounce, 
 or in any other manner acquire mines within the space of a thousand yards round 
 those of their masters, but I allow them to denounce any mine for their said 
 masters, even though not authorized by them to do so, provided the aforesaid 
 masters make good the denouncement in the terms prescribed by section eight 
 of chapter six of these ordinances. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SECTION 1. Experience having shown that the equality of the mine meas- 
 ures established on the surface cannot be maintained under ground, where in 
 fact the mines are chiefly valuable, it being certain that the greater or less in- 
 ' clination of the vein upon the plane of the horizon must render the respective 
 properties in the mines greater or smaller, so that the true and effective impar- 
 tiality which it has been desired to show towards all subjects, of equal merit, 
 has not been preserved ; but, on the contrary, it has often happened that when 
 a miner, after much expense and labor, begins at last to reach an abundant and 
 rich ore, he is obliged to turn back, as having entered on the property of an- 
 other, which latter may have denounced the neighboring mine, and thus sta- 
 tioned himself with more art than industry. This being one of the greatest and 
 most frequent causes of litigation and dissension among the miners, and consid- 
 ering that the limits established in the mines of these kingdoms, and by which 
 those of New Spain have been hitherto regulated, are very confined in propor- 
 tion to the abundance, multitude, and richness of the metallic veins which it has 
 pleased the Creator of his great bounty to bestow on these regions, I order and 
 command that in the mines where new veins, or veins unconnected with each 
 other, shall be discovered, the following measures shall in future be observed. 
 
 SEC. 2. On the course and direction of the vein, whether gold, silver, or 
 other metal, I grant to every miner, without any distinction in favor of the 
 discoverer, whose reward has been specified, two hundred yards, (Spanish yards 
 or varas,) called measuring yards, taken on a level, as hitherto understood. 
 
 SEC. 3. To make it what they call a square, that is, making a right angle 
 with the preceding measure, supposing the descent or inclination. of the vein to 
 be sufficiently shown by the opening or shaft of ten yards, the portion shall be 
 measured by the following rule. 
 
 SEC. 4. Where the vein is perpendicular to the horizon, (a case which sel- 
 dom occurs,) a hundred level yards shall be measured on either side of the vein, 
 or divided on both sides, as the miner may prefer. 
 
 SEC. 5. But where the vein is in an inclined direction, which is the most 
 usual case, its greater or less degree of inclination shall be attended to in the 
 following manner. 
 
 SEC, 6. If to one yard perpendicular the inclination be from three fingers to 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 261 
 
 two palms, the same hundred yards shall be allowed for the square, (as in the 
 case of the vein being perpendicular.) 
 
 SEC. 7. If to the said perpendicular yard there be an inclination of 
 
 Two palms and three fingers, the square shall be of 112J yards. 
 
 Two palms and six fingers, the square shall be of 125 yards. 
 
 Two palms and nine fingers, the square shall be of 137| yards. 
 
 Three palms, the squaie shall be of 150 yards. 
 
 Three palms and three fingers, the square shall be of 162| yards. 
 
 Three palms and six fingers, the square shall be of 175 yards. 
 
 Three palms and nine fingers, the square shall be of 187J yards. 
 
 Four palms, the square shall be of 200 yards. 
 
 So that if to one perpendicular yard there correspond an inclination of four 
 palms, which are equal to a yard, the miner shall be allowe^ 1 two hundred yards 
 on the square on the declivity of the vein, and so on with the rest. 
 
 SEC. 8. And supposing that in the prescribed manner any miner should reach 
 the perpendicular depth of two hundred yards, without exceeding the limits of 
 his portion, by which he may commonly have much exhausted the vein, and 
 that those veins which have greater inclination than yard for yard, that is to 
 say, of forty-five degrees, are either barren or of little extent, it is my sovereign 
 will that although the declivity may be greater than the above-mentioned mea- 
 sures, no one shall exceed the square of two hundred level yards ; so that the 
 same shall be always the breadth of the said veins extended over the length of 
 the other two hundreds, as declared above. 
 
 SEC. 9. However, if any mine owner, suspecting a vein to run in a contrary 
 direction to his own, (which rarely happens,) should choose to have some part 
 of his square in a direction opposite to that of his principal vein, it may be 
 granted to him, provided there shall be no injury or prejudice to a third person 
 thereby. 
 
 SEC. 10. With regard to the banks, beds, or any other accidental depositories 
 of gold or silver, I ordain that the portions and measures shall be regulated by 
 the respective territorial deputations of miners, attention being paid to the extent 
 and richness of the place and to the number of applicants for the same, with 
 distinction and preference only to the discoverers ; but the said deputations must 
 render an exact account thereof to the royal tribunal general of Mexico, who 
 will resolve on the measures which they in their judgment may consider the 
 most efficacious, in order to avoid all unfair dealing in tjjese matters. 
 
 SEC. ll.'Tlie portions being regulated in the manner described above, the 
 denouncer shall have his share measured at the time of taking possession of the 
 mine, and he shall erect around his boundaries stakes or landmarks, such as 
 shall be secure and easy to be distinguished, and enter into an obligation to 
 keep and observe them forever without being able to change them ; though he 
 may allege that his vein varied in course or direction, (which is an unlikely cir- 
 cumstance ;) but he must content himself with the lot which Providence has 
 decreed him, and enjoy it without disturbing his neighbors ; if, however, he 
 should have no neighbors, or if he can, without injury to his neighbors, make 
 an improvement, by altering the stakes and boundaries, it may be permitted him 
 in such case, with previous intervention, cognizance, and authority of the depu- 
 tation of the district, who shall cite and hear the parties, and determine whether 
 the causes for such encroachment are legitimate. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SEC. 6. If any mine owner, in consequence of the great richness of the me- 
 tallic substance in his vein, is desirous of substituting for the pillars, beams, or 
 sufficient and necessary supports, made of the metallic substance itself, others - 
 
262 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 constructed of mason work of stone and mortar, lie may be permitted to do so, 
 under the inspection of one of the deputies of the district, assisted by his clerk, 
 and with the approbation of the mining professor. 
 
 SEC. 7. I strictly prohibit any one from taking away or in any degree weak- 
 ening and diminishing the pillars, beams, and necessary supports of the mines, 
 under pain of ten years' imprisonment, to be inflicted according to the form pre- 
 scribed by chapter three of these ordinances, by the* respective judge in each 
 case, upon any workman, searcher, or investigator who shall have committed 
 such offence, and the same upon the miner or mine watcher who has permitted 
 it ; and the master of the mine shall lose the same, together with half of his 
 property, and be forever excluded from all mining employments. 
 
 SEC. 8. I ordain and command that the mines shall be kept clean and unob- 
 structed, and that the works necessary or useful for the circulation of air, the 
 carriage and extraction of the metal or other purposes, although tljey may con- 
 tain no more metallic matter than such as may remain in the pillars and parti- 
 tions, shall not be encumbered with rubbish and clods of earth, but that all these 
 must be carried out and thrown by each person on the earth-mound of his own 
 property, but on no account upon that of another person without his express 
 leave and consent. 
 
 SEC. 9. In the mines there must be proper and safe steps or ladders, such and 
 as many as are considered necessary by the mining surveyor, for the purpose 
 of ascending and descending to the farthermost works, so that the lives of persons 
 employed in the mines may never be endangered by their being weak, insecure, 
 rotten, or much worn. 
 
 SEC. 10. In order to avoid the violation of the provisions of any of the sections 
 .contained in this chapter, it is my sovereign will that the deputies of the miners, 
 accompanied by the mining professor of the district, and by the clerk, if there 
 be one, or, in default of him, by two witnesses in aid, who shall once in every six 
 months, or once in every year, in places where the former is impracticable, visit 
 all the mines in their jurisdiction which are in a course of actual working; and 
 if they find any failure in the points referred to in the above-mentioned sections, 
 or in any others whatever, which regard the security, preservation, and better 
 working of the mines, shall provide immediately a remedy for such defect, and 
 take mtans to assure themselves that such remedy is carried into effect. And 
 if the remedy be not applied, or if the same failure shall occur again, the proper 
 penalties must be exacted, multiplying and aggravating them even to the extent 
 of dispossessing the person so offending of the mine, which shall thn belong to 
 the first person who may denounce it, provided the deputies proceed in the form 
 prescribed by chapter third of these ordinances. 
 
 SEC. 11. I most rigorously prohibit all persons from piercing through adits, 
 or cross levels, or other subterraneous passages, from works which are higher 
 and full of water, or from leaving between them and others such slight supports 
 as may allow the water to burst through ; on the contrary, persons owning such, 
 works must have them drained by engines before they shall attempt to commu- 
 nicate with new ones, unless the mining professor should judge that such piercing 
 through will not be attended with danger to the workmen engaged in it. 
 
 SEC. 12. Also I prohibit all persons from introducing workmen into any 
 works containing noxious vapors, until they have been properly ventilated, ac- 
 cording to the rules of art. 
 
 SEC. 13. Whereas the mines require incessant and continual working, in 
 order to procure the metals, certain operations being indispensable, which cannot 
 without much time be accomplished, and which, if interrupted, generally require 
 as great expenses in their re-establishment as they did in their original under- 
 taking ; wherefore, to remedy such inconvenience, arid also to prevent masters 
 ^of mines, who either cannot or will not work them, from keeping them in a use- 
 ess state for a length of time, by pretending to work them, and thus depriving 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 263 
 
 them of the real and effective labor which others might bestow on them, I ordain 
 and command, that whosoever, during four successive months, shall fail to work 
 any mine with (at least) four paid workmen, occupied in some exterior" or inte 
 rior work of real utility, shall, by so doing, lose all his right in said mine, which 
 shall belong to any person denouncing it, upon his satisfactory proving, according 
 to the provisions of chapter six, such act of desertion on the part of the owner. 
 
 SEC. 14. Experience having shown that the provisions of the preceding 
 section have been eluded by the artful and fraudulent practice of some owners 
 of mines, who cause their mine to be worked during some days in each [period 
 ofj four months, keeping them in this manner many years in their possession, I 
 ordain that whosoever shall fail to work his mine in the manner prescribed by 
 the said section during eight months in the year, counting from the day of his 
 coming into possession, even though the said eight months should be interspersed 
 with some days or weeks of labor, shall by such labor forfeit the mine: and it 
 shall be adjudged to the first person who denounces the same, and satisfactorily 
 proves this second species of desertion ; unless for this, or the one mentioned in 
 the preceding section, there be just cause assigned, such as pestilence, famine, 
 or war, in that same mining place, or within twenty leagues thereof. 
 
 SEC. 15. Considering that many mine owners who have formerly worked 
 their mines with ardor and diligence, expending large sums in shafts, adits, and 
 other undertakings, may often be obliged to suspend their operations while 
 soliciting supplies, or for want of workmen, or necessary provisions, and other 
 just and sufficient causes, which, combined with their former merit, render them 
 worthy of equitable consideration, I declare that any such mine owner keeping 
 his mine in disuse in the manner and for the time above mentioned shall not 
 forfeit, it at once in the manner described above, but his mine shall nevertheless 
 be liable to denouncement before the respective new tribunals of miners, in order 
 that, both parties having been heard, and alleged merits and causes considered 
 and proved, justice may be done between the parties. 
 
 SEC. 16. Since many mine owners abandon their mines either for the want of 
 the capital necessary for carrying on operations therein, or because they do not 
 choose to consume that which they may have already acquired from them, or 
 because they have not spirit to venture on the difficulties of those undertakings, 
 from which they may have conceived great hopes, or for other causes, and since 
 persons are not wanting who might be desirous of taking such mines if they 
 were informed of their intended abandonment, and as it is much easier to main- 
 tain a mine when in a course of working than to reinstate it after it has suffered 
 the injuries of time, it is my will that no person shall abandon the working of 
 his mine or mines without making the deputation of the district acquainted 
 therewith, in order that the deputation may publish the same by fixing a notifi- 
 cation on the doors of churches and other customary places for the information 
 of all persons. 
 
 SEC. 17. In order to avoid the false or equivocal reports which are often 
 spread concerning deserted mines, the consequence of which reports is to aug- 
 ment the distrust in which this profession is ordinarily held, deterring many 
 persons from engaging therein who do not otherwise want inclination to follow 
 it, I ordain : 
 
 SEC. 18. That no one shall abandon the working of his mine without giving 
 notice to the respective deputation in order that an inspection may immediately 
 be had thereof by the deputies, accompanied by the clerk and surveyors, who 
 must examine and measure the mine, particularizing all its circumstances, and 
 draw up a map describing its plan and outlines, which, together with all the 
 necessary information, must be preserved in the archives, with liberty of access 
 to all persons who may wish to see it, or to take a copy thereof. 
 
264 EESOUECES OF STATES AND TERRITOEIES 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SECTION 1. Inasmuch as mines are often worked by miners joined in com- 
 panies, from the time of the denouncement of such mine, or according to con- 
 tracts entered into subsequently in various ways, to the great advantage and 
 improvement of the operations in mines, since it is much easier to engage 
 therein when many persons concur, each subscribing a part of his capital ; and 
 as where the wealth of one alone is not sufficient for great undertakings, that 
 of a united company may be ample; in such cases I desire and command that 
 such companies, whether public or private, may be encouraged, promoted, and 
 protected by all convenient measures, my viceroy granting to those who may 
 form themselves into such companies every favor, aid, and exemption which can 
 be granted them, according to the judgment and discretion of the royal tribunal 
 of miners, and without detriment to the public or my royal treasury. 
 
 SKC. 2. Although by these ordinances I prohibit any individual mine-owners, 
 working within the ordinary limits, from denouncing two adjoining mines on 
 the same vein; yet, notwithstanding, to those who work in companies, although 
 they be not the discoverers, and without prejudice to the right which they 
 might derive from becoming discoverers, I grant the right of denouncing four 
 new portions, or four deserted mines, even though they should be contiguous 
 and on the same vein. 
 
 SECTION 12. 
 
 Books on California. 2. Table of distances. 
 
 1. BOOKS ON CALIFOENIAN MINES. 
 
 California has been the subject 'of hundreds of books written since the dis- 
 covery of gold; but most of them were notes of personal adventure, with a few 
 rambling and vague remarks about the mineral resources and mining industry 
 of the Pacific coast. 
 
 Nevertheless, although only a small proportion of the works published about 
 the land of gold, the California!! contributions to mining literature are not unim- 
 portant; and when the State geological survey shall have completed its labors 
 and published all its reports, it may safely be said that few countries have done 
 so much in so brief a space of time to illustrate the metallurgy, mineralogy, 
 and geology of the precious metals. 
 
 The following are titles of some of the books that treat, of the mineral re- 
 sources and mining industry of the coast : 
 
 Geology and Industrial Resources of California. By Philip T. Tyson. To 
 which is added the official reports of General Persifer *F. Smith and B. Riley, 
 including the reports of Lieutenants Talbot, Ord, Derby, and Williamson, of 
 their explorations in California and Oregon, and also of their examination of 
 routes for railroad communication eastward from those countries. Baltimore : 
 1851. Svo., pp. 160. 
 
 Professor John B. Trask's Report on the Geology of the Sierra Nevada or 
 California Range. Document No. 59, Senate of California. 1853. 8vo., 
 'pp. 30. 
 
 Report on the Geology of the Coast Mountains and part of the Sierra Nevada, 
 embracing the Industrial Resources in Agriculture and Mining. By John B. 
 Tragk. Document No. 9, Senate of California. 1854. Svo., pp. 90. 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 265 
 
 Report of a Geological Reconnaissance in California, made in connection with 
 the expedition to survey routes in California to connect with the surveys of 
 routes for a railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, under the 
 command of Lieutenant Williamson, corps topographical engineers, in 1853. 
 By William P, Blake, geologist and mineralogist of the expedition. New York. 
 H. Bailliere, 185S. 4to, pp. 600. 
 
 Geology of North America, with two reports on the Prairies of Arkansas and 
 Texas, the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico, and the Sierra Nevada of Cali- 
 fornia, originally made for the United States government by Jules Marcon. 
 Zurich, 1^58. 4to, pp. 144. 
 
 General Report upon the Geological Collections of the Pacific Railroad Survey, 
 by William P. Blake, geologist of the office of the United States Pacific rail- 
 road explorations and surveys. 4to , pp. 50. (In vol. iii of Explorations and 
 Surveys for a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.) 
 
 Report upon the Geology of the Route from San Francisco Bay to the Colum- 
 bia River, by J. S. Newberry, M. D., geologist and botanist of the expedition. 
 4to., pp. 84. (In vol. vi of Explorations, &c., as above.) 
 
 Geological Report on the Route from San Francisco to Santa Fe, by way of 
 the Coast and the Gila, by Thomas Antisell, M. D., geologist of the expedition. 
 4to., pp. 204. (In vol. vii of Explorations, &c., as above.) 
 
 Mining on the Pacific States of North America, by John S. Hittell. San 
 Francisco, 1861. 18mo., pp. 224. 
 
 The Resources of California, comprising agriculture, mining, geology, climate, 
 commerce, &c., and the past and future development of the State, by John S. 
 Hittell ; second edition, with an appendix on Oregon and Washington Territory. 
 San Francisco, 1866. 12mo., pp. 494. 
 
 The Comstock Lode, its character, and the probable mode of its continuance 
 in depth, by Ferdinand Baron Richthofen, (Dr. Phil.) San Francisco, 1866. 
 8vo, pp. 83. 
 
 Nevada and California Processes of Silver and Gold Extraction, for general use, 
 and especially for the mining public of California and Nevada, with full expla- 
 nations and directions for all metallurgical operations connected with silver and 
 gold, from a preliminary examination of the ore to the final casting of the ingot ; 
 also a description of the general metallurgy of silver ores. By Guido Kustel, 
 mining engineer and metallurgist, former manager of the Ophir works, &c. Illus- 
 trated by accurate engravings. San Francisco, 1863. 8vo, pp. 330. 
 
266 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 2.-TABLE OF DISTANCES. 
 
 FROM SAN FRANCISCO. 
 BY OCEAN; NAUTICAL MILES. 
 Up the coast. 
 Tomales, Cal 45 
 
 Northern towns. 
 Sacramento 
 
 Miles. 
 117 
 171 
 236 
 197 
 264 
 365 
 401 
 4-63 
 710 
 760 
 850 
 138 
 182 
 
 165 
 253 
 420 
 784 
 1, 035 
 1, 975 
 2,279 
 3,417 
 
 117 
 153 
 178 
 198 
 197 
 211 
 247 
 308 
 
 31 
 51 
 94 
 130 
 234 
 344 
 444 
 576 
 
 504 
 732 
 1,013 
 1,306 
 
 2,881 
 
 HENTO. 
 
 2 
 4 6 
 
 H 7* 
 
 5 m 
 
 2 141 
 4 18* 
 6i 25 
 5 30 
 1 31 
 3 34 
 1 35 
 3 38 
 1 39 
 2 41 
 5* 46* 
 2* 49 
 2 51 
 4 55 
 3 58 
 6 62 
 1 63 
 
 Miles. 
 End of Wood Island 5 68 
 Rio Vista 5 73 
 
 
 Cache creek 1 84 
 
 Downieville 
 
 F<- ? s Back 4 78 
 
 Oroville 
 
 Mouth of Steambo't slough 6 84 
 Head of Steamboat slough 6 90 
 Head of Randall's island.. 6 96 
 
 Red Bluff 
 
 Mendocino City Cal 18 
 
 
 Humboldt bay, Cal . . 223 
 
 Treka 
 
 Trinidad, Cal 239 
 
 Jacksonville, Oregon 
 
 Embarcadero 8 109 
 
 Crescent City Cal 280 
 
 Sutterville 9 118 
 
 Port Orford, Oregon 338 
 
 Portland Oregon 
 
 Sacramento 3 121 
 
 TJmpqua river, Oregon 402 
 Columbia river, Oregon 550 
 Astoria Oregon 559 
 
 Olympia W T 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO TO SAN DIEGO. 
 Via coast road. 
 
 San Francisco to 
 San Mat^o . 21 
 
 Folsom . 
 
 
 Portland Oregon 642 
 
 Oveiland route. 
 Placerville 
 
 Varcouver W T 632 
 
 Cape Flattery W T . 683 
 
 Port Angeles, W. T 738 
 
 Port Townsend, W. T 773 
 Seattle, W. T 807 
 
 Carson City N* T 
 
 Redwood City 10 31 
 
 Steilacoom "VV T 836 
 
 Humboldt mines, N. T 
 Great Salt Lake City 
 South Pass 
 
 San Jose 19 50 
 
 Olympia, W. T... . 855 
 
 Gilroy 32 82 
 
 San Juan island, W. T 765 
 Bellingham bay, W. T 798 
 Victoria, V. 1 753 
 
 San Juan 12 94 
 
 St. Joseph, Mo 
 
 St Louis Mo 
 
 Monterey 36 130 
 
 San Antonio 75 205 
 
 New Westminster, B. C . . . . 823 
 Down the coast. 
 Half Moon bay, Cal 46 
 
 New York City 
 
 San Luis Obispo 43 248 
 
 Southern towns. 
 Stockton 
 
 Santa Inez 68 316 
 
 Santa Barbara 42 358 
 
 San Buenaventura 30 388 
 
 Los Angeles 100 488 
 
 Santa Cruz Gal 80 
 
 
 San Gabriel ranch 10 498 
 
 Monterey, Cal 92 
 
 Mokelurnne Hill 
 
 Anaheim 15 513 
 
 San Luis Obispo Cal 200 
 
 Big Trees 
 
 Aliso ranch 22 535 
 
 Point Conception Cal 250 
 
 
 
 Santa Barbara, Cal 283 
 
 Mariposa . . .... 
 
 San Mateo ranch . 11 553 
 
 San Pedro, Cal 373 
 
 
 Los Flores 11 564 
 
 San Diego Gal 456 
 
 Visalia 
 
 San Luis Rey 10 574 
 
 La Paz, Mexico 1, 305 
 
 Coast road. 
 Redwood City 
 
 Los Encinitas 18 592 
 
 Mazatlan, Mexico . 1 480 
 
 Soled&d ranch 15 607 
 
 Guaymas, Mexico 1,710 
 
 San Diego. .. 15 622 
 
 San Bias, Mexico 1 470 
 
 SACRAMENTO TO RED BLUFF. 
 Via Sacramento river. 
 Sacramento to 
 
 Manzanilla, Mexico.. . 1 570 
 
 
 Acapulco Mexico 1 840 
 
 
 Panama, C A . 3 280 
 
 
 Callao, Peru 3 900 
 
 San Luis Obispo 
 
 Valparaiso Chili 5 210 
 
 
 Cape Horn 6' 380 
 
 
 Via Panama. 
 New Orleans 4 680 
 
 San Diego 
 
 Butlerfield route. 
 
 Fremont 14 26 
 
 Charleston 10 36 
 
 Knight's landing 10 46 
 
 New York ..... 5 140 
 
 Eagle Bend 8 54 
 
 Southampton 7 800 
 
 
 Old Eagle Bend 5 59 
 
 Via Cape Horn. 
 Rio Janeiro 8 323 
 
 
 Three Rivers 5 64 
 
 
 Poker Bend 5 69 
 
 St. Louis, via Arizona 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO TO SACRA1 
 By steamer. 
 
 San Francisco to 
 Opposite Alcatraz island. 
 South end Angel island.. 
 North end Angel island.. 
 Red Rock 
 
 Howell's . 5 74 
 
 Big Eddy 5 79 
 
 New York 13' 140 
 
 Dry Slough ' 8 87 
 
 Liverpool 13* 100 
 
 Eddy's 8 95 
 
 Across the ocean. 
 Honolulu, H. 1 2 100 
 
 Twenty-Mile island 10 105 
 
 Font's ferry .... 7 112 
 
 Butte creek 6 118 
 
 Colusa . 7 125 
 
 Jeddo, via HI 5 550 
 
 Sherman's 7 132 
 
 Shanghai, via H. I 6*450 
 
 Snyder's . 4 136 
 
 Hongkong, via HI 6 980 
 
 Nine-Mile house 5 141 
 
 Sydney, via H. I 6 720 
 
 
 Melbourne, via H. I 7, 200 
 
 Brothers 
 
 Princeton 5 151 
 
 Calcutta, via HI 10 400 
 
 Pinola 
 
 Butte City 7 158 
 
 INLAND ; STATUTE MILES. 
 
 Vicinity of San Francisco bay. 
 SanQuentin 12 
 
 Mouth of Straits 
 
 Cut Off - 7 165 
 
 Benieia 
 
 Pike's 5- 170 
 
 Navy Point 
 
 Plaza City 9 179 
 
 Point Edith 
 
 Jennings 9 188 
 
 Seal Isluid 
 
 Monroeville 3 191 
 
 Point Gillespie 
 
 Big Chico 8 199 
 
 Petaluma 48 
 
 Point Roe 
 
 BidwelFs 6 205 
 
 Geyser Springs. . 105 
 
 Snag Point 
 
 Soule Landing 7 212 
 
 Vallejo 28 
 
 New York Slough 
 Point Hanson 
 
 Snadon's 8 220 
 
 Napa City . 50 
 
 Gazelle shoot 6 220 
 
 White Sulphur Springs .... 67 
 Benicia . 30 
 
 
 Moon's 6 232 
 
 Tree island 
 
 Mayhew's 8 246 
 
 Suisun 50 
 
 
 Tehaaia - - 8 240 
 
 Martinez . 33 
 
 Sacket Hog Bend 
 
 Doll's ranch 11 25!) 
 
 Diablo coal mines . . 44 
 
 San Joaauin Slouerh. . . 
 
 Red Bluff... .- 11 278 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 267 
 
 SACRAMENTO TO VIRGINIA CITY. 
 
 Via Dutch Flat. 
 
 Sacramento to 
 
 Auburn 
 
 Iliinoistown 
 
 Dutch Flat 
 
 Wilson's ranch 
 
 Summit valley 
 
 Donner Cabins 
 
 O'Neal's bridge 
 
 Steamboat Springs 
 Virginia City 
 
 Miles. 
 40 
 
 18 58 
 12 70 
 
 14 84 
 16 100 
 
 9 109 
 2L 130 
 
 15 145 
 12 157 
 
 Via Henness Pass. 
 
 Sacramento to 
 
 Colfax ...................... 55 
 
 Madden 's ................... 61 
 
 Dutch Flat .................. 69 
 
 Zeus ........................ 781 
 
 Polly's... ................... 89| 
 
 Jones's ...................... 100 
 
 Donner lake ................ 110 
 
 Prosser creek ............... 120J 
 
 Chamberlin's ................ 128! 
 
 Brown's .................... 135i 
 
 Hunter's .................... 145* 
 
 Virginia City ................ 157i 
 
 Virginia City to the Hum- 
 
 boldt mines ............... 150 
 
 Virginia City to Aurora ...... 116 
 
 SACRAMENTO TO SALT LAKE CITY. 
 Via Austin, (Reese river,) Nevada. 
 
 Sacramento to 
 
 Folsom .................. 22 
 
 Latrobe .................. 15 37 
 
 Shingle Springs .......... 8 45 
 
 Placerville ............... 8 53 
 
 Sportsman's Hall ......... 11 64 
 
 Riverside station ......... 10 74 
 
 Webster's ................ 9 83 
 
 Strawberry ralley ....... 11 94 
 
 Summit .................. 3 97 
 
 Yank's ................... 8 105 
 
 iakeTahoe .............. 9 114 
 
 Genoa ................... 10 124 
 
 Carson City .............. 14 138 
 
 Virginia City ............. 16 154 
 
 First well ................ 13 167 
 
 Second well .............. 7 174 
 
 Third well ............... 12 186 
 
 Eighteen-Mile post ........ 8 194 
 
 Ragtown ................. 12 206 
 
 Slough bridge ............ 16 222 
 
 Sand Springs ............. 16 238 
 
 WestGate ............... 22 260 
 
 Cold Springs ............. 14 274 
 
 Edward's creek ........... 12 286 
 
 Mount Airy .............. 15 301 
 
 Jacobsville ............... 13 314 
 
 Austin ................... 6 320 
 
 Simpson's park ........... 16 336 
 
 Dry creek ................ 21 357 
 
 Robert's creek ............ 29 386 
 
 Diamond Springs ......... 25 411 
 
 Ruby valley ............. 24 435 
 
 Butte station ............. 39 454 
 
 Shell creek ............... 30 484 
 
 Antelope Springs ......... 19 503 
 
 Deep creek .............. 24 527 
 
 Willow Springs .......... 42 569 
 
 Fish Springs ............. 21 590 
 
 Simpson's S p rings ........ 39 629 
 
 Rush valley .............. 23 652 
 
 -Fort Crittenden .......... 17 669 
 
 Great Salt Lake City ..... 41 710 
 
 SACRAMENTO TO PORTLAND. 
 
 Sacramento to 
 
 Nicolaus ................. 25 
 
 Marysville ............... 20 45 
 
 2. Table of distances Continu 
 Miles. 
 
 Oroville ................. 26 71 
 
 Chico ................... 26 97 
 
 T.'hama ................ 26 123 
 
 RedBluff ............... 13 136 
 
 Horsetown .............. 2!) 165 
 
 Shasta .................. 8 173 
 
 French gulch ............ 15 188 
 
 Trinity Centre .......... 27 215 
 
 New York house ........ 14 229 
 
 Callahan's ............... 13 242 
 
 FortJones .............. 22 264 
 
 Yreka .................. 18 282 
 
 Henly ....... .* ......... 20 302 
 
 Mountain house ......... 17 319 
 
 Jacksonville ............ 23 342 
 
 Grave creek ............. 41 383 
 
 Cany onville ............. 26 409 
 
 Roseberg ............... 26 435 
 
 Oakland ................ 17 452 
 
 Hawley's ............... 30 482 
 
 Eugene City ............ 25 507 
 
 Corvallis ................ 39 546 
 
 Albany ................. 10 556 
 
 Salem .................. 24 580 
 
 Oregon City ............. 37 617 
 
 Portland ....... .. 13 630 
 
 ed. 
 
 STOCKTON TO VISALIA ANI> 
 OWEN'S VALLEY. 
 
 Stockton to 
 
 Heath & Emory's 28 
 
 Dickinson's ferry 21 49 
 
 Snelling 13 62 
 
 Hornitos 16 78 
 
 Chowchilla 25 103 
 
 Fresno 16 119 
 
 Millerton 15 134 
 
 King's river 25 159 
 
 Visalia 28 187 
 
 Tule river 25 212 
 
 Deercreek 8 220 
 
 White river 15 235 
 
 Linn's valley 9 244 
 
 Kern river 20 264 
 
 Walker's Pass 25 289 
 
 Littlelake 30 319 
 
 Owen's lake 35 354 
 
 San Carlos 41 395 
 
 LOS ANGELES TO LA PAZ, 
 ARIZONA. 
 
 Los Angeles to 
 
 San Gabriel 12 
 
 ElMonte 2 14 
 
 San Jose 12 26 
 
 Cocomungo 12 38 
 
 San Bernardino 25 63 
 
 Old S. B. mission 8 7L 
 
 Frink's 7 78 
 
 Dr. Edgar's 8 86 
 
 Chapin's ranch 6 92 
 
 Antonio creek 4 96 
 
 Grant's creek 3 99 
 
 Indian run 5 104 
 
 White river 2 106 
 
 AguaCaliente 10 116 
 
 Sand Hole 11 127 
 
 Old rancheria 6 133 
 
 Toro's 9 142 
 
 Martinez 5 147 
 
 Palma Seco 12 159 
 
 Dos Palmos 7 166 
 
 Brown's Pass 10 176 
 
 Tabasacco ^- 8 184 
 
 Chucolwalla...^. 18 202 
 
 Slough 35 237 
 
 LaPaz .. 16 253 
 
 La Paz to Fort Mohave 140 
 
 La Paz to Walker's diggings 146 
 
 La Paz to Pimo villages 200 
 
 La Paz to Tucson 280 
 
 La Paz to El Dorado canon. 190 
 
 PORTLAND TO LEWISTON. 
 
 Portland to Mile?. 
 
 Lower Cascades 50 
 
 Portage 5 55 
 
 Dalles 38 93 
 
 Celilo 13 106 
 
 Five-Mile rapids 5 111 
 
 John Day 11 122 
 
 Indian rapids 3 125 
 
 Squally Hook 3 128 
 
 Rock creek 7 135 
 
 Chapman's woodyard 6 141 
 
 Big Bend 6 147 
 
 Willow creek 9 156 
 
 Castle Rock 8 164 
 
 Long island (foot) 5 169 
 
 Long island (head) 7 176 
 
 Grand Ronde lauding 10 186 
 
 Umatilla rapids 8 194 
 
 Windmill rock 7 201 
 
 Wallula 15 216 
 
 Snake river (mouth) 11 227 
 
 Rapids 6 233 
 
 Fish Bend 10 243 
 
 Jim Part's island 10 253 
 
 Pine Tree rapids 7 260 
 
 Pelouse crossing .30 290 
 
 Fort Taylor 5 295 
 
 Penana creek 25 320 
 
 Almotacreek 14 334 
 
 Alpowa creek 26 360 
 
 Smith's ferry 3 363 
 
 Lewiston 7 370 
 
 DALLES TO LEWISTON. 
 
 Dalles to 
 
 Deschutes 15 
 
 Mud Springs 12 27 
 
 John Day's river 12 39 
 
 Juniper spring 12 51 
 
 Willow creek 18 69 
 
 Well's spring 16 85 
 
 Buttercreek 18 103 
 
 Umatilla river 9 112 
 
 Umatilla crossing 18 130 
 
 Wild Horse creek 18 148 
 
 Walla-Walla 20 168 
 
 Drycreek 7 175 
 
 Reedcreek 15 190 
 
 Tucanon v 17 207 
 
 Patapha 11 218 
 
 Alpowa 14 232 
 
 Smith's ranch 8 240 
 
 Craig's ferry 9 249 
 
 Lewiston... 1 250 
 
 Lewiston to Pierce City 90 
 
 Lewiston to Elk City 145 
 
 Lewiston to Florence .' 110 
 
 Lewiston to Idaho City 190 
 
 DALLES TO IDAHO CITY. 
 
 Via John Day mines. 
 
 Dalles to 
 
 Fifteen-Mile creek 12 
 
 Todd'sbridge 10 22 
 
 Salt spring 8 30 
 
 Bake Oven hollow 14 44 
 
 Thorn hollow 6 50 
 
 Antelope valley 12 62 
 
 Potatohills 10 72 
 
 Pyramid rocks 4 76 
 
 Cherry creek 10 86 
 
 Bridge creek 1 
 
 Foot of mountain 11 104 
 
 Rock creek 12 116 
 
 John Day 17 133 
 
 South Fork.., 7 140 
 
 CanyonCity 35 175 
 
 Dixiecreek 11 186 
 
 Burnt river 35 221 
 
 Malheur river 18 240 
 
 Emigrantroad 20 260 
 
268 
 
 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 2. Table of distances Continued. 
 
 Old Fort Boise 
 
 Miles. 
 16 276 
 
 St. Joseph river crossing. 
 Coeur d' Alene river 
 Coeur d'Aleue crossing... 
 Coaur d'Alene mission. ... 
 Three-Mile prairie 
 
 Miles. 
 5 169 
 11 180 
 11 191 
 8 199 
 4 203 
 5 208 
 20 228 
 8 236 
 5 241 
 9 250 
 13 263 
 10 273 
 10 283 
 13 296 
 8 304 
 6 310 
 9 319 
 9 328 
 4 332 
 6 338 
 13 351 
 12 363 
 5 368 
 25 393 
 7 400 
 11 411 
 13 424 
 
 Boise City. 
 
 25 301 
 
 Idaho City 
 
 .. 29 330 
 
 WALLA-WALLA TO FORT BENSON. 
 Via Mullan's military road. 
 
 Walla- Walla to- 
 Dry Creek Q 
 
 Ten-Mile prairie 
 Johnson's Cut-off 
 
 Summit Steven's pass 
 St. Regis Borgia river 
 
 Touchet 
 
 11 20 
 
 Prairie .. 
 
 
 15 35 
 
 Bitter Root crossing 
 Prairie 
 
 Tucanon 
 
 . 12 47 
 
 Snake river 
 
 . . . 3 50 
 
 Brown's prairie 
 
 
 15 65 
 
 
 First cross-ing 
 
 . . 4 69 
 
 West foot of mountain . . . 
 Point of Rocks 
 
 
 4 73 
 
 Third crossing 
 
 . 2 75 
 
 
 Fourth crossing 
 
 ...2 77 
 
 Kulkullo creek 
 
 Mocalissia 
 
 7 84 
 
 Hell Gate Ronde 
 
 Oratayouse 
 
 ...13 97 
 
 Observatory creek 
 
 Tcho-tcho-oo-seep 
 
 15 112 
 
 Big Blackfoot river 
 
 Ciel-ciel-pow-vet-sin 
 
 . .. 9 121 
 
 Hell Gate river, 1st cross'g 
 HellGateriver,llth cross'g 
 Creek 
 
 Camas Prairie creek 
 
 17 138 
 
 Loochooltz 
 
 12 150 
 
 luchatzkan spring 
 
 . . . 8 158 
 
 Flint creek. 
 
 Poun Lake bridge . . . 
 
 . 6 164 
 
 Gold creek . . 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Rock creek 7 431 
 
 Deer Lodge creek 8 439 
 
 Livingston's creek 9 448 
 
 Little Blackfoot river 8 456 
 
 Mullan's Pass 13 469 
 
 Great Prickly Pear 4 473 
 
 Silver creek 6 479 
 
 Little Prickly. Pear 16 495 
 
 Medicine Rock 3 498 
 
 L. P. P. Upper Camp 7 505 
 
 LEWISTON TO KOOTENAI MINES. 
 
 Lewiston to 
 
 Palouse crossing 40 
 
 Pine creek 10 50 
 
 Lottow 7 57 
 
 Forks of trail 2 59 
 
 Willow prairie 5 64 
 
 Rockcreek 10 74 
 
 Spokane River ferry 15 89 
 
 Soltesa's 6 95 
 
 Pen d'Oreille slough 23 118 
 
 Pen d'Oreille crossing 24 142 
 
 Big bend of lake: 15 157 
 
 Kootenai crossing 50 207 
 
 Elkcreek 123 330 
 
 APPENDIX 1. 
 
 Address on the history of California, from the discovery of the country to the 
 year 1849, delivered before the Society of California Pioneers, at their cele- 
 bration of the tenth anniversary of the admission of the State of California 
 into the Union. By Edmund Randolph, esq. San Francisco, Sept. 10, 1860. 
 
 PIONEERS : From the importunities of the active present which surrounds us, 
 we turn for a brief space to the past. To-day we give ourselves up to memory. 
 
 And, first, our thoughts are due to those who are not here assembled with 
 us; whom we meet not on street nor highway, and welcome not again at the 
 door of our dwellings ; upon whom shines no mere the sun which now gladdens 
 the hills, the plains, the waters of California to the pioneers who are dead. 
 To them, as the laurel to the soldier who falls in the battle for that with his blood 
 he has paid the price of victory, you will award the honor of this triumph, 
 marked by the marvellous creations which have sprung from your common en- 
 terprises. To them you will consecrate a success which has surpassed the bold- 
 est of the imaginations which led you forth, both them and you, to a life of ad- 
 ventures. Your companions died that California might exist. Fear not that 
 you will honor them overmuch. But how died they, and where do they repose 
 the dead of the pioneers of California? 
 
 Old men amongst you will recall the rugged trapper. His frame was strong; 
 his soul courageous ; his knowledge was of the Indian's trail and haunts of 
 game; his wealth and defence, a rifle and a horse; his bed, the earth; his home, 
 the mountains. He was slain by the treacherous savage. His scalp adorned 
 the wigwam of a chief. The wolf and the vulture in the desert feasted on the 
 body of this pioneer. A companion, wounded, unarmed, and famishing, wan- 
 ders out through some rocky canon and lives to recount this tale lives, more 
 fortunate in his declining years, to measure, perhaps, his lands by the league, 
 and to number his cattle by the thousand. And the sea, too, has claimed trib- 
 ute ; the remorseless waves, amid the terrors of shipwreck, too often in these 
 latter days have closed over the manly form of the noble pioneer. The mon- 
 sters of the deep have parted amongst them the flesh of our friends, and their 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 269 
 
 dissevered members are floating, suspended now in the vast abysses of the ocean, 
 or roll upon distant strands, playthings tossed by the currents in their wander- 
 ings. And here, in San Francisco, exacting commerce has disturbed the last 
 resting place of the pioneers. Ten years and a half ago, pinched by the severi- 
 ties of a most inclement winter, under the leaky tent which gave no shelter, 
 they sickened and died (and then women and children were pioneers, too) by 
 scores, and by hundreds they sickened and died. With friendly hands, which 
 under such disastrous circumstances could minister no relief, you yet did bury 
 them piously in a secluded spot upon the hill-side or in the valley, and, planting 
 a rude cross or board to mark the grave, did hope, perhaps, in a more prosper- 
 ous day, to replace it with a token in enauring stone. But the hill and the valley 
 alike disappear hourly from our sight. The city marches with tremendous 
 strides. Extending streets and lengthening rows encroach upon the simple 
 burial-ground not wisely chosen. The dead give place to the living. And now 
 the builder, with his mortar and his bricks, and the din of his trowel, erects a 
 mansion or store-house for the new citizen upon the same spot where the pioneer 
 was laid and his sorrowing friend dreamed of erecting a tombstone. Meanwhile, 
 by virtue of a municipal order, hirelings have dug up and carted away all that 
 remained of the pioneers, and have deposited them in some common receptacle, 
 where now they are lying an undistinguishable heap of human bones. 
 
 Pursuing still this sad review, you well remember how, with the eager tide 
 along and up the course of rivers, and over many a stony ascent, you were 
 swept into the heart of the difficult regions of the gold mines ; how you there 
 encountered an equal stream pouring in from the east ; and, in a summer, all 
 the bars, and flats, and gulches, throughout the length and breadth of that vast 
 tract of hills, were flooded with human life. Into that rich harvest Death put 
 his sickle. Toil to those who had n%ver toiled ; toil, the hardest toil, often at 
 once beneath a torrid, blazing sun, and in an icy stream ; congestion, typhus, 
 fevers in whatever form most fatal ; and the rot of scurvy ; drunkenness and 
 violence, despair, suicide, and madness ; the desolate cabin ; houseless starva- 
 tion amid snows : all these bring back again upon you in a frightful picture 
 many a death-scene of those days. There fell the pioneers who perished from 
 the van of those who first heaved back the bolts that barred the vaulted hills, 
 and poured the millions of the treasures of California upon the world ! 
 
 Wan and emaciated from the door of the tent or cabin where you saw him 
 expire; bloody and mangled from the gambling saloon where you saw him 
 murdered, or the roadside where you found him lying ; the corpse you bore to 
 the woods and buried him beneath the trees. But you cannot tell to-day which 
 pine sings the requiem of the pioneer. 
 
 And some have fallen in battle beneath our country's flag. 
 
 And longings still unsatisfied led soine to renew their adventurous career 
 upon foreign soils. Combating for strangers whose quarrels they espoused, they 
 fell amid the jungles of the tropics and fatted that rank soil there with right 
 precious blood ; or, upon the sands of an accursed waste, were bound and 
 slaughtered by inhuman men who lured them with promises and repaid their 
 coming with a most cruel assassination. In the filthy purlieus of a Mexican 
 village swine fed upon all that murder left of honored gentlemen, until the very 
 Indian, with a touch of pity, heaped up the sand upon the festering dead, and 
 gave slight sepulture to our lost pioneers. 
 
 Though from the first some there were who found in California all they 
 sought; and as they lived so died, surrounded by their children and their 
 newly made friends, and were buried in churchyards with holy rites ; and al- 
 though those more lately stricken repose in well-fenced grounds, guarded by 
 society they planted, and whose ripening power they have witnessed, and are 
 gathered to a sacred stillness, where we too may hope that we shall be received 
 
270 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 when full soon we sink to our eternal rest. Alas ! far different the death and 
 burial of full many a pioneer. 
 
 In deeds of loftiest daring of individual man, encounters fierce and rudest 
 shocks, too often has parted the spirit of the pioneer,. and left his mortal body- 
 to nature and the elements. Thus wilds are conquered, and to civilization new 
 realms are won. 
 
 Upon his life and death let them reflect who would deny to the pioneer the 
 full measure of the rights of freemen. 
 
 For us we behold the river or the rock, the mountain's peak, the plain 
 whatever spot from which his eyes took their last look of earth. There, as he 
 lies, one gentle light shining athwart the gathering darkness, still holds his 
 gaze. Guided by that light we will revisit the distant home of the dying pio- 
 neer. In imagination we will there revive the faded recollections of the in- 
 trepid boy who, in years long past, disappeared in the wilderness and the west, 
 and for a lifetime has been accounted dead. We will renew, while we console, 
 the grief of the aged father and mother. To the fresh sorrows of the faithful 
 wife we pledge the sympathy and love of brothers. To the sons and daughters 
 of our friends we stretch forth our hands in benedictions on their heads. To 
 ancient friends we too are friends, until with our praises, and the eventful story 
 of his life, we make to live again in his old peaceful home him who died so 
 wildly. What though, to mournful questioning, we cannot point their graves ] 
 They have a monument behold the State ; and their inscription, it is written 
 on our hearts. 
 
 Thus, as is meet, we honor our dead pioneers with severe yet pleasing recol- 
 lections, grateful fancies, and tears not unmanly. With an effort we turn from 
 ourselves to our country. 
 
 Of populous Christian countries Upper California is among the newest. Her 
 whole history is embraced within the lifetime of men now living. Just ninety- 
 one years have passed since man of European origin first planted his footsteps 
 within the limits of what is now our State, with purpose of permanent inhabita- 
 tion. Hence all the inhabitants of California have been but pioneers. 
 
 Cortez, about the year 1537, fitted out several small vessels at his port of Te- 
 huantepec, sailed north and to the head of the Gulf of California. It is said 
 that his vessels were provided with everything requisite for planting a colony 
 in the newly discovered region, and transported four hundred Spaniards and 
 three hundred negro slaves, which he had assembled for that purpose, and that 
 he imagined by that coast and sea to discover another New Spain. But sands 
 and rocks and sterile mountains, a parched and thorny waste, vanquished the 
 conqueror of Mexico. He was glad to escape with his life, and never crossed 
 the line which marks our southern boundary. Here We may note a very re- 
 markable event which happened in the same year that Cortez was making his 
 fruitless attempt. Four persons, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, Dor- 
 antes, and a negro named Estevancio, arrived at Culiacan, on the Gulf of Cali- 
 fornia, from the peninsula of Florida. They were the sole survivors of three 
 hundred Spaniards who landed with Pamfilo Narvaez on the coast of Florida 
 for the conquest of that country, in the year 1527. They had wandered ten 
 years among the savages, and had finally found their way across the continent. 
 The same Nunez was afterwards appointed to conduct the discovery of the Rio 
 de la Plata, and the first conquests of Paraguay, says our authority, the learned 
 Jesuit Father Miguel Venegas. 
 
 The viceroy Mendoza, soon after the failure of Cortez, despatched another 
 expedition, by sea and land, in the same direction, but accomplished still less ; 
 and again in 1542, the same viceroy sent out Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a coura- 
 geous Portuguese, with two ships to survey the outward or western coast of 
 California. Ln the latitude of 32 degrees he made a cape which was called, by 
 himself, I suppose, Cape Engano, (Deceit;) in 33 degrees, that of La Cruz, and 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 271 
 
 that of Galera, in 36| degrees, and opposite the last he met with two large 
 islands, where they informed him that at some distance there was a nation who 
 wore clothes. In 37 degrees and a half he had sight of some hills covered with 
 trees, which he called San Martin, as he did also the cape running into the sea 
 at the end of these eminences. Beyond this to 40 degrees the coast lies NE. 
 and SW., and about the 40th degree he saw two mountains covered with snow, 
 and between them a large cape, which, in honor of the viceroy, he called Men- 
 do.ciua. The headland, therefore, according to Venegas, was christened three 
 hundred and eighteen years ago. Cabrillo continued his voyage to the north in 
 midwinter, and reached the 44th degree of latitude on the 10th of March, 1543. 
 From this point he was compelled by want of provisions and the bad condition 
 of his ehips to return, and on the 14th of April he entered the harbor of Nativi- 
 dad, from which he had sailed. 
 
 In 1578, at midsummer, Sir Francis Drake landed upon this coast, only a 
 few miles northward from this Bay of San Francisco, at a bay which still 
 bears his name. Sir Walter Raleigh had not yet sailed on his first voyage to Vir- 
 ginia. It will be interesting to know how things looked in this country at that 
 time. After telling us how the natives mistook them for gods, and worshipped 
 them, and offered sacrifices to them, much against their will, and how he took 
 possession of the country in the name of Queen Elizabeth, the narrative goes 
 on : " Our necessaire business being ended, our General with his companie trav- 
 ailed up into the countrey to their villiages, where we found heardes of deere by 
 1,000 in a companie, being most large and fat of bodie. We found the whole 
 countrey to be a warren of a strange kinde of connies, their bodies in bigness as 
 be the Barbaric connies, their heads as the heads of ours, the feet of a Want, 
 (mole,) and the taile of a rat, being of great length ; under her chinne on either 
 side a bagge, into the which she gathered her meate, when she hath filled her 
 bellie abroad. The people do eat their bodies and make great accompt of their 
 skinnes, for their king's coat was made out of. them. Our General called this 
 countrey Nova Albion, and that for two causes : the one in respect of the white 
 bankes and cliffes which lie toward the sea ; and the other because it might 
 have some affinitie with our countrey in name, which sometime was so called. 
 
 " There is no part of earth here to be taken up, wherein there is not a reason- 
 able quantitie of gold or silver" 
 
 . Every one will at once recognize the burrowing squirrel that still survives to 
 plague the farmer, and who it will be seen is a very ancient inhabitant of the 
 fields he molests ; and no one but will dwell upon the words in which he speaks 
 of the gold and silver abounding in this country. Were they but a happy guess 
 in a gold-mad age, a miracle of sagacity, or a veritable prophecy ? Before he 
 sailed away, "our General set up a monument of our being there, as also of her 
 Majestie's right and title to the same, viz : a plate nailed upon a faire great 
 poste, whereupon was engraven her Majestie's name, the day and yare of our 
 arrival there, with the free giving up of the province and people into her Majes- 
 tic' s hands, together ivith her highness' picture and arms, in a piece offivepence 
 of current English money under the plate, w her eunder was also written the name 
 of our General." 
 
 These mementoes of his visit and the first recorded landing of the white man 
 upon our shores, I think have never fallen into the possession of any antiquary. 
 And it would also appear that Sir Francis Drake knew nothing of Cabrillo's 
 voyage, for he says: "It seemeth that the Spaniards hitherto had never been 
 in this part of the country, neither did discover the lande by many degrees to 
 the southward of this place." 
 
 There were other expeditions to Lower California and the western coast, after 
 the time of Cortez and Cabrillo, but they all proved fruitless until the Count de 
 Monterey, viceroy of New Spain, by order of the King, sent out Sebastian 
 Viscayno. He sailed from Acapulco on the 5th day of May, 1602, with two 
 
272 KESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 large vessels and a tender, as captain-general of the voyage, with Toribio 
 Gomez, a consummate seaman, who had served many years in cruising his 
 Majesty's ships, as admiral ; and three barefooted Carmelites, Father Andrew 
 de la Assumpcion, Father Antonio de la Ascension, and Father Tomas de 
 Aguino, also accompanied him. And that Viscayno might not lack for coun- 
 sellors the viceroy appointed Captain Alonzo Estevan Pegnero, a person of 
 great valor and long experience, who had,, served in Flanders; and Captain 
 Gas par de Alorcon, a native of Bretagne, distinguished for his prudence and 
 courage; and for sea affairs, he appointed pilots and masters of ships ; likewise 
 Captain Geronimo Martin, who went as cosmographer, in order to make draughts 
 of the countries discovered, for the greater perspicuity of the account intended 
 to be transmitted to his Majesty, of the diseoveriesca.n.d transactions on this 
 voyage. The ships were further supplied with a suitable number of soldiers 
 and seamen, and well provided with all necessaries for a year. This expedition 
 was therefore, in every respect, a notable one for the age. Its object, the King 
 of Spain himself informs us, was to find a port where the ships coming from the 
 Philippine islands to Acapulco, a trade which had then been established some 
 thirty years, might put in and provide themselves with water, wood, masts, and 
 other things of absolute necessity. The galleons from Manila had all this time 
 been running down this coast before the northwest wind, and were even 
 accustomed, as some say, to make the land as far to the north as Cape Mendo- 
 cino, which Cabrillo had named. Sebastian Viscayno with his fleet struggled 
 up against the same northwest wind. On the 10th of November, 1602, he 
 entered San Diego and found, on its northwest side, a forest of oaks and other 
 trees, of considerable extent, of which I do not know that there are any traces 
 now or even a tradition. In Lower California he landed frequently, and made 
 an accurate survey of the coast, and to one bay gave the capricious appellation 
 of the ' Bay of eleven thousand Virgins.' Above San Diego he kept further 
 from the shore, noting the most conspicuous landmarks. But he came through 
 the canal of J3anta Barbara, which I suppose he so named, and, when at anchor 
 under one of the islands, was visited by the king of that country, who carne 
 with a fleet of boats and earnestly pressed him to land, offering as proof of his 
 hospitable intentions to furnish every one of his seamen with ten wives. Finally 
 he anchored in the bay of Monterey on the 16th of December, 1602 this was 
 more than four years before the English landed at Jamestown. The name of 
 Monterey was given to this port in honor of the viceroy. On the 17th day of 
 December, 1602, a church, tent or arbor, was erected under a large oak close 
 to the seaside, and Fathers Andrew de la Assumpcion and Antonio de la 
 Ascension said Mass, and so continued to do whilst the expedition remained 
 there. Yet this was not the first Christian worship on these shores, for 
 Drake had- worshipped according to a Protestant ritual at the place where he 
 landed twenty-five years before. The port of Monterey, as it appeared to those 
 weary voyagers, and they were in a miserable plight from the affliction of scurvy, 
 seems to have been very pleasing. It is described in the narrative of Father 
 Andrew as an excellent harbor, and secure against all winds. " Near the shore 
 are an infinite number of very large pines, straight and smooth, fit for masts and 
 yards, likewise oaks of a prodigious size for building ships. Here likewise are 
 rose trees, white thorns, firs, willows, and poplars ; large clear lakes, fine pas- 
 tures and arable lands," &c., &c. A traveller of this day, perhaps, might not- 
 color the picture so highly. Viscayno sent back one of his ships with the news, 
 and with the sick, and with the other left Monterey on the 3d of January, 1603, 
 and it was never visited more for a hundred and sixty-six years. On the 12th, 
 having a fair wind, we are told that he passed the port of San Francisco, and 
 that losing sight of his other vessel he returned to the port of San Francisco to 
 wait for her. Father Andrew de la Assumpcion (as reported in Father Venegas) 
 on this interesting point uses the following language : " Another reason which 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 273 
 
 induced the Capitania (flag-ship) to put into Puerto Francisco was to take a 
 survey of it and see if anything was to be found of the San Angustin, which, in 
 the year 1595, had, by order of his Majesty and the Viceroy, been sent from the 
 Philippines to survey the coast of California, under the direction of Sebastian 
 Rodriguez Cermenon, a pilot of known abilities, but was driven ashore in this 
 harbor by the violence of the wind. And among others on board the San Au- 
 gustin was the pilot Francisco Volanos, who was also chief pilot of this squad- 
 ron. He was acquainted with the country, and affirmed that they had left ashore 
 a great quantity of wax and several chests of silk ; and the general was desirous 
 of putting in here to see if there remained any vestiges of the ship and cargo. 
 The Capitania came to anchor behind a point of land called La Punta de los 
 Reyes." 
 
 Did Vizcayno enter the Bay of San Francisco ? I think it plain that he did 
 not. Yet exceedingly curious and interesting it is to reflect that he was but a 
 little way outside the heads, and that the indentation of the coast which opens 
 into the bay of San Francisco was known to him from the report of the pilots 
 of the ships from the Philippines, and by the same name. In the narratives of 
 the explorers the reader is often puzzled by finding that objects upon the shore 
 are spoken of as already known, as for example in this voyage of Vizcayno the 
 highlands a little south of Monterey are mentioned by the name of the Sierra 
 de Santa Lucia, so named at some previous time : the explanation follows in the 
 same sentence where they are said to be a usual land-mark for the China ships 
 i. e., undoubtedly the galleons from the Philippines. Vizcayno could reach no 
 further north than Cape Mendocino, in which neighborhood he found himself 
 with only six men able to keep the deck ; his other vessel penetrated as far as 
 the forty-third degree ; and then both returned to Acapulco. In those days 
 there was a fabulous story very prevalent of a channel somewhere to the north 
 of us which connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and it seems that some 
 foreigner had actually presented to the King of Spain a history of a voyage he 
 had made directly across from Newfoundland to the Pacific ocean by the 
 straits of Anian. The King is said to have had an eye to the discovery of this 
 desirable canal at the same time that he was making provision for his trade from 
 the Western Islands. 
 
 In 1697 the Jesuits, with patient art and devoted zeal, accomplished that 
 which had defied the energy of Cortez and baffled the efforts of the Spanish 
 monarchy for generations afterwards. They possessed themselves of Lower 
 California, and occupied the greater portion of that peninsula, repulsive as it 
 was, with their missions. In 1742, Anson, the English commodore, cruising off 
 the western coast of Mexico, watched for the Spanish galleon which still plied 
 an annual trip between Acapulco and Manila. This galleon was half man-of- 
 war, half merchantman, was armed, manned, and officered by the King, but 
 sailed on account of various houses of the Jesuits in the Philippines, who owned 
 her tonnage in shares of a certain number of bales each, and enjoyed the mo* 
 nopoly of this trade by royal grant. She exchanged dollars from the Mexican 
 mines for the productions of the east, and we read that at that day the manufac- 
 turers of Valencia and Cadiz, in Spain, clamored for protection against the silks 
 and cotton cloths of India and China thus imported by this sluggish craft which 
 crept lazily through the tropics, relied upon rain to replenish the water jars on 
 deck, and was commonly weakened by scurvy and required about six months 
 for the return voyage into Acapulco, thence transported on mules to Vera 
 Cruz, and thence again after another tedious voyage to Europe. Anson watched 
 in vain ; the prudent galleon thought it best to remain under the shelter of the 
 guns of Acapulco, in the presence of so dangerous a neighbor. He sailed away 
 to the west, stopped and refreshed his crew at a romantic island in the middle 
 of the Pacific ocean, went over to Macao and there refitted, and then captured 
 the galleon at last, with a million and a half of dollars on board, as she was 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 18 
 
274 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 going into Manilla, after a desperate combat with his ship, the Centurion. He 
 then returned to China, extinguishing a great fire in Canton with his crew, sold 
 the galleon in Macao, and got back safe to England with his treasure. His 
 chaplain, Mr. Richard Walter, the author of the admirable narrative of this cele- 
 brated voyage, goes on, after relating the capture, to say : " I shall only add, 
 that there were taken on board the galleon several draughts and journals. * 
 * * Among the rest there was found a chart of all the ocean, between the 
 Philippines and the coast of Mexico, which was that made use of by the galleon 
 in her own navigation. A copy of this draught, corrected in some places by 
 our own observations, is here annexed, together with the route of the galleon 
 traced thereon from her own journals, and likewise the route of the Centurion 
 from Acapulco through the same ocean." 
 
 Here we may look for information. We have at least one log-book and chart 
 of the old Manilla galleons. What if we could have access to the books of 
 account of those venerable old traders in their monasteries at Manilla ! Examin- 
 ing this chart we find that the coast of California, from a little further north than 
 Punta de los Reyes, is laid down with remarkable accuracy. We have a great 
 indentation of the coast immediately below Punta de los Reyes, a large land- 
 locked bay with a narrow entrance, immediately off which lie seven little black 
 spots called Los Farallones in short, a bay at San Francisco, but without a 
 name. The Farallones, I think, were named by Cabrillo, in 1542, two hundred 
 years before Anson's time. Was this our port of San Francisco as we know it, 
 or that which Vizcayno entered when he anchored on the 12th of January, 
 1603, under a point of land called La Punta de los Reyes ? Lower down we 
 have Point Afio Nuevo and Point Pinos, and a bay between, but not the name 
 of Monterey, then a great many islands, then Point Conception, then San Pedro, 
 and then the Port of San Diego, and Lower California to Cape San Lucas. The 
 outward track of the galleon lies between 12 and 15 degrees north, and on her 
 return she goes up as high as about 35 degrees, and there being off Point Con- 
 ception, but a long way out to sea, she turns to the south and runs down the 
 coast to Cape San Lucas, where the Jesuit fathers kept signal fires burning on 
 the mountains to guide her into port, and expected her return with the fruits 
 and fresh provisions which the exhausted mariners so much needed. Such was 
 the strange precursor of the steamship and clipper on the waters of the Pacific, 
 and the first great carrier of the commerce between its opposite shores ! You 
 will observe how nature brings this commerce to our doors. The outward run 
 of the galleon so near the equator was to take the eastern trade-winds, which 
 wafted her without the necessity of changing a sail directly to the Philippines ; 
 China and the Indies and her returning course was to avoid these trade- winds 
 and to catch the breezes which to the north blow from the west. And this 
 great circle of the winds touches our shores at the Bay of San Francisco. This 
 chart was drawn for the use of the Spanish generals, (for such was the title and 
 rank of the commanders of the Spanish galleons,) and " contained all the dis- 
 coveries which the Manilla ships have at any time made in traversing this vast 
 ocean." 
 
 It was these discoveries that gave names to so many points upon our coast 
 undoubtedly, and prompted so many explorers, after Cabrillo, and both before 
 and after Yizcayno. Knowing so much, the wonder is that these navigators 
 did not know more. They named, and noted on their chart, yet did not know 
 our Bay of San Francisco. Yearly for centuries they coasted by. A priest or 
 soldier standing upon the deck of this old-timed ship, might gaze upon a glori- 
 ous land that overhung the western sea ; with hills on hills a swelling pile, 
 glowing in sunsets that had gilded them through countless ages. But, save in 
 the casual visits of the earliest navigators, we know not that foot of white man 
 yet had pressed the soil of California. The world was busy in commerce and 
 Hi war. But the breeze still rufiled the vacant waters, dimpled the idle grass, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 275 
 
 and fanned the sultry sides of the solitary mountains of California. These 
 slopes and plains pastured but the deer and elk. A despicable type of man, in 
 petty groups, wandered through these valleys, of which the bear was more the 
 lord than he. No other human tenant occupied the most delightful of the habi- 
 tations of man, nor had from the creation down. 
 
 The Spaniards were at best but feeble navigators. Witness the galleons 
 making a tedious progress in the latitude of calms. Anson says that the in- 
 structions to their commanders were, in his day, to keep within the latitude of 
 30 degrees, if possible, as if they feared to encounter the stiffer breezes further 
 north, an instruction, however, not always followed, as their chart demonstrates. 
 To vessels such as then were built or to be found in Mexican or South Ameri- 
 can ports the daily winds from the northwest, which in summer roughen the 
 sea all along the coast to Cape San Lucas, were gales against which it was 
 dangerous and almost hopeless to attempt to make head. This labor had not 
 diminished from the days of Cabrillo and Vizcayno. These most beneficent 
 northwest trade-winds cut off California from Spanish America by sea. By 
 land the desert tracts of the Gila and Upper California, both unexplored, 
 barred the approach from the south; and to the east the human imagination 
 had not yet traversed the interval from the Atlantic ocean. In 1769 the 
 history of mankind may be said to have begun upon this coast. In this wise 
 it begun. 
 
 Charles the Fifth, on the 17th day of November, 1526, addressed these 
 words to his Indies : 
 
 " The kings, our progenitors, from the discovery of the West Indies, its 
 islands and continents, commanded our captains, officers, discoverers, colonizers, 
 and all other persons, that, on arriving at those provinces, they should, by 
 means of interpreters, cause to be made known to the Indians that they were 
 sent to teach them good customs, to lead them from vicious habits and the 
 eating of human flesh, to instruct them in our holy Catholic faith, to preach to 
 them salvation, and to attract them to our dominions." 
 
 The same spirit breathes through every part of the laws of the Indies, as 
 they were issued for successive centuries, which may be seen by reference to 
 the code in which they are compiled. 
 
 The ministers who executed these pious purposes of the king were mainly 
 the soldiers of the cross. Christian priests converted our savage ancestors in 
 the forests of the north of Europe, and laid the foundations of the great re- 
 public of European states, of which the cement is modern civilization. 
 Christian priests endeavored to repeat that grand achievement in America. A 
 sublime contemplation ! They interposed the cross and staid the descending 
 sword and the still swifter destruction of private greed. Their powerful pro- 
 tector was the King of Spain, when both continents were almost entirely Span- 
 ish. Their dusky converts who acknowledged the dominion of Christ were 
 saved as subjects of the king, were admitted to civil rights, and mingled their 
 blood with that of the descendants of the Visigoths. In the lineaments and 
 complexion of the Spanish American we still behold the native Indian whom 
 the church preserved. Exalted charity ! at least in motive ; and although the 
 teacher could riot foresee that the same lesson would not effect the same re- 
 sult in pupils so diverse, it was not their fault that they did not raise the 
 crouching Indian to the level of the conquering German. 
 
 In 1767 the Jesuits being banished from the Spanish dominions, Lower Cali- 
 fornia was transferred to the charge of another celebrated order, the Francis- 
 cans. Into this field, when it had been wrested from the Society of Jesus, the 
 Franciscans were led by one who was born in an island of the Medi- 
 terranean, the son of humble laborers. From his infancy Father Junipero Serra 
 was reared for the church. He had already greatly distinguished himself in the 
 conversion and civilization of heathen savages in other parts of Mexico ; and 
 
276 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 afterwards had preached revivals of the faith in Christian places, illustrating 1 , 
 as we are told, the strength of his convictions and the fervor of his zeal by 
 demonstrations which would startle us now coming from the pulpit such as 
 burning his flesh with the blaze of a candle, beating himself with a chain, and 
 bruising his breast with a stone which he carried in his hand. Further, this 
 devout man was lame from an incurable sore on his leg, contracted soon after 
 his landing in Mexico ; but he usually travelled on foot none the less. You have 
 before you the first great pioneer of California ! His energies were not destined 
 to be wasted in the care of missions which others had founded. He entered 
 immediately upon the spiritual conquest of the regions of the north. Josef de 
 Galvez, then visitor general, a very high officer, (representing the person of the 
 king in the inspection of the working of every part of the government of the 
 province to which he was sent,) and who afterwards held the still more exalted 
 position of minister general for all the Indies, arrived at this time in Lower 
 California, bringing a royal order to despatch an expedition by sea to re-discover 
 and people the Port of Monterey, or at least that of San Dieogo. Father Ju- 
 nipero entered with enthusiasm into his plans, and after consulting with him 
 and learning the condition of the missions and the latitude of the most northern, 
 Galvez, the better to fulfil the wishes of his majesty, determined, besides the 
 expedition by sea, to send another which should go in search of San Diego by 
 land, at which point the two expeditions should meet and make an establish- 
 ment. And he further resolved to found three missions, one at San Diego, one 
 at Monterey, and another mid-way between these, at San Buena Ventura. A 
 fleet, consisting of two small vessels, at this time came over to Lower California 
 from an Bias; the San Carlos and the San Antonio, otherwise the Principe. 
 Of these the San Carlos was the capitania or flag-ship. Galvez, a really great 
 man, labored with great diligence and good nature to get them ready for sea; 
 with his own hands assisting the workmen, such as there were to be found in 
 that remote corner of the world, in careening the vessels, and the fathers in 
 boxing up the ornaments, sacred vases, and other utensils of the church and 
 vestry, and boasting in a letter that he was a better sacristan than Father 
 Junipero, because he had put up the ornaments, &c., for his mission, as he called 
 that of San Buena Ventura, before that servant of God had those for his of San 
 Carlos, and had to go and help him. Also, that the new missions might be 
 established in the same manner with > those of Sierra Gorda, where Father Ju- 
 nipero had formerly labored, and with which he was much pleased. Galvez 
 ordered to be boxed up and embarked all kinds of household and field utensils, 
 with the necessary iron-work for cultivating the lands, and every species of 
 seeds, as well those of old as of new Spain, without forgetting the very least, 
 such as garden-herbs, flowers, and flax, the land being, he said, in his opinion, 
 fertile for everything, as it was in the same latitude with Spain. For the same 
 purpose, he determined that from the furthest north of the old missions the 
 land expedition should carry two hundred head of cows, bulls, and oxen, to 
 stock that new country with large cattle, in order to cultivate the whole of it, 
 and that in proper time there should be no want of something to .eat. 
 
 Father Junipero blessed the vessels and the flags, Galvez made an impressive 
 harangue, the expedition embarked, and the San Carlos sailed from La Paz, in 
 Lower California, on the 9th day of January, 1769. The whole enterprise was 
 commended to the patronage of the Most Holy Patriarch St. Joseph. On the 
 San Carlos sailed Don Vicente Villa, commander of the maritime expedition ; 
 Don Pedro Fages, a lieutenant commanding a company of twenty-five soldiers 
 of the Catalonian volunteers ; the engineer, Don Miguel Constanzo ; likewise 
 Dr. Pedro Pratt, a surgeon of the royal navy, and all the necessary crew and 
 officers. With them for their consolation went the Father Friar Fernando Par- 
 ron. Galvez, in a small vessel, accompanied the San Carlos as far as Cape San 
 Lucas, and saw her put to sea with a fair wind on the llth day of January, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 277 
 
 1769. The San Antonio, the other vessel, went to Cape San Lucas, and Galvez 
 set to work with the same energy and heartiness to get her ready. She sailed 
 on the 15th day of February, 1769. The captain of the San Antonio was Don 
 Juan Perez, a native of Majorca, and a distinguished pilot of the Philippine 
 trade. With him sailed two priests, Fathers Juan Vizcayno and Francisco 
 Gomez. The archives of this State contain a paper of these times which cannot 
 but be read with interest. It is the copy of the receipt of the commander, Vin- 
 cente Villa, containing a list of all the persons on board the San Carlos, and an 
 inventory of eight months' provisions. It reads thus : 
 
 OFFICERS AND CREW, SOLDIERS, ETC., OP THE SAN CARLOS. 
 
 
 
 The two army officers, the father missionary, the captain, pilot, and 
 
 surgeon 6 persons. 
 
 The company of soldiers, being the surgeon, corporal, and twenty- 
 three men 25 persons. 
 
 The officers of the ship and crew, including two pages, (cabin boys 
 
 doubtless) 25 persons. 
 
 The baker and two blacksmiths 3 persons. 
 
 The cook and two tortilla makers 3 persons. 
 
 
 
 Total , 62 persons. 
 
 Dried meat, 187 arrobas, (25 pounds,) 6 libras; fish, 77 arrobas, 8 libras ; 
 crackers, (common,) 267 arrobas, 3 libras ; crackers, (white,) 47 arrobas, 7 libras ; 
 Indian corn, 760 fanegas; rice, 37 arrobas, 20 libras ; peas, 37 arrobas, 20 libras ; 
 lard, 20 arrobas; vinegar, 7 tinajas, (jars;) salt, 8 fanegas ; panocha, (domestic 
 sugar,) 43 arrobas, 8 libras ; cheese, 78 arrobas ; brandy, 5 tinajas ; wine, 6 tin- 
 ajas ; figs, 6 tinajas ; raisins, 3 tinajas; dates, 2 tinajas ; sugar, 5 arrobas ; choco- 
 late, 77 arrobas; hams, 70 arrobas; oil, (table,) 6 tinajas ; oil, (fish,) 5 tinajas; 
 red pepper, 12 libras ; black pepper, 7 libras ; cinnamon, 7 libras ; garlic, 5 
 libras ; 25 smoked beef tongues ; 6 live cattle ; 70 tierces of flour, each of 25 
 arrobas, 20 libras ; 15 sacks of bran ; lentiles, 23 arrobas ; beans, 19 arrobas, 
 20 libras ; one thousand dollars in reals (coin) for any unexpected emergency. 
 Besides 32 arrobas of panocha (domestic sugars,) 20 for the two missions of San 
 Diego and Monterey, one half to each, and the remaining 12 arrobas for the grat- 
 ification of the Indians, and to barter with them. 16 sacks of charcoal ; 1 box 
 of tallow candles of 4J arrobas ; 1 pair of 16-pound scales ; 2 pounds of lamp 
 wick. 
 
 The original of this simple and homely document, but which enables us to 
 realize so clearly these obscure transactions, yet so full of interest for us, was 
 given unquestionably to Galvez, and this copy we may presume brought to 
 to California on this first voyage of the Santa Carlos to serve as her mani- 
 fest. It is dated the 5th of January, 1 769. Of the same date we have the 
 instructions of Galvez to Villa and Fages, addressed to each of them sepa- 
 rately that is, the original is given to Villa under the signature of Galvez 
 and a copy to Fages. They are long and minute. The first article declares 
 that the first object of the expedition is to establish the " Catholic religion 
 among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of pagan- 
 ism, to extend the dominion of the King our lord, and to protect this peninsula^ 
 from the ambitious views of foreign nations." He also recites that this project 
 had been entertained since 1606, when it was ordered to be executed by Philip 
 III, referring to orders which were issued by that monarch in consequence of 
 the report made by Vizcayno, but which were never carried into effect. He 
 enjoins that no labor or fatigue be spared now for the accomplishment of such 
 just and holy ends. San Diego, he says, will be found in latitude 33 degrees, 
 
278 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 as set forth in the royal cedula of 1606, (one hundred and sixty-three years 
 before,) and that it cannot fail to be recognized from the landmarks mentioned 
 by Vizcayno. At the conclusion in his own handwriting we have the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 "NoTE. That to the fort or presidio that may be constructed, and to the 
 pueblo (village) of the mission which may be established at Monterey, there 
 shall be given the glorious name of San Carlos de Monterey. JOSEPH DB 
 GALVEZ," (with his rubric.) 
 
 When the San Antonio sailed she seems to have carried a letter from Galvez 
 to Pedro Fages, who had gone in advance on the San Carlos, for we have it now 
 in the archives. It is dated cape San Lucas, February 14, 1769. The body 
 of the letter is in substance : That the San Antonio arrived at the bay (Sari 
 Lucas) on the twenty -fifth of last month, (January ;) that she was discharged 
 and cleared of barnacles ; that he examined the vessel with his own eyes, and 
 found the keel thereof as sound as when it was placed in the vessel ; that the 
 necessary repairs had been made, and her cargo again placed on board, and that 
 to-morrow, if the weather permit, she will sail, and that he trusts in Providence 
 she will come safely into Monterey and find him (Fages) already in possession 
 of the country. 
 
 So far it is in the handwriting of a clerk. He then adds a postscript with his 
 own hand, addressed as well to Father Parron and the Engineer Constanzo as 
 to Fages. I read it, for it is pleasant to have, as it were, a personal acquaint- 
 ance with the eminent personage who directed the foundation of Upper Cali- 
 fornia, and to find him a gentleman of such manifest abilities, generous temper, 
 and enthusiasm : 
 
 "Mv FRIENDS : It appears that the Lord, to my confusion, desires infinitely 
 to reward the only virtue I possess, which is my constant faith, for everything 
 here goes on prosperously, even to the mines abounding in metals. Many peo- 
 ple are collecting, with abundance of provisions. 
 
 " I hope you will sing the Te Detim in Monterey, and in order that we may 
 repeat it here, you will not withhold the notice of the same an instant longer than 
 is necessary. 
 
 4 ' This is also for the Reverend Father Parron. 
 
 " JOSEF DE GALVEZ," (Rubrica.) 
 
 Just as active was he in getting off the land expedition. The chief command 
 was given to Don Gaspar de Portala, captain of dragoons, and then governor of 
 Lower California ; the second rank to Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada, captain 
 of a company of foot soldiers who carried leathern bucklers. And in imitation 
 of Jacob, Galvez, in view of the dangers of the route through savages and an 
 unknown country, divided the force into two parts, to save one if the other was 
 lost. Rivera was to lead the first and the governor to follow after. Rivera sets 
 out towards the north as early as September, 1768, collecting mules and mule- 
 teers, horses, dried meat, grain, flour, biscuits, &c , among the missions; en- 
 camps on the verge of the unexplored regions, and sends word to the visitor 
 general that he will be ready to start for San Diego in all of March. Father 
 Juan Crespi there joins him, and on the 24th day of March, which was Good 
 Friday, he begins the journey. This party consisted of the Captain Rivera, 
 Father Crespi, a pilot who went to keep a diary, twenty-five foot soldiers with 
 leathern bucklers, three muleteers, and a band of Christian Indians of Lower 
 California, to serve as pioneers, assistants to the muleteers, and for anything else 
 that might be necessary, and who carried bows and arrows. They spent fifty- 
 two days in the journey, and on the 14th day of May arrived, without accident, 
 at San Diego. Father Junipero Serra, president of the missions of Lower Cal- 
 ifornia, and of those that were to be founded, marched with Portala. The sea- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 279 
 
 son of lent, the dispositions to be made for the regulation of the missions during 
 his absence, and the preparations for the expedition in its spiritual part, detained 
 him, so that it was May before he joined Portalaat the same encampment from 
 which Rivera had set out. The reverend father president came up in very bad 
 condition. He was travelling with an escort of two soldiers, and hardly able 
 to get on or off his mule. His foot and leg were greatly inflamed, and the more 
 that he always wore sandals, and never used boots, shoes, or stockings. His 
 priests and the governor tried to dissuade him from the undertaking, but he said 
 he would rather die on the road, yet he had faith that the Lord would carry 
 him safely through. A letter was even sent to Gralvez, but he was a kindred 
 spirit, and agreed with Father Junipero, who, however, was far into the wilder- 
 ness before the answer was received. On the second day out, his pain was so 
 great that he could neither sit nor stand, nor sleep, and Portala, being still 
 unable to induce him to return, gave orders for a litter to be made. Hearing this, 
 Father Junipero was greatly distressed on the score of the Indians, who would 
 have to carry him. He prayed fervently, and then a happy thought occurred 
 to him. He called one of the muleteers and addressed him, so runs the story, 
 in these words : " Son, don't you know some remedy for the sore on my foot 
 and leg ? " But the muleteer answered, " Father, what remedy can I know ? 
 Am I a surgeon ? I am a muleteeer, and have only cured the sore backs of 
 beasts." " Then consider me a beast," said the father, " and this sore which 
 has produced this swelling of my legs, and the grievous pains I am suffering, 
 and that neither let me stand nor sleep, to be a sore back, and give me the same 
 treatment you would apply to a beast." The muleteer, smiling, as did all the 
 rest who heard him, answered, " I will, father, to please you ; " and taking a 
 small piece of tallow, mashed it between two stones, mixing with it herbs, 
 which he found growing close by, and having heated it over the fire, annointed 
 the foot and leg, leaving a plaster of it on the sore. God wrought in such a 
 manner for so wrote Father Junipero himself from San Diego that he slept 
 all that night until daybreak, and awoke so much relieved from his pains that 
 he got up and said matins and prime, and afterwards Mass, as if he had never 
 suffered such an accident ; and to the astonishment of the governor and the 
 troop at seeing the father in such health and spirits for the journey, which was 
 not delayed a moment on his account. Such a man was Father Junipero Serra ; 
 and so he journeyed when he went to conquer California. On the first of July, 
 1769, they reached San Diego, all well, in forty-six days after leaving the 
 frontier. When they came in sight of the port the troops began firing for joy ; 
 those already there replied in the same manner. The vessels at anchor joined 
 in the salute, and so they kept up the firing, until, all having arrived, they fell 
 to embracing one another, and to mutual congratulations at finding all the ex- 
 peditions united and already at their longed-for destination. Here, then, we 
 have the officers and priests, soldiers and sailors, and laborers, mules, oxen and 
 cows, seeds, tools, implements of husbandry, and vases, ornaments, and utensils 
 for the church, gotten together to begin the work of settlement, conversion, and 
 civilization on the soil of California. The first day of July, ninety-one years 
 ago, is the first day of California. The year 1769 is our era. The obscure 
 events that I have noticed must yet by us be classed among its greatest occur- 
 rences, although it saw the birth of Napoleon and Wellington. 
 
 The number of souls then at San Diego should have been about two hundred 
 and fifty, but the San Carlos had had a very hard time at sea, not reaching 
 San Diego (which place she found with difficulty) until twenty days after the 
 arrival of the San Antonio, which sailed five weeks later. She had, of the 
 crew, but one sailor and the cook left alive ; all the rest had died of scurvy. 
 The first thin to be done was to found a mission and to look for Monterey, 
 which from Vizcayno's time had been lost to the world. For founding a mis- 
 sion this was the proceeding : 
 
280 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES, 
 
 Formal possession of the designated spot was taken in the name of Spain. 
 A tent or arbor, or whatever construction was most practicable, was erected to 
 serve as a temporary church, and adorned as well as circumstances would per- 
 mit ; a father in his robes blessed the place and the chapel, sprinkling them 
 with water, which also he had first blessed for the occasion, and immediately 
 the holy cross, having first been adored by all, was mounted on a staff and 
 planted in front of the chapel. A saint was named as a patron of the mission, 
 and a father appointed as its minister. Mass was said and a fervent discourse 
 concerning the coming of the Holy Ghost delivered. That service, celebrated 
 with such candles or other lights as they might have, being over, the Veni 
 Creator Spiritus an invocation to the Holy Ghost was sung, whilst the con- 
 tinual firing of the soldiers during the ceremony supplied the place of an organ, 
 and the smoke of the gunpowder that of incense, if it was wanting. 
 
 The mission being founded, the next thing was to attract the Indians. This 
 was done in the simplest manner, by presents of food and cloth to the older ones, 
 and bits of sugar to the young ones. When they had learned enough of their 
 language to communicate with them, they taught them the mysteries of the faith, 
 and when they were able to say a few prayers and make in some sort a confes- 
 sion of faith, they were baptised and received into the fold of the Church. At 
 the same time they were drawn from a wandering life, collected in villages around 
 the mission Church, and instructed in the habits and arts of civilized life. To 
 keep them in the practice of their lessons, spiritual and secular, the father in 
 charge of the mission had over them the control of a master, and for them the 
 affection of a parent, and was supported in his authority by the soldiers at the 
 presidios, or an escort stationed at the mission itself. 
 
 This was the mode of accomplishing what Galvez in his instructions declared 
 to be the first object of the enterprise. And in this manner Father Junipero 
 begun the work at San Diego on the 16th day of July. An untoward incident 
 of a very unusual nature in California attended this first essay. The Indians, 
 not being permitted to steal all the cloth they coveted, surprised the mission 
 when only four soldiers, the carpenter, and blacksmith were present, and Father 
 Junipero would have been murdered then at the outset, but for the muskets, 
 leathern jackets, and bucklers, and mainly the valor of the blacksmith. This 
 man had just come from the communion, to which circumstance the fathers at- 
 tributed his heroism, and although he wore no defensive armor of skins, he 
 rushed out shouting vivas for the faith of Jesus Christ and death to the dogs, 
 its enemies, at the same time firing away at the savages. 
 
 On the 14th day of July the Governor Portala and a servant ; Father Juan 
 Crespi and Francisco Gomez ; Captain Fernando Rivera y Moncada, the second 
 in command, with a sergeant and twenty-six soldiers of the leathern jackets ; 
 Lieutenant Pedro Fages and seven of his soldiers the rest had died on the San 
 Carlos or were left sick at San Diego ; Don Miguel Constauzo, the engineer ; 
 seven muleteers, and fifteen Christian Indians, sixty five persons in all, with a 
 pack train carrying a large supply of provisions, set out to rediscover Monterey. 
 The mortality on board the San Carlos prevented any attempt at that time by 
 sea ; that vessel having to be laid up at San Diego, whilst all the efficient men 
 were transferred to the San Antonio, which was sent back with the news and 
 for reinforcements, and lost nine men before reaching San Bias, although she 
 made the voyage in twenty days. Such was navigation on this coast at that 
 time. Portala returned to San Diego on the 24th of June, six months and ten 
 days after his departure. He had been at the port of Monterey, stopped there 
 and set up a cross without recognizing the place. Father Crespi, who kept the 
 diary, said he supposed the bay had been filled up, as they found a great many 
 large sand-hills. This disappointment caused Portala to keep on further towards 
 the north, and at forty leagues distant in that direction they discovered the port 
 of San Francisco, which they recognized at once by the description they had of 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 281 
 
 it. The fathers considered this circumstance as providential. They remem- 
 bered that when Galvez was instructing Father Juuiperoby what names to call 
 the three missions he was to found, the father had asked him : "But, sir, is there 
 to be no mission for our father, St. Francis?" and that the visitor general had 
 replied : "If St. Francis wants a mission, let him show us his port, and we will 
 put one there." And in view of the discovery, they thought that it was now 
 clear that St. Francis did want a mission, and had concealed Monterey from 
 them purposely that they might go and find his port ; and Galvez to some extent 
 may have been of the same opinion, as they say, for he ordered a mission to be 
 founded there, and a presidio also, as soon as he received the news. However 
 this may be, a question of more historical interest, or curiosity, at least, is whether, 
 notwithstanding that Portala kneiv the port from description as soon as he saw- 
 it, any other white man had ever seen it before. His latest guide was the voy- 
 age of Vizcayno, who had entered the port of San Francisco on the 12th of 
 January 1603, and anchored under a point of land called Punta de Los Reyes, 
 namely, in the bight outside the heads and north of Point Bonita. 
 
 In the port of San Francisco, as known to Vizcayno, the Manilla galleon San 
 Augustine had been wrecked a few years before. Did a galleon ever enter our 
 bay ? Vizcayno was searching for a port to shelter the Manilla trade ; if he had 
 seen our harbor would he have ever thought of recommending Monterey 1 He 
 was doubtless following the pilot who gave the information of the loss of the 
 San Augustine ; if that pilot had seen this port would not the specific object of 
 Vizcayno have been to find it again, and not generally to explore the coast to 
 look for a good harbor? Had anything been known of it, would it not have 
 been mentioned by Galvez in his first instructions to Villa, in which he is so 
 earnest on the subject of Monterey? Would he have waited for this news to 
 have given the urgent orders that he did, that this important place should be 
 taken possession of immediately, for fear that it might fall into the hands of 
 foreigners ? It seems to me certain that Portala was the discoverer. And I 
 regard it as one of the most remarkable facts in history, that others had passed 
 it, anchored near it and actually given its name to adjacent roadsteads, and so 
 described its position that it was immediately known ; and yet that the cloud 
 had never been lifted which concealed the entrance of the bay of San Francisco, 
 and that it was at last discovered by land. 
 
 Although Portala reported that he could not find the port of Monterey, it was 
 suspected at the time that he had been there. Father Junipero writes that such 
 was his opinion and that of Don Vicente Villa, of the San Carlos. In the same 
 letter he mentions another matter, and one which disturbed him greatly. The 
 Governor Portala, finding his provisions very short, determined if a vessel did 
 not arrive with relief, to abandon the mission on the 20th of March. 
 
 But California was saved at the last moment. The San Antonio came in on 
 the 19th and brought such a quantity of provisions that Portala set out again 
 by land, and Father Junipero himself embarked on the San Antonio, which 
 had proved herself a good sailer and well commanded, and anchored in the bay 
 of Monterey, namely, on the 31st day of May, 1770, and found that the expe- 
 dition by land had arrived eight days before ; and we thus see that the journey 
 from San Diego at that time was made quicker by land than by water. Father 
 Juuipero writes that he found the lovely port of Monterey the same and un- 
 changed in substance and in circumstance as the expedition of Sebastian Viz- 
 cayno left it in 1S03 ; and that all the officers of sea and land, and all then- 
 people assembled in the same glen and under the same oak where the Fathers 
 of Vizcayno's expedition had worshipped, and there arranged their altar, hung 
 up and rung their bells, sung the Vcni Creator, blessed the holy water, set 
 up and blessed the cross and the royal standards, concluding with a Te Deum. 
 And there flie name of Christ was again spoken for the first time after an 
 interval of more than one hundred and sixty-seven years of silence. After 
 
282 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 the religious ceremonies were over, the officers went through the act of taking 
 possession of the country " in the name of our lord the King." 
 
 When this news was received at the city of Mexico it created a profound 
 impression. At the request of the Viceroy the bells of the cathedral were rung, 
 and those of all the other churches answered ; people ran about the streets to 
 tell one another the story, and all the distinguished persons at the capital waited 
 upon the Viceroy, who, in company with Gralvez, received their congratulations 
 at the palace ; and that not only the inhabitants of the city of Mexico, but also 
 those of all New Spain might participate in the general joy, the Viceroy caused 
 a narrative of the great achievement to be printed ; and which, indeed, was cir- 
 culated throughout old as well as New Spain. It commences by referring to 
 the costly and repeated expeditions which were made by the Crown of Spain 
 during the two preceding centuries to explore the western coast of California 
 and to occupy the important port of Monterey, which now, it says, has been 
 most happily accomplished; and it is jubilant throughout. Nothing of this sort 
 occurred when they heard a short time before of the discovery of the Bay of 
 San Francisco ; and in this authoritative relation it is not even mentioned. 
 
 Governor Portala, with the engineer Constanzo, very soon returned to Mexico 
 in the good ship San Antonio, and carried themselves the tidings of their suc- 
 cess. We may imagine what a description they gave when we remember that 
 they left San Diego about the middle of April, and that" at that season 
 the country through which they passed to Monterey -was mottled all over 
 with the brightest and most varied colors. They were the first to behold 
 a California spring in all its boundless profusion of flowers. When they 
 were gone there remained only Father Junipero Serra and five priests, 
 and the Lieutenant Pedro Fages and thirty soldiers in all California ; for the 
 captain, Rivera y Moncada, with nineteen soldiers, the muleteers and vaqueros, 
 was at this time absent too, in Lower California, whither he had gone to bring 
 up a band of two hundred cattle and provisions. It is impossible to imagine 
 anything more lonely and secluded than their situation here, at the time the 
 bells were ringing so joyfully in Mexico on their account. Very soon, how- 
 ever, they began to get on good terms with the Indians, for Father Junipero 
 wa3 not a man to lose any time in beginning his work. And when they came 
 to understand one another, the Indians there, under the pines, told them awful 
 tales about the cross which Portala had set up the year before when he stopped 
 at Monterey without knowing the place ; how when they first saw the whites 
 they noticed that each one carried a shining cross upon his breast ; and how 
 they were so terrified when they found the whites had gone and had left that 
 large one standing on the shore that at first they dared not approach it ; that at 
 night it shone with dazzling splendor, and would rise and grow until it seemed 
 to reach the skies ; and how, seeing nothing of this sort about it in the day 
 time, and that it was only of its proper size, they had at last taken courage and 
 gone up to it, and to make friends with it, had stuck arrows and feathers around 
 it in the earth, and had hung strings of sardines on its arms, as the Spaniards 
 had found on their return. For the truth of this story the prudent father 
 would not vouch, but they were still willing to regard it as an omen, and to 
 attribute to it their easy success in converting the natives of those parts, as 
 Father Junipero wrote to the Viceroy for his edification and encouragement. 
 Father Junipero soon removed his mission from Monterey to a more suitable 
 place close by, on the river Carmelo. This was his own mission, where he 
 always resided when not engaged in founding or visiting other missions, or in 
 some other duty appertaining to his office of president of the missions of Upper 
 California. This high office he held for the first fifteen years of the history of 
 California, and until his death, which occurred at his mission of Carmel on the 
 28th of August, 1784. His activity and zeal in the conversion and civilization 
 of savages are really wonderful, and scarcely intelligible to us. The sight of 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 283 
 
 a band of Indians filled him with as much delight as at this day a man feels 
 at the prospect of making a fortune. He regarded them as so many souls that 
 he was to save ; and the baptism of an Indian baby filled him with transport. 
 With what sort of a spirit he worked for these creatures you see pleasantly 
 exhibited in the foundation of the mission of San Antonio de Padua, some 
 twenty or thirty leagues below Monterey. With an escort, a couple of priests, 
 and a pack train carrying all the necessary articles for a new church, he goes 
 off into the mountains, examines all the hollows, and selects a beautiful little 
 plain, through which flowed a small river. Here he orders the mules to be 
 unpacked, and the bells to be hung upon a tree, and as soon as that is done 
 he seizes the rope and begins to ring, crying out at the same time at the top of 
 his voice, "Hear ! hear! oh ye gentiles! Come to the holy church ! Come 
 to the faith of Jesus Christ!" Father Pe'yras, who was with him, remon- 
 strates, "What do you stop for? Is not this the place for the church, and are 
 there no gentiles in the neighborhood?" " Let me alone," says Father Juni- 
 pero; "Let me unburthen my heart, which could wish this bell should be 
 heard by all the world, or at least by all the gentiles in these mountains" and 
 so he rang away there in the wilderness. 
 
 The missions of San Francisco and Santa Clara were not founded for several 
 years after the occupation of Monterey. The wants of the new missions of 
 his jurisdiction induced the Reverend Father President Junipero to take a 
 journey to Mexico to see the Viceroy in person, and although he succeeded to 
 his satisfaction in other things, it was only after much entreaty that he obtained 
 a promise that these two missions should be established after communication 
 was opened by land. This was done by Captain Juan Bautista Ariza, in 1773, 
 whilst Father Junipero was absent on his visit to Mexico. [NoTE. A grand- 
 daughter of Captain Juan Bautista Anza is now living in this city. She is the 
 wife of Don Manuel Ainsa, and the mother of a large family of great- 
 grandchildren of the first pioneer who came to Upper California, direct 
 from Mexico by land.] He made his report to the Viceroy in 1774, and cartie 
 back again with a considerable number of soldiers and families in 1776. In the 
 mean time, in anticipation of his arrival, the San Carlos was sent up to examine 
 the port of San Francisco, and ascertain whether it could be really entered by 
 a channel or mouth which had been seen from the land. This great problem 
 was satisfactorily solved by the San Carlos, a ship of perhaps some two hun- 
 dred tons burden at the very utmost, in the month of June, 1775. When she 
 entered they reported that they found a land-locked sea, with two arms, one 
 making into the interior about fifteen leagues to the southeast, another three, 
 four", or may be five leagues to the north, where there was a large bay, about 
 ten leagues across and of a round figure, into which emptied the great river of 
 our father, St. Francis, which was fed by five other rivers, all of them copious 
 streams, flowing through a plain so wide that it was bounded only by the hori- 
 zon, and meeting to form the said great river ; and all this immensity of water 
 discharging itself through the said channel or mouth into the Pacific ocean, 
 which is there called the Gulf of the Farallones. This very striking descrip- 
 tion was accurate enough for the purposes of that day ; and as soon as Anza 
 and his people had arrived, and Anza in person had gone up and selected the 
 sites, a party was sent by land and another by sea to establish the presidio and 
 mission of San Francisco. The date of the foundation of the presidio is the 
 17th of September, and of the mission the 9th of October, 1776. The historian 
 mentions in connection with these proceedings some things which may claim a 
 moment's attention. In the Valley of San Jose, the party coming up by land 
 saw some animals which they took for cattle, though they could not imagine 
 where they came from; and, supposing they were wild and would scatter the 
 tame ones they were driving, the soldiers made after them and succeeded in 
 killing three, which were so large that a mule could with difficulty carry one, 
 
284 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES. 
 
 being of the size of an ox, and with horns like those of a deer, but so long that 
 their tips were eight feet apart. This was their first view of the elk. The 
 soldiers made the observation that they could not run against the wind by reason 
 of these monstrous antlers. And after the presidio, and before the mission was 
 established, an exploration of the interior was organized, as usual, by sea and 
 land. Point San Pablo was given as the rendezvous ; but the captain of the 
 presidio, who undertook in person to lead the land party, failed to appear there, 
 having, with the design to shorten the distance, entered a Canada somewhere 
 near the head of the bay, which took him over to the San Joaquin river ; so he 
 discovered that stream. 
 
 Then there are some traits of the first inhabitants of this place, the primitive 
 San Franciscans. They lived upon muscles and acorns, blackberries, straw- 
 berries, and fish, and delighted above all things in the blubber of whales, when 
 one was stranded on the coast. They wore no clothes at all, at least the men, 
 and the women very little; but they were not ashamed. They found it cold 
 all the year round, as did the fathers who first took charge of the mission, and 
 to protect themselves, were in the habit of plastering their bodies with mud. They 
 said it kept them warm. Their marriages were very informal, the ceremony consist- 
 ing in the consent alone of the parties; and their law of divorce was equally simple, 
 for they separated as soon as they quarrelled, and joined themselves to another, 
 the children usually folio wing the mother. They had no other expression to signify 
 that the marriage was dissolved than to say, "I have thrown her away," 
 or "I have thrown him away." And in some of their customs they seemed to 
 have been Mormons. In their marriages affinity was not regarded as an objec- 
 tion, but rather an inducement. They preferred to marry their sisters-in-law, 
 and even their mothers-in-law; and the rule was, if a man married a woman, he 
 also married all her sisters, having many wives who lived together, without 
 jealousy, in the same house, and treated each other's children with the same love as 
 their own. Father Junipero's death closes the first period of our history. It is a 
 period marked by exploits. They are those of humble and devoted, yet heroic 
 missionaries. The story is diversified with only such simple incidents as that, in the 
 summer of 1772, the commander, Pedro Fages, had to go out and kill bears for 
 provisions to subsist on, which formidable game he found in abundance some- 
 where near San Luis Obispo, in a Canada that still justly bears the name of 
 Canada de los Osos : and that in 1780 the frost killed the growing grain at 
 Easter. And only one instance of bloodshed attended the happy course of the 
 spiritual conquest. The vicious Indians of San Diego, on a second attempt, 
 murdered one of the fathers and two or three other persons, and burned the 
 mission, which some little time afterwards was re-established. We are told 
 that they were prompted to this deed by the enemy of souls, who was very 
 much incensed at finding his party falling into a minority by reason of the con- 
 stant conversions of the heathen in that neighborhood. All the seeds that 
 Galvez was so provident in sending up took root and prospered beyond the 
 most sanguine expectations which he could have entertained when he predicted 
 that the soil would prove as fertile as that of old Spain ; and the cattle in- 
 creased and multiplied with an increase without a parallel, so that in short time 
 his purpose, that there should be no lack of something to eat in this country, 
 was fully accomplished. 
 
 Our historian is the friar, Father Francisco Palou, one of the followers of 
 Father Junipero, whose life, like a devout disciple, he wrote here at the mission 
 of San Francisco. He was the first priest who had charge of this mission, and 
 his book was written here in 1785. It was printed in the city of Mexico in 
 1787. It is the first, undoubtedly, out not the worst book written in California. 
 Copies of the original edition may be found in some private libraries of this 
 city, bound in sheepskin, clasped with loops and buttons of the same, and with 
 a long list of errata at the end. This volume is of itself an object of interest. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 285 
 
 To the work there is a preface which bespeaks the indulgence of the reader, 
 because it was written among "barbarous gentiles, in the port of San Fran- 
 cisco, in his new mission, the most northern of New California, without books 
 or men of learning to consult." There are also the reports of several censors, 
 and both a civil and ecclesiastical license to print it, and likewise a protest, of 
 which ihe writer is entitled to the benefit at this day. He declares, in obe- 
 dience to the Church, the Inquisition, and the Pope, that he intends and de- 
 sires that no more faith should be given to his performance than to a mere 
 human history, and that the epithets he gives Father Junipero, and the title of 
 martyrs which he bestowed on some of the other missionaries, are to be under- 
 stood as mere human honors, and such as are permitted by a prudent discretion 
 and a devout faith. The narrative is clear and circumstantial, well supported 
 by public and private writings, and obviously true. The miraculous is always 
 introduced as hearsay, and, whilst it does not impeach the veracity of the writer, 
 serves still further to illustrate the times by showing us the simple credulity of 
 the class to which he belonged the founders and first settlers of California. 
 With the book there is a map. It exhibits the coast of Upper California from 
 San Diego to San Francisco. The only objects visible on it are nine missions 
 and a dotted line, to show the road that the fathers travelled from one to the 
 other, viz : San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel, San Buenaventura, 
 San Luis, (Obispo,) San Antonio, San Carlos de Monterey, Santa Clara, San 
 Francisco, and three presidios, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Diego, all 
 lying near the coast, and back all a blank. Looking upon this old map, we re- 
 alize that California was designed for the Indians. They were to be its people 
 after they were converted and instructed as others had been in Mexico. The 
 missions were to be the towns. The presidios were to protect the missions within, 
 and defend the country from enemies without. Only enough settlers were to 
 be introduced to relieve the government from some part of the burden of sup- 
 plying the presidios with recruits and* provisions from Mexico. For this pur- 
 pose, pueblos San Jose de Guadalupe and Los Angeles, one in the north and the 
 other in the south, were established, both in the time of Father Junipero Serra. 
 A small tract of land was given to these villages for their use collectively, and 
 smaller parcels to each inhabitant as his private property. Neither of these 
 pueblos appear on this old map, of such little consequence were they regarded. 
 Father Palou, in relating the rejoicings at Mexico in consequence of the discov- 
 ery of Monterey, says : ' The said extent of three hundred leagues in length" 
 an accurate measurement of the new dominions of the king in Upper Cal- 
 ifornia "is of fertile lands, peopled with an immensity of gentiles, from whose 
 docile and peaceable dispositions it was hoped they would be immediately con- 
 verted to our holy faith, and gathered in Catholic pueblos, (villages,) that thus 
 living in subjection to the royal crown they might secure the coasts of this 
 Southern or l D acific ocean." The first grant of land made in California was a 
 tract of one hundred and forty varas square, at the mission of San Carlos, 
 November 27, 1775, to one Manuel Butron, a soldier, in consideration that he 
 had married Margarita, a daughter of that mission. Father Junipero recom- 
 mends this family, to wit, the soldier and the native Indian woman, to the 
 government, and all the other ministers of the king, " as being the first in all 
 these establishments which have chosen to become permanent settlers of the 
 same." The Indian appears in everything. 
 
 In tranquillity this California of the Indians remained for more than fifty 
 years. The fathers built new missions, and continually replenished their stock 
 of converts, which at one time amounted to at least twenty thousand. They 
 planted vineyards, orchards, and the olive. They taught the Indians, to some 
 extent, agriculture and the mechanic arts. They made flour, and wine, and 
 cloth, and soap, and leather, adobes and tiles, and with their villages of disciples 
 about them, lived at ease as well as in peace. There was but one obstacle in 
 
286 - EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 their way. A great law of nature rose up to oppose them. The Indian of 
 California was not equal to those of Mexico. He was but a brute. The time 
 never came when he could be enfranchised and trusted to himself, and con- 
 verted into a Spanish subject as so many races had been further south. The 
 fathers must continue to hold their converts in subjection, or they would return 
 to the heathen state, or even worse would befall them. If the world could have 
 afforded to devote a paradise to such a purpose, and for the Indian, certainly it 
 would have been well if the missions could have lasted forever. I will endeavor 
 to present some of the features and some of the events of this Indian period, as 
 briefly as possible. And here, for whatever of interest I may be able to awaken 
 in the subject, I shall be indebted to Mr. R. C. Hopkins, the accomplished and 
 learned gentleman who has charge of the Spanish archives in the surveyor 
 general's office. 
 
 An American audience will of course desire to know something of the form 
 of the political government. Constitution or charter there was none. The 
 government was purely military, outside of the missions. All functions, civil 
 and military, judicial and economical, were united in the person of the com- 
 mandante of a presidio, in due subjection to his superior, and so on up to the 
 king, an autocrat, whose person was represented and whose will was executed 
 in every part of his dominions. In the archives is to be found a reglamento, 
 which, as the name imports, is a set of regulations for the peninsula of the 
 Californias, Lower and Upper. Its caption expresses that it is for the govern- 
 ment of the presidios, the promotion of the erection of new missions, and of the 
 population and extension of the establishments of Monterey. It was drafted 
 at Monterey by the governor, in 1779, sent to Madrid, and approved by the 
 king in 1781. When examined, it is found to adopt the royal reglamento for 
 the government of all the presidios, with such small variations as the circum- 
 stances of California required. There are minute provisions for paying, cloth- 
 ing, and feeding the officers and troops, and for supporting the families of the 
 troops, and other persons dependent on the presidios. The number of pack 
 mules to be kept at the presidios, and how the horses are to be pastured, and 
 that four are always to be kept in the presidio ready saddled by day, and 
 eight by night, is prescribed. Another pueblo was to be founded, as was done, 
 namely, Los Angeles. The pueblo of San Jose had already been founded, two 
 years before. The intent of these pueblos is declared to be to fulfil the pious 
 designs of the King for converting the gentiles, and to secure his dominions. 
 At that date, says the reglamento, the country was filled, from San Diego to 
 Monterey, with an immense number of gentiles, and only one thousand seven 
 hundred and forty -nine Christians, of both sexes, in the eight 'missions, strung 
 along through all that distance. The manner in which pueblos are to be 
 founded is given ; each settler to have his building lot and sowing field of 
 two hundred varas square, that being supposed to be enough to sow 
 two bushels of grain ; and the whole together to have commons for waod, 
 water, and pasturage; also a certain number of horses, mules, oxen, cows, 
 sheep, chickens, ploughs, hoes, axes, &c., are to be furnished to each ; and the 
 amount of pay for a settler had his salary for a little while as well as his 
 outfit his exemptions, and his obligations, are all minutely detailed. Of the 
 first we observe, that for the first five years he is to be free from the payment of 
 tithes ; of the latter, that all the excess of his productions beyond his support 
 he must sell at a fixed price to the presidios, and that he must keep a horse and 
 saddle, carbine and lance, and hold himself in readiness for the service of the 
 king. Also, we note that the building lot is a homestead, and cannot be alien- 
 ated or mortgaged, and descends to the son or (in default of a son, I suppose) 
 to the daughter, provided she is married to a settler who is without a lot of his 
 own ; and that after the first five years are past, each settler and his descendants 
 must, in recognition of the absolute property of the King, pay a rent of one-half 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 287 
 
 fanega of corn for his sowing lot. The only trace of a political right that we 
 find in the reglamento is the allowance to the pueblos of alcaldes, and other 
 municipal officers, to be appointed by the governor for the first two years, and 
 afterwards to be elected by the inhabitants. These officers were to see to the 
 good government and police of the pueblos and the administration of justice, to 
 direct the public works, apportion to each man his share of the water for irriga- 
 tion, and generally to enforce the provisions of the reglamento. This, perhaps, 
 was as much as they ought. to have had, for we see in the proceedings on the 
 foundation of San Jose, that neither the alcalde nor any one of the eight other set- 
 tlers could sign his name. As a check upon the abuse of their privileges the 
 elections were subject to the approval of the governor, who had also the power 
 to continue to appoint the officers for three years longer, if he found it necessary. 
 
 At first California formed a part of the kingdom of New Spain, and was gov- 
 erned directly by the Viceroy of Mexico. In 1776 it was attached to the com- 
 mandancia general of the internal provinces, which included also Sonora, New 
 Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Texas. Afterwards it was a part of the 
 commandancia general of the internal provinces of the west, when Coahuila and 
 Texas, New Leon and the Colony of New Santander had been erected into 
 another jurisdiction, under the title of the internal provinces of the east. The 
 commandante general seems to have had no fixed residence, but to have gone 
 from place to place, wherever his presence might be wanted, and so his orders 
 are sometimes dated from Arispe and sometimes from Chihuahua, both of which 
 now obscure places may be said in their time to have been the capital of Cali- 
 fornia. The Apache and Comanche Indian has watered his horse in their plazas 
 since then. This arrangement did not last many years, and California reverted 
 to the Viceroy again. Laws came from the King, in his council of the Indies, 
 at Madrid, as orders are issued by the commander-in-chief of an army; to the 
 second in command, to wit, the Viceroy at Mexico, from him to his next in rank, 
 we will say the commandante general at Arispe or Chihuahua, from him to the 
 governor of California at Monterey, and from him to the captain or lieutenant 
 in command of a presidio. They took effect only as they were published, 
 spreading as the courier advanced, and from place to place in succession, like a 
 wave, from centre to circumference. They came slowly, but in time every order 
 of a general nature would find its way into the archives of every province, 
 presidio, or pueblo in North and South America, and of every island of the ocean 
 which owned the dominion of the King of Spain. The archives of this State 
 contain a great many, and their counterparts are to be looked for in every public 
 office, from Havana to Manilla, and from Chihuahua to Valparaiso. When wars, 
 or the accidents of navigation, or the urgency of the case, interrupted or ren- 
 dered impossible communication with Madrid, each viceregent of the King in 
 his department exercised the royal authority. Therefore, in the nature of things, 
 the powers of every governor in his province were practically despotic. And 
 not only the laws, but every other expression of the wishes of the King were 
 transmitted in the same way, travelled through the same circuitous channels, and 
 were received, and published, and executed with the same dignity and formality. 
 Here is an example from the archives : 
 
 The King heard that the neighborhood of the presidio of San Francisco 
 abounded with deer of a very superior quality, and desiring to have some for 
 his park, issued an order to the viceroy of Mexico, who in his turn ordered the 
 commandante general of the internal provinces of the west, who despatched an 
 order to the governor of the province of California, who ordered the captain of 
 the presidio of San Francisco, who finally ordered a soldier to go out and catch 
 the deer, two years after the order was given by the King at Madrid. Allow- 
 ing a reasonable time for the hunt, and for sending the animals to Spain, it will 
 be seen that the King had to wait some time for the gratification of his royal 
 wishes. 
 
288 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Another instance, and the more striking, as the subject-matter belongs to the 
 latitude of the equator, and as it serves to illustrate that the arbitrary govern- 
 ment of his Catholic Majesty was paternal and thoughtful as well, I give a 
 translation of the original, complete : 
 
 Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola, commandante general of the internal provinces, 
 writes to Pedro Fages, governor of California, as follows : 
 
 " ARISPE, April 22, 1787. 
 
 " On the 20th of November last past, his excellency the marquis of Sonora, 
 (Viceroy of Mexico,) was pleased to communicate to me the following royal 
 order : 
 
 " The archbishop, Viceroy of Santa Fe, (in South America,) on the 2d of 
 July last, gave me an account of a remedy happily discovered by his confessor, 
 against the ravages of the jigger (nigua) in the hot countries of America, which 
 consists in annointing the parts affected by the jiggers with cold olive oil, which 
 causes them to die, and the sacs containing them can be easily extracted 
 which the King desires should be published as a bando (proclamation) in the 
 district under your government, in order that it may reach the notice of all ; 
 and you shall take care that all those who are afflicted with said insect shall 
 use said remedy, which is as effectual as it is simple.' 
 
 " And I insert the same to you in order that you may cause it to be pub- 
 lished. May God preserve your life many years. 
 
 "JACOBO UGARTE Y LOYOLA." 
 
 And so this valuable specific was made known by a public crier and with a 
 roll of drums, all the world over, even here in California, where the troublesome 
 insect is fortunately unknown. 
 
 The couriers, who were the overland mail of that day, on leaving, for in- 
 stance, Monterey, received a certificate from the commandante of the presidio 
 that he started at a certain hour ; on his arrival at the next stopping place he 
 presented his certificate to the officer in command of the place, who noted the 
 hour of his arrival and departure, and so on at all the stopping places between 
 Monterey and La Paz, in Lower California; so that if the mail carrier loitered 
 on the way his way-bill would show it. Such way-bills from Monterey to La 
 Paz, with all these memoranda on them, may be found in the archives. It was 
 the unfortunate mail rider, and not the government, that people were in the 
 habit of blaming in those days. These way-bills show that he made the dis- 
 tance from San Francisco to San Diego in five days. Quiet old days ! But 
 little of a public sort was doing then in California. There was a dispute that 
 amounted to something like a law suit between the mission of Santa Clara and 
 the pueblo of San Jose. It commenced from the very day of the establishment 
 of the latter. Father Junipero objected to the pueblo being so near the mis- 
 sion, the boundary as at first established running about half way between the 
 two places. The governor was obstinate and Father Junipero desired that his 
 protest might be entered in the proceedings of the foundation, which the gover- 
 nor refused. The controversy by no means died out ; the head of the college 
 of San Fernando at Mexico, to which all the Franciscans of California belonged, 
 brought it before the Viceroy, praying him not to allow the Indians and mis- 
 sionaries to be molested by the pueblo. The governor of California was there- 
 fore ordered to investigate the matter, and seems to have settled it by making 
 the river Guadalupe the boundary from that time forward. Again, one Mariano 
 Castro obtained from the Viceroy permission to settle himself upon a place called 
 La Brea, in the neighborhood of the mission of San Juan Bautista; under this 
 license he applied to the governor to give him the possession of the land, but 
 the priests at San Juan objected strenuously, alleging that the place of La Brea 
 was needed by the mission for its cattle. This was represented by the governor 
 to the viceroy, who, in the end, told Castro to select some other place, and the 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 289 
 
 mission kept La Brea. We see with what jealousy, and how effectively, the 
 fathers vindicated the title of themselves and their Indian pupils to their 
 California. 
 
 For a complete view of the internal constitution of California at that day, 
 two facts, which are exceptional to this ecclesiastical domination, require to be 
 noted. 
 
 In 1791, Pedro Nava, commanclante of the internal provinces of the west, in 
 a decree dated at Chihuahua, gives to the captains commanding presidios, or 
 recognizes as already existing in them, authority to grant building lots to the 
 soldiers and other residents, within the space of four square leagues. I do not 
 know, but presume, that this power was exercised at San Diego, Santa Barbara, 
 and Monterey,, and hence the origin of the towns bearing those names, which, 
 at a later period, come into view as such. At San Francisco, however, there is 
 nothing in the archives, or elsewhere, yet discovered, to show that such a grant 
 was ever made by the captain of the presidio. And in 1795 a commissioner 
 was appointed under the orders .of the viceroy to select a place and establish 
 another town, who reported that " the worst place or situation in California is 
 that of San Francisco for the formation of a villa, as proposed." And therefore 
 the villa of Branciforte, so called in honor of the viceroy, the Marquis of Bran- 
 ciforte, was, by great preference, established near the mission of Santa Cruz. 
 It never attained any consequence, and some adobe ruins may now attest its 
 former existence. 
 
 Suspicion and exclusion were the rule towards foreigners. On the 23d of 
 October, 1776, the viceroy writes to the governor of California: "That the 
 king having received intelligence that two armed vessels had sailed from London, 
 under the command of Captain Cook, bound on a voyage of discovery to the 
 southern^ocean, and the northern coast of California, commands that orders be 
 given to the governor of California to be on the watch for Captain Cook, and 
 not permit him to enter the ports of California." At a later day a better spirit 
 prevailed towards Vancouver, who spent some time in 1793 in the port of 
 Monterey. We have a voluminous correspondence of his with the governor 
 the letters in English, and written with his own hand. He sets forth the har- 
 monious understanding existing between England and his Catholic Majesty of 
 Spain, and their united efforts in the cause of humanity, and asks assistance in 
 arresting some deserters, and obtaining supplies, &c., which he will pay for with 
 bills on London. Instructions had been previously received by the governor to 
 treat Vancouver well. We see in this amiability between old enemies that the 
 great French revolution was making itself felt on this remote coast. And in 
 some of the letters of the fathers, of a little later period, we find Napoleon 
 spoken of as the great "Luzbel," (Lucifer,) for such he appeared to their im- 
 agination in their missions. 
 
 The first mention of an American ship occurs in the following letter from the 
 governor of California to the captain of the presidio of San Francisco : 
 
 " Whenever there may arrive at the port of San Francisco a ship named the 
 Columbia, said to belong to General Washington, of the American States, com- 
 manded by John Rendrick, which sailed from Boston in September, 1787, bound 
 on a voyage of discovery to the Russian establishments on the northern coast 
 of this peninsula, you will cause the said vessel to be examined with caution and 
 delicacy, using for this purpose a small boat which you have in your possession, 
 and taking the same measures with every other suspicious foreign vessel, giving 
 me prompt notice of the same. 
 
 ' May God preserve your life many years. 
 
 "PEDRO FAGES. 
 
 "SANTA BARBARA, May 13, 1789. 
 
 "To JOSEF ARGUELLO." 
 H- Ex. Doc. 29 19 
 
290 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Twenty years before, this same Fages had Bailed on the San Carlos to re- 
 discover and people California. The San Carlos and the Columbia, and Fages 
 the connecting link ! The United States of America and California joined for 
 the first time in a thought ! It is impossible by any commentary to heighten the 
 interest with which we read this document. Its very errors, even to the gover- 
 nor's ignorance of the geography of his own country, are profoundly suggestive. 
 
 The Columbia did not enter the ports of California, but made land further to 
 the north, and discovered the Columbia river. 
 
 Fourteen years later, it would appear that American ships were more fre- 
 quent on this coast. 
 
 On the 26th of August, 1803, Josd Argiiello, comandante of the presidio of 
 San Francisco, writes to governor Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga : 
 
 " That on the first of the present month, at the hour of evening prayers, two 
 American vessels anchored in the port, (San Francisco,) one named the Alex- 
 ander, under the command of Capt. John Brown, and the other named the Aser, 
 under the command of Thomas Raben ; that as soon as they anchored the cap- 
 tain came ashore to ask permission to get supplies of wood and water, when ob- 
 serving that he was the same Brown that was there in the preceding month of 
 March, he refused to give him permission to remain in port ; that on the day 
 following, at six in the morning, he received a letter from the captain, (or super- 
 cargo,) a copy of which he transmits, which is as follows : 
 
 " PORT OF SAN FRANCISCO, August 12, 1803. 
 " To the Senor commandante of the port : 
 
 "Notwithstanding your order for our immediate departure from this port, I am 
 constrained to say that our necessities are such as to render it impossible for us 
 to do so. I would esteem it a great favor if you would come aboard and see for 
 yourself the needy circumstances in which we are placed, for during the whole 
 of the time we have been on the northwest coast we have had no opportunity 
 of supplying ourselves with wood and water, the Indians being so savage that 
 we have not been able to hold any kind of friendly intercourse with them what- 
 ever. 
 
 " We had several fights with them in the straits of Chatham ; the first was 
 in the port of Istiquin, where we were attacked by three hundred canoes, each 
 canoe containing from ten to twenty-three Indians, each one with two or three 
 escopetas and their pistols and spears. Three times in one day they attempted 
 to take the ship, but we defended the same without losing any of our men. 
 
 "From this port we went to the Ensenada of Icana, in said straits, at which 
 place we found about a thousand Indians encamped, many of whom came aboard 
 our vessel for purposes of trade, carrying their arms in one hand and their skins 
 in the other. 
 
 " After we had been four days in this port, all the Indians came aboard, say- 
 ing that they were not afraid of the Americans, since they were but few, while 
 there were many Indians, who had many arms. 
 
 " On the fifth day of our stay in this port, about six o'clock in the evening, 
 three or four canoes came alongside the ship, and, on being ordered to leave, 
 they refused, when our captain seized a gun and fired it in the air, on which 
 the Indians laughed very much, saying he did not know how to shoot, and 
 could not kill ; whereupon the captain seized another gun, fired at and killed 
 the Indian, on which the rest retired to the land, and all of them went to a 
 neighboring island ; and from ten o'clock at night till eight in the morning they 
 made no further demonstrations against us, at which time we made sail, in the 
 mean time striking upon a rock and somewhat injuring our vessel. 
 
 " From this port we went to Juan de Fuca, at which place we learned from 
 the chief, Tatacu, that the chief Quatlazepe had taken the ship Boston ; that 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 291 
 
 when the said vessel had been some four days in port, the Indian chief and the 
 captain of the ship, having some difficulty in relation to trade, the captain of 
 the ship said to the chief that he had traded with many chiefs to the north, and 
 that he knew he did not act like an honorable chief; whereupon the chief Pioe- 
 que replied to the captain that he was a bad man. At this the captain 
 seized a gun and ordered him ashore ; whereupon he went to his rancheria and 
 issued an order for the assembling of all the neighboring Indians, from the 
 straits of Juan de Fuca to the point of Nutka, which were so assembled within 
 three days ; and, after holding a council, they determined to take the Bos- 
 ton, which they affected in the following manner : At seven o'cl6ck in the 
 morning they went aboard and asked permission of the captain to have a 
 dance, as a ceremony of the renewal of the friendship after their recent dispute. 
 To which the captain replied that he was willing that they should do so. Ac- 
 .cordingly, at eight o'clock in the morning, a company of chiefs came and danced 
 on the quarter-deck, having in the mean time ordered their people to arm them- 
 selves with knives, so that while they were dancing they could jump aboard 
 and kill the whole crew, which they did ; for while they were dancing they 
 made presents of otter skins to the captain, and also to the sailors, who in a 
 short time had collected on the quarter-deck, when suddenly the Indians fell 
 upon them in iheir defenceless condition and butchered all save two, who escaped 
 and concealed themselves; the Indians carrying off everything that could be 
 removed during the whole of that day and night, and until twelve o'clock the 
 following day; having in the mean time discovered the two hidden sailors, who, 
 after some cruel treatment, were handed over to the chief, who spared their lives, 
 and they are now at that place. On the following day the ship was beached, 
 and her decks and part of the cargo burnt Quatlazape has made a fortification 
 at the place where the Spaniards were established. 
 
 " This is all the account I am able to give of the matter, and I pray you, in 
 the name of Grod, to come aboard our ship and see the needv circumstances in 
 which we are placed, destitute of wood and water, and our vessel needing repairs. 
 Trusting in your Christian charity, and that of your nation, we hope to be per- 
 mitted to remain in this port the time necessary to obtain supplies and make re- 
 pairs, since otherwise we shall certainly lose our ship. 
 
 " God preserve your life many years. 
 
 "JAMES ROWAN." 
 
 Times have changed, and Yankee captains are not now so meek in the port of 
 San Francisco. We do not know what John Brown had been doing in March, 
 nor can we vouch for the truth of all the particulars of their adventures on the 
 northwest coast, especially not for the number of escopetas and other arms car- 
 ried by each Indian. The loss of the Boston was doubtless communicated to 
 her owners and the public by John Brown and Thomas Rab(v)en on their return 
 to the United States. The guardians of this port do not note now the arrival 
 of foreign ships by the hour of evening prayers. There was a contrast of 
 national habits then between the^shore and the Yankee ships; and the same 
 contrast exists undiminished between the California of 1803 and 1860. From 
 time to time other American vessels, traders to the northwest coast, and whalers, 
 are said to have occasionally entered these waters, but at it was a Spanish colony 
 there could be no American commerce; anditAvas after the independence, there- 
 fore, that the hide trade sprung up. 
 
 With the beginning of the century earthquakes make their appearance for the 
 first time of record in the archives, and with startling effect. I prefer, on this 
 subject, to give the words of the contemporaneous documents : 
 
292 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Account of earthquake at San Juan Bauti.ita, as given in letter of the captain 
 of the Presidio of Monterey, to Governor ArriUaga, on the 3lst of October, 
 1800. 
 
 " MONTEREY, October 31, 1800. 
 
 " I have to inform your excellency that the mission of San Juan Bautista 
 since the llth instant has been visited by severe earthquakes; that Pedro Adri- 
 ano Martinez, one of the fathers of said mission, has informed me that during 
 one day there were six severe shocks; that there is not a single habitation, 
 although built with double walls, that has not been injured from roof to founda- 
 tion, and that all are threatened with ruin ; and that the fathers are compelled 
 to sleep in the wagons to avoid danger since the houses are not habitable. At 
 the place where the rancheria is situated some small openings have been ob- 
 served in the earth, and also in the neighborhood of the river Pajaro there is 
 another deep opening, all resulting from the earthquakes. These phenomena 
 have filled the fathers and the inhabitants of that mission with consternation. 
 
 " The Lieutenant Don Raymundo Carillo has assured me the same, for on the 
 18th he stopped for the night at this mission (San Juan) on his journey from 
 San Jose, and being at supper with one of the fathers, a shock was felt so pow- 
 erful and attended with such a loud noise as to deafen them, when they fled to 
 the court without finishing their supper, and that about eleven o'clock at night 
 the shock was repeated with almost equal strength. 
 
 " The fathers of the mission say that the Indians assure them that there have 
 always been earthquakes at that place, and that there are certain cavities caused 
 by the earthquakes, and thai, salt water has flowed from the same. 
 
 " All of which I communicate to you for your information. 
 
 " May our Lord preserve your life many years. 
 
 "HERMENEGILDO SAL ." 
 
 San Juan Bautista is the mission between the Monterey and San Jose, about 
 twenty miles from the former and forty from the latter. The next mention comes 
 nearer home. 
 
 Account of earthquake at Presidio of San Francisco, given by Louis Arguello, 
 Captain of Presidio, to Governor ArriUaga, on the Yltk oj July, 1808. 
 
 "I have to report to your excellency that since the 2 1st of June last to the 
 present date, twenty-one shocks of earthquakes have been felt in this presidio, 
 some of which have been so severe that all the walls of my house have been 
 cracked, owing to the bad construction of the same, one of the ante-chambers 
 being destroyed ; and if up to this time no greater damage has been done, it has 
 been for the want of materials to destroy, there being no other habitations. The 
 barracks of the Fort of San Joaquin (the name of the fort at the presidio) have 
 been threatened with entire ruin, and I fear if these shocks continue some un- 
 fortunate accident -will happen to the troops at the presidio. 
 
 "God preserve the life of your excellency tnany years. 
 
 "LUIS ARGUELLO. 
 
 " SAN FRANCISCO, July 17, 1808." 
 
 It could not be said now, if such shocks as these were to come again, that the 
 damage was limited by the "want of material to destroy" I acknowledge a 
 preference for one- story houses, and built of wood. 
 
 About this time the Russians were first seen in California. " Von Resanoff, 
 chamberlain of the Emperor of Russia, returning from his embassy to Japan, 
 after having inspected, by order of the court of St. Petersburg, the ports, estab- 
 lishments, and trading-houses that the Imperial Russian-American Fur Com- 
 pany possessed, as well on the side of Asia, at Kamschatka, and in the 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 293 
 
 Aleutian Islands, as on the continent and islands of the northwest coast of Amer- 
 ica, anchored at the port of San Francisco, in the month of May, 1807." So 
 says the French traveller De Mofras, who visited "California in the years 1841 
 and '42." An English traveller, Sir George Simson, governor-in-chief of the 
 Hudson Bay Company's territories, who was here in the same year with De 
 Mofras, thus makes us acquainted with one of the parties to a story of romantic 
 love, the first consequence of the advent of the Russians. 
 
 "After dinner, (at Captain John Wilson's, in Santa Barbara,) we were joined 
 by the remainder of our party, the Cowlitz having by this time come to an an- 
 chor ; and we again sallied forth to see a few more of the lions. Among the 
 persons whom we met this afternoon was a lady of some historical celebrity. 
 Von 'Resanoff, having failed, as elsewhere stated, in his attempt to enter the 
 Columbia in 1806, continued his voyage as far as San Francisco, when, besides 
 purchasing immediate supples for Sitka, he endeavored, in negotiation with the 
 commandante of the district and the governor of the province, to lay the founda- 
 tion of a regular intercourse between Russian America and the California settle- 
 ments. In order to cemenj the national union, he proposed uniting himself with 
 Dona Concepcion Arguello, one of the commandante's daughters, his patriotism 
 clearly being its own reward. If half of Langsdorff's description was correct, 
 'She was lively and animated, had sparkling, love inspiring eyes, beautiful teeth, 
 pleasing and expressive features, a fine form, and a thousand other charms, yet 
 her manners were perfectly simple and artless.' 
 
 "The chancellor, who was himself of the Greek church, regarded the differ- 
 ence of religion with the eyes of a lover and a politician ; but as his imperial 
 master might take a less liberal view of the matter, he posted away to St. Peters- 
 burg, with the intention, if he should there be successful, of subsequently visiting 
 Madrid for the requisite authority to carry his schemes into full effect. But the 
 fates, with a voice more powerful than that of emperors and kings, forbade the 
 bans ; and Von Resanoff died on his road to Europe, at Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, 
 of a fall from his horse. 
 
 " Thus at once bereaved of her lover, and disappointed in the hope of being 
 the pledge of friendship between Russia and Spain, Dofia Concepcion assumed 
 the habit, but not, I believe, the formal vows of a nun, dedicating her life to the 
 instruction of the young and the consolation of the sick. This little romance 
 could not fail to interest us, and notwithstanding the ungracefulness of her con- 
 ventual costume, and the ravages of an interval of time, which had tripled her 
 years, we could still discover in her face and figure, in her manners and conver- 
 sation, the remains of those charms which had won for the youthful beauty, Von 
 Resanoff's enthusiastic love, and Langdorff's equally enthusiastic admiration. 
 Though Dona Concepcion apparently loved to dwell on the story of her blighted 
 affections, yet, strange to say, she knew not, till we mentioned it to her, the im- 
 mediate cause of the chancellor's sudden death. This circumstance might, in 
 some measure, be explained by the fact that Langsdorff 's work was not pub- 
 lished before 1814; but even then, in any other country than California, a lady 
 who was still young would surely have seen a book, which besides detailing the 
 grand incident of her life, presented so gratifying a portrait of her charms." 
 
 How strange, as he justly remarks, that Dona Concepcion had never seen that 
 book, though it had been printed more than twenty five years ! [General Val- 
 lejo, who was on the stand, here informed Mr. R. that this lady had died about 
 eight months ago.J 
 
 The Russians, in 1812, came down from the north and established themselves 
 at the port of Bodega, with one hundred Russians and one hundred Kodiak 
 Indians. It is said that they asked permission of the Spanish authorities before 
 doing so. The archives are full, however, of documents from 1812 up, showing the 
 jealousy and fear with which they were regarded by Spain, and afterwards, by 
 
294 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Mexico. They occupied a strip along the coast from Bodega northwards, and 
 only a few leagues in depth, but without any precisely fixed limits. 
 
 In 1841 this establishment was at its best, consisting of eight hundred Rus- 
 sians, or Russo-Asiatics, with a great number of native Indian tribes around 
 them, working for wages. It was to circumscribe these intruders that the priests 
 crossed over and founded the mission of San Rafael in 1819, and of San Francisco 
 Solano at Sonoma in 1823, and commenced another at Santa Rosa in 1827. 
 The Russians raised some grain aud cattle, and trapped enormously. De Mo- 
 fras, whom I follow, says that the Kodiaks, in their sealskin boats, made 
 bloody warfare upon the seals, beavers, and especially the otters ; that they 
 hunted all the coasts, the adjacent islands, and even the marshes and in- 
 numerable inlets of the Bay of San Francisco ; and that there were weeks 
 when this bay alone produced seven or eight hundred otter skins, which may be 
 true, but seems to me to be a very large number. In 1842 the Russians all left 
 of their own accord, after having held their possessions, in the character of a 
 Russian colony, for thirty years, as completely as they now hold Sitka, and 
 without apparently paying the slightest attention to the priests or the soldiers 
 who crossed over to look after them. At their fort of Ross, situated amid a forest 
 of gigantic pines, a Greek chapel reared its cross and belfries, with a most 
 pleasing effect. The nearest Catholic mission was but a little way off. Rome 
 and Constantinople here met upon this coast, after a course of so many centuries, 
 in opposite directions around the globe. 
 
 While Europe was convulsed, and America shaken, the profoundest quiet 
 prevailed in California. After a long time they would hear of a great battle, or 
 of the rise or fall of an empire, to perturb the souls of priests and other men. 
 But the government had other duties to perform, patriarchal and simple. On 
 the llth of February, 1797, Felipe de Goycochea, captain of the presidio of 
 Santa Barbara, writes to Governor Borica, -as follows : 
 
 " I transmit to you a statement in relation to the schools of the presidio, to- 
 gether with six copy-books of the children, who are learning to write, for your 
 superior information. May our Lord preserve your life many years. 
 
 " Santa Barbara, February 11, 1797. 
 
 "FELIPE GOYCOCHEA." 
 
 These copy-books are now in the archives for inspection. As they are the 
 property of the State, I will give samples, which being translated, read : "The 
 Ishmaelites having arrived;" "Jacob sent to see his brother;" "Abimelech 
 took her from Abraham " Good, pious texts, and written in an old-fashioned 
 round hand. Such was the employment of governors and captains in that 
 stormy time ; and so it continued through all the period of the mighty conflicts 
 of ISapoleon.' Even the more protracted commotions of Mexico herself wrought 
 no disturbance here. The dominion of Spain came to an end in California, after 
 .fifty-two years of such peacefulness, without a struggle. Mexico having estab- 
 lished her independence, California gave in her adherence in the following de- 
 claration : 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 * In the presidio of Monterey, on the 9th day of the month of April, 1822 : 
 The senor military and political governor of this province, Colonel Don Pablo 
 Vicente de Sola, the senors captains commandantes of the presidios of Santa 
 Barbara and San Francisco, Don Jose Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega, and 
 Don Luis Antonio de Arguello, the captains of the militia companies of the ba- 
 tallion of Tepic and Mazatlan, Don Jose Antonio Navarrete, and Don Pablo de 
 la Portilla, the lieutenant Don Jose Maria Estudillo for the presidial company 
 of San Diego,' the lieutenant Don Jose Mariano Estrada for the presidial com- 
 pany of Monterey, the lieutenant of artillery, Don Manuel Gomez, and the reve- 
 rend fathers, Friar Mariano Pay eras, and Friar Vicento Francisco de Sarria, 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 295 
 
 the first as prelate of these missions, and the second as substitute of the rever- 
 end father president vicareo foraneo, Friar Jose Jenan ; having assembled in 
 obedience to previous citations (convocatorias) in the hall of the government 
 house, and being informed of the establishment of the kingdom of the empire, 
 and the installation of the sovereign provisional gubernative junta in the capital 
 of Mexico, by the official communication and other documents, which the said 
 governor caused to be read in full assembly, said : that, for themselves, and in 
 behalf of their subordinates, they were decided to render obedience to the or- 
 ders intimated by the new supreme government, recognizing, from this time, the 
 province as a dependent alone of the government of the Empire of Mexico, and 
 independent of the dominion of Spain, as well as of any other foreign power. In 
 consideration of which, the proper oaths will be taken, in the manner prescribed by 
 the provisional regency, to which end the superior military and political chief will 
 give the necessary orders, and the respective commandantes of presidios and the 
 ministers of the missions will cause the fulfilment of the same to appear by 
 means of certificates, which will be transmitted, with a copy of this act, to the 
 most excellent minister, to whom it corresponds, and they signed, 
 
 PABLO VICENTE DE SOLA, 
 JOSE DE LA GUERRA Y NORIEGA, 
 LUIS ANTONIO ARGUELLO, 
 JOSE M. ESTUDILLO, 
 MANUEL GOMEZ, 
 PABLO DE LA PORTILLA, 
 JOSE MARIANO ESTRADA, 
 FR. MARIANO PAYERAS, 
 FR. VICENTE FRANCISCO DE SARRIA, 
 JOSE M. ESTUDILLO. 
 
 One of the signers of this instrument, Pablo Vicente de Sola, was at that time- 
 governor under Spain, and held over for a year as governor still under the king-s 
 dom of the empire, as expressed in the declaration, and two others are the chief 
 of the ecclesiastical authorities, viz. the prelate of the missions, and the sub 
 stitute of the reverend father president of the missions. The style does not 
 much resemble our immortal instrument; and, as another difference, we observe 
 that all the parties to it are either priests or soldiers. 
 
 The Spanish governors were in all ten. Their names and the time they were 
 respectively in office, as follows : 
 
 Caspar dePortala... 1767 to 1771 
 
 Felipe de Barri -, 1771 to 1774 
 
 Fehpede Neve 1774 to 1782 
 
 Pedro Fages } 1782 to 1790 
 
 Jose Antonio Komeu 1790 to 1792 
 
 Jose J. de Arrillaga, (ad interim) 1792 to 1794 
 
 Diego de Borica 1794 to 1800 
 
 Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga 1800 to 1814 
 
 Jose Arguello, (ad interim) , 1814 to 1815 
 
 Pablo Vicente de Sola 1815 to 1822 and 1823 
 
 Under Mexico the list continues : 
 
 Luis Arguello ^ 1823 to 1826 
 
 Jose Ma.de Echandia 1826 to 1831 
 
 Manuel Victoria 1831 to 1832 
 
 Pio Pico, (ad interim) 1832 
 
 Jose Figueroa 1832 to 1835 
 
 Jose Castro, (ad interim) 1835 to 1836 
 
 Nicholas Gutierrez 1836 
 
 Mariano Chico 1836 
 
 Nicholas Gutierrez, (again for a few months) 1836 
 
 Juan B. Alvarado 1836 to 1842 
 
 Manuel Micheltorena , 1842 to 1845 
 
 Pio Pico 1845 to 1846 
 
296 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 California, as a matter of course, accepted the republic as readily as the em- 
 pire. But it was difficult to throw off old habits, and the following document 
 discloses a temper towards strangers not creditable to a liberal government. It 
 is of greatly more value, however, as the recorded evidence of the arrival of the 
 first American who ever came to California by land. Let him tell his own story. 
 
 Letter from Captain Jedediah S. Smith to Father Duran. 
 
 REVEREND FATHER : I understand, through the medium of one of your 
 Christian Indians, that you are anxious to know who we are, as some of the 
 Indians have been at the mission and informed you that there were certain white 
 people in the country. We are Americans, on our journey to the river Colum- 
 bia; we were in at the mission San Gabriel in January la^t. I went to San 
 Diego and saw the general, and got a passport from him to pass on to that place. 
 I have made several efforts to cross the mountains, but the snows being so deep, 
 I could not succeed in getting over. I returned to this place (it being the only 
 point to kill meat) to wait a few weeks until the snow melts, so that I can go 
 on ; the Indians here also being friendly, I consider it the most safe point for 
 me to remain, until such time as I can cross the mountains with my horses, 
 having lost a great many in attempting to cross ten or fifteen days since. I am 
 a long ways from home, and am anxious to get ihere as soon as the nature of 
 the case will admit. Our situation is quite unpleasant, being destitute of cloth- 
 ing and most of the necessaries of life, wild meat being our principal subsist- 
 ence. 
 
 I am, reverend father, your strange, but real friend and Christian brother, 
 
 J. S. SMITH. 
 
 May 19, 1827. 
 
 His encampment must have been somewhere near the mission of San Jose' , 
 as it was there that Father Duran resided. Who is there that does not sym- 
 pathise with Jedediah Smith ? "I am alog ways from borne, and am anxious 
 to get there as soon as the nature of the case will admit. Our situation is quite 
 unpleasant, being destitute of clothing and most of the necessaries of life, wild 
 meat being our principal subsistence. I am, reverend father, your strange, but 
 real friend and Christian brother." 
 
 Thus we came to this country the Browns and Smiths first, and in but an 
 unhappy plight. 
 
 As Jedediah Smith's letter shows, he had been here before. At that time he 
 had been required to give an account of himself, but had been able to find 
 vouchers, shipmasters, all of them doubtless from Boston, who had come to buy the 
 hides which under the new system were now within the reach of commerce : 
 
 " We, the undersigned, having been requested by Captain Jedediah S. Smith 
 to state our opinions regarding his entering the province of California, do not 
 hesitate to say that we have no doubt in our minds but that he was compelled to 
 for want of provisions and water, having entered so far into the barren country 
 that lies between the latitudes of forty -two and forty-three west that he found 
 it impossible to return by the route he came, as his horses had most of them 
 perished for want of food and water. He was., therefore, under the necessity of 
 pushing forward to California, it being the nearest place where he could procure 
 supplies to enable him to return. 
 
 " We further state as our opinions that the account given by him is circum- 
 stantially correct, and that his sole object was the hunting and trapping of beaver 
 and other furs. 
 
 " We have also examined the passports produced by him from the Superin- 
 tendent of Indian Affairs for the government of the United States of America, 
 and do riot hesitate to say we believe them to be perfectly correct. 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 297 
 
 We also state, that in our opinion, his motive for wishing to pass by a differ- 
 ent route to the head of the Columbia river on his return, is solely because he 
 feels convinced that he and his companions run great risk of perishing if they 
 return by the route they came. 
 
 In testimony whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals this 20th day 
 of December, 1826. 
 
 WM. G. DANA, Captain of schooner Waverly. 
 WM. H. CUNNINGHAM, Capt. of ship Courier. 
 WM. HENDERSON, Capt. of brig Olive Branch. 
 JAMES SCOTT. 
 
 THOS. M. ROBBINS, Mate oj schooner Waverly. 
 THOS. SHAW, Supercargo of ship Courier. 
 
 L. s. 
 
 L. S. 
 L. S. 
 L. S. 
 L. S. 
 L. S. 
 
 In extenuation, however, it maybe said that Anglo-Americans had long been 
 viewed with uneasiness in this quarter. It was prophesied as early as 1805 
 that they would become troublesome to California. So wrote a governor in an 
 official letter now in the archives. 
 
 In a recent number of a magazine, (Harper's for June, I860,) Sylvester 
 Pattie, his son, and six others, are said to have been the first who accomplished 
 the journey overland from the United States to California. The dates men- 
 tioned in that account show that they could not have reached Lower California, 
 where they first arrived, sooner than 1829 or 1830, as it is said they left the 
 Missouri river in 1824, and icmained more than five years in New Mexico. The 
 Patties, therefore, cannot dispute this honor with Jedediah Smith. 
 
 After the adoption of the federal Constitution of 1824, by which was estab- 
 lished the Mexican United States, the governor of California was called the 
 political chief of the Territory, and was aided by a council known as the territo- 
 rial deputation. The government of the Territory continued subject to the 
 sovereign congress at the city of Mexico, as formerly that of the province had 
 been to the viceroy. Thus much will be a sufficient introduction. for the next 
 paper. It is to be regretted that it was not known to the gentleman who de- 
 signed the coat of arms adopted for this State. 
 
 "In session of the 13th of July, 1827, of the territorial deputation, a propo- 
 sition was made to change the name of the Territory to Moctesuma, the arms of 
 the same to be an Indian with his bow and quiver, in the act of crossing a 
 strait, placed in an oval, with an olive and live oak on either side; the same 
 being symbolical of the arrival of the first inhabitant to America, which, accord- 
 ing to the generally received opinion, was by xway of the straits of Anian." 
 
 The conception is poetical and simple, and differs in this particular widely 
 from the confused medley of incongruous figures with which we have chosen to 
 illustrate our idea of California. The name Moctesuma is very significant. It 
 shows How the Mexican, since his independence, has preferred to draw his 
 opinions, as he derives his blood, from the conquered rather than the conquerors. 
 A late but signal triumph of race! California was near losing the name given 
 her by heroes who came across the Atlantic, for one suggestive of a descent from 
 an imaginary people who came across Behring's straits. 
 
 The Russians and the American trappers, estrays dropping in from the 
 mountains, seemed to have taught the Californians the value of furs. The 
 government of the Territory very naturally made this new business a source oi 
 revenue. They sold licenses to trap. To obtain this privilege was rather' a 
 formal matter. Here is an example : 
 
 Juan B. R. Cooper petitions the governor for a license to trap with ten boats, 
 for seven months, for otters. The governor refers the petition to the alcalde, to 
 know whether Mr. Cooper is matriculated in the marine, i. e., a seaman. The 
 alcalde reports that he belongs to the first class of seamen, and the governor 
 orders a license to be issued to Mr. Cooper to hunt otters from the parallel of 
 
298 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 San Luis Obispo to Bodega, two-thirds of the crews of his boats to be natives 
 of the country. ' There are many others who get licenses, whose names are 
 familiar to the oldest of the living pioneers. Edward Mclntosh got his on 
 January 9, 1834, William Wolfskill his September 21, 1833; and many of the 
 old Californians embarked in the same business, as Angel Castro, March 25, 
 1833, and Juan Bandini on the 9th of April, 1833. 
 
 Internal disturbances seem to have commenced in California about the year 
 1830. The liberal Spanish Cortez of 1813, in carrying out the constitution 
 which they had adopted for the Spanish monarchy the year before, decreed the 
 secularization of all the missions in the Spanish dominions. The design was to 
 make general what had always been done before by special authority to 
 liberate the Indians from the control of the missionary fathers, and divide 
 amongst them, as their separate property, the land, cattle, and whatever else 
 they had owned in common ; to establish secular priests in the place of regular 
 priests or monks of the religious orders among them, for their spiritual guidance, 
 and in every respect to convert the Indian villages of the missions into Spanish 
 pueblos the process by which, in so great a degree, society was constructed 
 in all Spanish-American countries, and the ultimate fulfilment of the purpose of 
 the King, everywhere so prominently put forth in colonizing California. 
 
 The decrees of the Cortez, not incompatible with the republican form of gov- 
 ernment, continued after the establishment of her independence to be the laws of 
 Mexico, but very few, if any, of them had been put into operation in California. 
 With the rest, that of secularization remained a dead letter. Enchandia, the 
 political chief, (as the governor was then entitled,) in 1830, very hurriedly, and 
 without consulting the supreme government, published, as the custom of the gov- 
 ernment was, a set of regulations for carrying this old law into effect. At that 
 moment he was superseded by Victoria, who suppressed the regulations, and put 
 a peremptory stop to the secularization of the missions. Victoria's conduct was 
 approved by the supreme government, but there was a party here warmly in favor 
 of the secularization, and disturbances which were considered serious and threat- 
 ening ensued, although I do not know that they resulted in bloodshed. The 
 chief promoter of the scheme was sent out of the country by Victoria ; and thus, I 
 think, civil strife commenced in California. The occasion was the disposition to be 
 made of the missions, which, we have seen, were once, and for so long a time, so 
 nearly all of California. It was the beginning of the downfall of those ancient 
 establishments, so difficult for us to comprehend, and now so entirely passed 
 away that to recall them is like recalling the images of a dream. What the 
 government of Mexico was opposed to was not the secularization of the missions, 
 but the manner in which it was attempted. The agitation which had been thus 
 commenced resulted in the passage, by the Mexican congress, of the law of the 
 17th of August, 1833, to secularize the missions of the Californias. Under it 
 the work was begun by Figueroa, the best and ablest of the Mexican gover- 
 nors. At the same time he had two other laws, most fundamentally subversive 
 of the old order of things, to carry into execution. They were the law for the 
 political organization of the Territory, being another of those decreed by the 
 Spanish Cortes in 1813, and the law of colonization, passed by the Mexican 
 congress, August 18, 1824, with the executive regulations, prescribing the man- 
 ner of its application, dated November 21, 1828. It is evident that this is the 
 true era of revolution in Mexican California. Observing the ancient limits of 
 the presidial jurisdictions, municipal governments were established for each 
 district. Authority was exercised, by elective bodies called ayuntamientos, ot 
 which the head was an alcalde or judge. This body regulated the economy of 
 the whole district, directly of the pueblo in which it resided, and of every other 
 pueblo in the district, through the intervention of local and subordinate ayun- 
 tamientos. This was the separation of the civil functions from the military 
 functions, both of which had been continued in the hands of the commanders 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 299 
 
 of the presidios, as in the Spanish times. Here in San Francisco, and for all 
 the region north of San Mateo creek, east indefinitely, and west to the ocean, 
 the separation of powers took place in December, 1834, at which time th^ 
 ayuntarniento was established for the civil government of this presidial district, 
 and General M. G. Vallejo, then in command of the presidio, was left with only 
 his military command. In the secularization of the missions, Figueroa advanced 
 so far as to put administrators in possession in place of the fathers, at which 
 stage his proceedings were arrested by a decree of the Mexican President. 
 Ruin was inevitable; it was as rapid as spoliation could make it, and it was soon 
 complete. Governor after governor adopted regulations upon regulations, to se- 
 cure a faithful administration of the property of the missions, i. e., of the Chris- 
 tian Indians, who inhabited them, and by whose labor all had been built and 
 accumulated. It was to no purpose ; and of as little avail was the partial restor- 
 ation of the missions to the charge of the fathers, by Micheltorena in 1843. 
 The Indian was by nature a very little above the brute; the fathers were not 
 able to elevate him in spite of nature; the administrators stripped him without 
 compunction ; and, when the United States conquered the country, he was al- 
 ready exterminated, his destruction complete in ten years. When emancipation 
 began, Figueroa says there were twenty thousand Christian Indians in the mis- 
 sions of California. 
 
 Colonization was another idea introduced by the Spanish Cortes in 1813. It 
 was embodied in the Mexican law of colonization of 1824. The scheme was to 
 reduce all the public lands of the State to private property. The Spanish rule 
 before 1813 had ever been to make such grants the exception, and to retain all 
 lands, generally speaking, as the domain of the King. Other Mexican govern- 
 ors may have made informal grants of which nothing appears, but Figueroa was 
 the first to inaugurate the system of which we find the records in the archives. 
 He established a course of proceeding in exact accordance with the law and the 
 regulations, and adhered to it strictly, and executed it conscientiously, and with 
 great intelligence. From the lands subject to be granted are excepted such as 
 belong to pueblos and missions. Of pueblos, i. e., villages, there were but 
 two, San Jose and Los Angeles, or three, including the unprosperous Villa 
 de Branciforte. Whatever lands these owned were at their foundation sur- 
 veyed, marked out, and set apart to them, and then recorded. The same 
 course was followed with such of the presidios as were converted into pueblos, 
 as at Monterey, and would have been pursued with the missions when con- 
 verted into pueblos, if that change had not been arrested. In these cases 
 there could have been no uncertainty as to what lands the governor could 
 grant. With the missions untouched, or incompletely secularized as they 
 were left, there was difficulty. The title of the Indian who had consented 
 to become a Christian and a civilized man, binding as it was upon the 
 king, had always been indefinite as to quantity, and as to the situation of his 
 lands, save that it should be at and about the mission; in which essential par- 
 ticulars it rested altogether in the King's discretion, exercised by the proper 
 officers of his government. The Mexican republic stepped into the same relation 
 to these Christian Indians. That no injustice might be done them, every petition 
 was referred to the priests, and afterwards to the administrators of the missions. 
 They were asked whether the grant could be made without prejudice to the 
 Indians. As they replied so were the grants given or withheld. So it was at 
 least in Figueroa's day, and that, no matter how far the land petitioned for was 
 from the nearest mission. Other governors were neither so exact nor so con- 
 scientious as Figueroa. And as, in the hands of the administrators to whom they 
 were delivered over, the missions went rapidly down to complete ruin, it is evi 
 dent that the lands required for the Indians would become continually less 
 such would be, and was, the answer of their new guardians to the inquiries ot 
 the governor and finally all was granted, and in some cases, it is alleged, even 
 
300 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 the missions themselves. Their cattle without the aid of a grant from the gov- 
 ernor took the same course. It is not too much to say that when the United 
 Imitates in 1846 took possession of the country they found it passing through a 
 conquest still raw and incomplete. It was the conquest of the missions and the 
 Christian Indians by the settlers of the presidios and pueblos, who at first had 
 been introduced into the country mainly for their benefit, to aid the king and 
 the church in carrying out their pious and humane intentions towards them, 
 Yet it was well that it was so. Who that looVs upon the native Digger Indian 
 could wish that a superior race should be sacrificed or postponed for his benefit 1 ? 
 We contemplate a miserable result of the work begun with so much zeal and 
 heroism in 1769. But because they failed, we none the less respect the motives 
 and the laborers, whether of church or state. 
 
 The unworthiness of the Californian Indian did not altogether deprive him of 
 sympathy. Every government expressed some feeling at seeing him hasten so 
 rapidly to his wretched end. And the just and kind-hearted Figueroa battled 
 for him manfully. In the midst of the complex labors of his administration he 
 was almost crushed by the arrival of three hundred persons, for whom he had 
 to make provision, without resources, and who came under the charge of a 
 director of colonization, instructed by the supreme government, at that time 
 radically democratic, to begin operations by taking possession of the property 
 of the missions and admit the new colonists to a division of it with' the Indians. 
 During the winter of 1834-'35 Figueroa and the director carried on an animated 
 discussion in writing, on the subject of the last of these propositions. Figueroa 
 maintained that the missfons were the private property of the Indians, arid pro- 
 tected from invasion by the constitution. The director insisted upon the letter 
 of the order of the supreme government. Figueroa said it was improvident, 
 and refused to obey it until he could make a representation to the supreme gov- 
 ernment on the subject. The end was that some of the partisans of the director 
 attempted an insurrection at Los Angeles, in the spring of 1835, which was 
 easily suppressed, but furnished Figueroa the opportunity to send the director and 
 the heads of his faction back to Mexico. Of these, the principal was the same man 
 who had been sent out of California by Victoria for the same cause, a desire to have 
 a part in the secularization of the missions. The colony, however, remained, 
 and, though numbering but three hundred, was a great addition to the popula- 
 tion of California in those days. Among them we find the names of several 
 persons who afterwards became conspicuous in the country, amongst them Jose 
 Abrego, Jose Ma. Covarrubias, Augustin Olvera, and Francisco Guerrero. 
 
 Figueroa died at Monterey, on the 29th of September, 1835, his death being 
 probably hastened by the effect of the anxiety and vexation of this controversy 
 upon a constitution already broken. At that time his manifesto to the Mexican 
 republic, in which he gives a clear and forcible statement of the whole affair, 
 and an able vindication of his conduct, was going through the press at Monte- 
 rey. His death seems to have been very greatly deplored at that time, and he 
 is still recognized as the ablest and most upright of the Mexican governors. His 
 work of the political organization of California lasted but a little while ; it fell 
 with the overthrow of the federal constitution of 1824, by Santa Anna, in 1836. 
 California then became a department ; political chief was changed into governor, 
 and territorial deputation into departmental assembly. 
 
 These changes, however, were not fully completed in California until 1839. 
 The department of the Californias was then divided into three districts ; the 
 first extending from the frontier of Sonoma to San Luis Obispo, its principal 
 point or seat of administration being the old Mission of San Juan, on the Pajaro 
 river; the second district included the rest of Upper California, the seat of its 
 administration being the city of Los Angeles, which had been promoted to that 
 rank from the original condition of a pueblo, in the year 1835; and the third 
 comprised Lower California, which, after a separation, was now reunited with 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 301 
 
 Upper California. These districts were divided each into two partidos, of which, 
 consequently, there were four in Upper California. Ayuntamteutos were abol- 
 ished, and a justice of the peace substituted in each partido. For the whole dis- 
 trict there was a prefect, who resided at the seat of the administration of one of 
 the partidos, and a sub-prefect, who resided at that of the other partido. In 
 1843 Micheltorena, acting under extraordinary powers, made some changes in 
 this system, but it was substantially restored by Pio Pico, in 1845, but when 
 again Lower California was thrown off. 
 
 With Figueroa everything like stability, and indeed' order, passed away. 
 The next year after Figueroa's death, the Californiaus drove away the gover- 
 nor, and Don Juan B. Alvarado being at that time president of the territorial 
 deputation, was declared governor. After this was done the diputation went 
 one step further and on the 7th of November, 1836, passed these resolutions : 
 
 (V) " California is declared independent of Mexico until the re-establishment 
 of the constitution of 1824." 
 
 (2.) " California is erected into a free and sovereign State, establishing a con- 
 gress," &c., &c. 
 
 Public documents for a while were headed " Free and Sovereign State of 
 California." This anomalous state of things laste^ until 1838. The demands 
 of the free and sovereign state were not complied with, nor on the other hand 
 was the central government disposed or perhaps able to push the controversy 
 to extremes. In 1838 Alvarado was appointed governor ad interim; and con- 
 stitutional governor in 1839, when we have seen that the innovations of Santa 
 Anna took effect. Whilst California was in rebellion the president of Mexico 
 commissioned Carlos Antonio Carillo as governor. Alvarado refused to recog- 
 nize him, and accepted the aid of a party of Americans who since the time of 
 Jedediah Smith seem to have found their way into the country. Alvarado 
 prevailed over Carillo ; and his appointment as governor ad interim compro- 
 mised the difficulties of those times. Here is a document relating to this con- 
 test, which will serve to illustrate California warfare. It is the report of General 
 Jose Castro to Governor Alvarado, dated the 28th of March, 1838: 
 
 " I have the honor to announce to your excellency, that after two days' con- 
 tinual firing without having lost but one man, the enemy took to flight, under 
 cover of night, numbering one hundred and ten men ; and I have determined to 
 despatch one company of mounted infantry, under the command o Captain 
 Villa, and another of cavalry lancers, under the command of Captain Cota, in 
 their pursuit, remaining myself, with the rest of the division, and the artillery, 
 to guard this point," &c., &c. 
 
 And here is another of the same period. It now appears that the Americans 
 who side'd with Alvarado had fallen under suspicion and into disfavor at about 
 the time that their chief made up his differences with the central government 
 and received his commission as governor ad interim. They were all arrested, 
 some fifteen or twenty, perhaps, it is said, by surprise, and sent to Mexico. 
 Amongst them was Mr. Isaac Graham, of Santa Cruz. This paper will also 
 serve as a specimen of California eloquence at that period, and I commend it at 
 the present moment as a model to our political orators. 
 
 Proclamation made by the undersigned. 
 
 " Eternal glory to the illustrious champion and liberator of the department of 
 Alta California, Don Jose Castro, the guardian of order, and the supporter of 
 our superior government. 
 
 " Fellow citizens and friends: To-day, the eighth of May of the present year 
 of 1840, has been and will be eternally glorious to all the inhabitants of this 
 soil in contemplating the glorious expedition of our fellow-countryman, Don 
 Jose" Castro, who goes to present himself before the superior government of the 
 
302 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Mexican nation, carrying with him a number of suspicious Americans, who un- 
 der the mask of deceit, and filled with ambition, were warping us in the web of 
 misfortune ; plunging us into the greatest confusion and danger ; desiring to 
 terminate the life of our governor and of all his subalterns ; and finally to drive 
 us from our asylums, from our country, from our pleasures, and from our hearths. 
 
 " The bark which carries this valorous hero on his grand commission goes filled 
 with laurels and crowned with triumphs, plowing the waves and publishing, 
 in distinct voices to the passing billows, the loud vivas and rejoicings which will 
 resound to the remotest bounds of the universe. Yes, fellow citizens and friends, 
 again we say that this glorious chief should have a place in the innermost re- 
 cesses of our hearts, and be held as dear to us as our very breath. Thus we 
 desire, and in<|he name of all the inhabitants, make known the great rejoicings 
 with which we are filled, giving, at the same time, to our superior government 
 the present proclamation which we make for said worthy chief; and that our 
 governor may remain satisfied that if he (Castro) has embarked for the interior 
 of the republic, there still remain under his (the governor's) orders all his fellow- 
 countrymen, companions in arms," &c., &c. 
 
 The foregoing is signed by seven citizens of note and respectabilit} 7 in the 
 country* When this laurel-Jaden vessel reached San Bias the Mexican author- 
 ities took a different view of the matter. They put General Castro in prison 
 and Graham and his companions in the best hotel in the place, (he says a pal- 
 ace,) and entertained them handsomely until they could send them back to Cal- 
 ifornia, which they did at the expense of the government. 
 
 In 1839 Captain John A. Sutter, a man who had seen many vicissitudes and 
 adventures in Europe and the wilds of America, arrived in California from the 
 Sandwich islands. By permission of Governor Alvarado he established himself 
 in the valley of the Sacramento, then the extreme northern frontier. He en- 
 gaged to protect the Mexican settlements extending in that direction under the 
 colonization law (the only vital thing left of the Mexican rule for many years) 
 from the incursions of the Indians, and he kept his word. 
 
 In 1841 he obtained a grant of land himself and built a fort, which soon be- 
 came the refuge and rallying point for Americans and Europeans coming into 
 the country. Over all these Sutter, by virtue of an appointment as justice of 
 the peace, exercised whatever government there was beyond the law of the rifle. 
 Practically his powers were as indefinite as the territorial limits of his jurisdic- 
 tion. Among those who early gathered around Sutter we find the names of 
 John Bidwell, who came in 1841, and Pearson B.Reading and Samuel J. Hens- 
 ley, who came in 1843, and many others well known at the present day. 
 
 The pioneers of that day all bear testimony to the generosity of Captain Sut- 
 ter at a time when his fort was the capital and he the government for the Amer- 
 ican colony in the valley of the Sacramento. In 1844 the numbers of this 
 population had come to be so considerable as to be a power in the State. In the 
 revolution which then occurred Sutter took the side of Governor Micheltorena. 
 But before he marched he took the reasonable precaution, so obviously required 
 by justice to his men, to obtain from Micheltorena a grant of the land for which 
 they had respectfully petitioned. Micheltorena then issued the document known 
 as the General Title. 
 
 In this document he declares that every petition upon which Sutter, in his 
 capacity of justice of the peace, had reported favorably, should be taken as 
 granted, and that a copy of this document given to each petitioner should serve 
 in lieu of the usual formal grant. This done, he marched to the south, but 
 was unfortunate, !or he was taken prisoner, and Micheltoreua expelled from the 
 country. This is the last of the civil wars of California. 
 
 In the spring of 1846 General Castro in the north, and Pio Pico, the governor, 
 in the south, were waxing hot against each other, and preparing for new con- 
 flicts, when the apparition of Captain Fremont, with his small surveying party 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 303 
 
 of old mountaineers, and the hardy and indomitable pioneers of the Sacramento 
 valley, and the bear flag, put an end to their dissensions. Castro had himself 
 prepared the way for this aggression by driving Fremont and his surveying 
 party out of the Mexican settlements a few months before. The colony on the 
 Sacramento necessarily sympathized with Fremont ; and rumors, more or less 
 well founded, began to run through the valley of hostile intentions towards all 
 the American settlers. But resentment and anticipations of evil were not the 
 sole cause of this movement. There cannot now be a doubt that it was prompted 
 as it was approved by the government of the United States, and that Captain 
 Fremont obeyed his orders no less than his own feelings. 
 
 Fremont was still on the northern side of the bay of San Francisco when the 
 American flag was hoisted at Monterey, on the ever-memorable seventh day of 
 July, 1846. 
 
 Before the war the government of the United States had fully determined, 
 so far as that matter rested with the Executive, upon the conquest and perma- 
 nent retention of California as soon as the outbreak of war should offer the op- 
 portunity. Orders, in anticipation of war, were issued to that effect, and it was 
 under these orders that California was actually taken. The danger cf that day 
 was that England would step in before us. Her ships were watching our ships 
 on the coast of Mexico. The British pretext, it is said, was to have been to 
 secure an equivalent for the Mexican debt due to British subjects; and it is un- 
 derstood that there was a party here who favored this design. 
 
 Because Commodore Sloat did not rush to the execution of the orders issued 
 in anticipation of war, on the very first report of a collision between the United 
 States and Mexico, the anxious Secretary of the Navy, dreading to lose the 
 prize, hotly censured him in a letter which reached him after the event had 
 broken the sting of its reproaches, and served only to assure him how well he 
 had fulfilled the wishes of his government. The flag of the United States was 
 no sooner flying than the Collingwood entered the bay of Monterey. There 
 had been a race between the Collingwood and the Savannah. What a moment 
 that was for us, and for the world ! What if the Collingwood had been the 
 swifter sailer, and Sloat had found the English flag flying on the shore ! What 
 if we had been born on another planet ! The cast was for England or the 
 United States, and when the die turned for us, the interest was at sti end. 
 
 As a feat of arms the conquest of California was nothing for a power like ours. 
 Even more feeble and as much distracted as the rest of Mexico, and with but 
 a nominal dependence upon the central government, but a very little force was 
 sufficient to detach California forever from all her Spanish-American connections. 
 Whatever of military credit there was is due to the pioneers who, under the bear 
 flag, had, before they heard of the beginning of the war, with an admirable in- 
 stinct for their own rights and the interests of their country, rebelled against 
 any further Mexican misrule, or a sale to the British. The loyalty of their 
 sentiments was beautifully illustrated by the alacrity with which they relin- 
 quished the complete independence which appeared to be within their grasp, and 
 turned over their conquests and the further service of their rifles to the country 
 which they remembered with so much affection, and a government from which 
 they would suffer themselves to look for nothing but wisdom and strength, and 
 a tender consideration for the rights and interests of the pioneer. 
 
 For three years and a half when there was no war, and for nearly two years 
 after there was a declared peace, California was governed, and for a great part 
 of the time heavily taxed, by the executive branch of the government of the 
 United States, acting through military officers. This I note as an anomaly in 
 the experience of the citizens of this republic. 
 
 California separated from Mexico, a new people began to come in from the 
 United States and Europe. But California was remote and yet but little under- 
 stood. Mr. Webster himself spoke of her as almost worthless, except for the 
 
304 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 bay of San Francisco, and as though the soil was as barren and thorny as the 
 rocks of Lower California. Emigrants came, but not many among the most 
 remarkable arrivals being the ship Brooklyn, freighted with Mormons. The 
 soldiers themselves were nothing more than armed colonists. And everything 
 was peaceful and dull, until suddenly, when no man expected, there came a 
 change of transcendent magnitude. 
 
 Gold was discovered at Coloma. This was an event that stirred the heart ot 
 the whole world. The motives which pervade and most control the lives of men 
 were touched. All the impulses that spring from necessity and hope were 
 quickened ; and a movement. was visible among mankind. To get to California, 
 some crossed over from Buenos Ay res to Valparaiso, scaling the Andes. The 
 Isthmus of Darien became a common thoroughfare. Peaceful invaders entered 
 Mexico at every point, and on every route startled the drowsy muleteer as they 
 passed over to the Pacific where the coast was nearest, or pushed on directly 
 for California. Constant caravans issued from our own borders, traversed every 
 intervening prairie, and explored every pass and gap of opposing mountains. 
 As the long train descended to the valley, perhaps the foremost wagon is driven 
 by an old man, who when he was a boy moved out in this way from Virginia 
 to Kentucky ; and passing still from one new State to another, now when he is 
 grown gray halts his team at last upon the shores of the Pacific. Ships sailed 
 from every port on the globe. The man at the wheel, in every sea, steered by 
 the star that led to San Francisco. So came the emigrants of 1849. The 
 occupation of California was now complete, and she became a part of the world. 
 
 The sighs, the prayers, the toiling and the watching of our overwearied 
 countrymen on these long painful journeys are still demanding a railroad to the 
 Pacific. 
 
 Eleven years are passed, and have they no voice ? We looked out upon a 
 wide expanse uufenced, untilled and though nature was lovely, our hearts 
 sunk within us. Neither the priest nor the ranchero had prepared this country 
 for our habitation. We asked who shall subdue all this to our uses ? We look 
 again ; and now, upon a landscape chequered with smiling farms and dotted 
 with cities and towns, busy and humming like the hive. What magic is it that 
 has wrought this change ? On every hand, with one acclaim, comes back the 
 answer. Labor, it is labor. Of our eleven years, here is the lesson. Man's 
 opinions and his passions were but insolence and vanity. Boasting and praise 
 made but the greatness of the passing day. And labor, only labor, has survived. 
 However silent, however humble and unseen, or on what bestowed, it is labor 
 which has created California, and which rules us at this hour. With our own 
 eyes this we have seen, and of our knowledge we know the lesson to be as true 
 as it is old. 
 
 California in full possession of the white man, and embraced within the 
 mighty area of his civilization ! We feel the sympathies of our race attract 
 us. We see in our great movement hitherward in 1849 a likeness to the 
 times when our ancestors, their wives and little ones, and all their stuff in 
 wagons, and with attendant herds, poured forth by nations and in never-ending 
 columns from the German forests, and went to seek new pastures and to found new 
 kingdoms in the ruined provinces of the Roman empire : or when swayed by an- 
 other inspiration they cast their masses upon the Saracens, and sought to rescue 
 the sepulchre of Christ from the infidels. We recognize that we are but the fore- 
 most rank of that multitude which for centuries has held its unwavering course out 
 of Europe upon America, in numbers still increasing ; a vast unsummoned host, 
 self-marshaled, leaderless, an innumerable, moving and onward forever, to possess 
 and people another continent. Separated but in space, divided but by the accidents 
 of manners, of language and of laws from Scandinavia to California one blood 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 305 
 
 and one people. Knowledge is but the conservation of his thoughts, art but the 
 embodiment of his conceptions, letters the record of his deeds. Man of our 
 race has crowned the earth with its glory ! And still in the series of his works 
 you have founded a State. May it be great and powerful whilst the ocean shall 
 thunder against these shores ! You have planted a people ; may they be pros- 
 perous and happy whilst summers shall return to bless these fields with plenty ! 
 And may the name of the pioneer be spoken in California forever ! 
 
 Since the foregoing address was delivered the following letter has been re- 
 ceived by Mr. Randolph from Mr. Sprague, a gentleman well known in this 
 city, and interesting as showing the discovery of gold in California thirty-five 
 years ago : 
 
 GENOA, CARSON VALLEY, September 18, 1860. 
 
 FRIEND RANDOLPH : I have just been reading your address before the So- 
 ciety of Pioneers. I have known of the J. S. Smith you mention, by reputa- 
 tion, for many years. He was the first white man that ever went overland from 
 the Atlantic States to California. He was a chief trader in the employ of the 
 American Fur Company. At the rendezvous of the company on Green river, 
 near the South Pass, in 1825, Smith was directed to take charge of a party of 
 some forty men (trappers) and penetrate the country west of Salt lake. He 
 discovered what is now called Humboldt river. He called it Mary's river, from 
 his Indian wife Mary. It has always been known as Mary's river by moun 
 tain men since, a name which it should retain, for many reasons. 
 
 Smith pushed on down Mary's river ; being of an adventurous nature, when 
 he found his road closed by high mountains he determined to see what kind of 
 country there was on the other side. It is not known exactly where he crossed 
 the Sierra Nevada, but it is supposed that it must have been not far from where 
 the old emigrant road crossed near the head of the Truckee. He made his way 
 southerly after entering the valley of Sacramento, passed, through San Jose and 
 down as low as San Diego. After recruiting his party and purchasing a large 
 number of horses, he crossed the mountains near what is known as Walker's 
 Pass, skirted the eastern slope of the mountains till near what is now known 
 as Mono lake, when he steered an east-by-north course for Salt lake. On this 
 portion of his route he found placer gold in quantities, and brought much of it 
 with him to the encampment on Green river. 
 
 The gold that he brought with him, together with his description of the 
 country he had passed through, and the large amount of furs, pleased the agent 
 of the American Fur Company so well that he directed Smith again to make 
 the same trip, with special instructions to take the gold fields on his return and 
 thoroughly prospect them. It was on this trip that he wrote the letter to 
 Father Duran. The trip was successful until they arrived in the vicinity of 
 the gold mines, east of the mountains, when, in a battle with the Indians, Smith 
 and nearly all of his men were killed. A few of the party escaped and reached 
 the encampment on Green river. This defeat damped the ardor of the company 
 so much that they never looked any more for the gold mines. 
 
 There are one or more men now living who can testify to the truth of the 
 above statement, and who can give a fuller statement of the details of his two 
 journeys than I can. 
 
 The man Smith was a man of far more than average ability, and had a bet- 
 ter education than falls to the lot of mountain men. Few or none of them were 
 his equals in auv respect. ***** * 
 
 x THOMAS SPRAGUE. 
 
 EDMUND RANDOLPH, Esq., San Francisco. 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 20 
 
306 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 APPENDIX 2. 
 
 Address on the acquisition of California by the United States, delivered before 
 the Corporate Society of California Pioneers, at the Academy of Music, in 
 the city of San "Francisco, on September 10, 1866, on occasion of the sixteenth 
 anniversary of the admission of the State of California into the federal 
 Union. By John W. Dwindle, a member of that society, president of the Ethno- 
 Historical Society of San Francisco, member of the Ethnological Society of 
 New York, and of the Historical Society of New York. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT AND BROTHER PIONEERS : It has been suggested to me, by 
 the committee through whose hands I received your invitation to address you 
 at this time, that I should give a historical character to my address. I was 
 glad to receive this intimation, for it accorded perfectly with my own desire. 
 The great events of history, when not sufficiently remote to be counted by cen- 
 turies, are commonly reckoned by decades, or periods of ten years. We are met 
 on the occasion of the sixteenth anniversary of the admission of California into 
 the federal Union of the United States. But, presuming upon your assent, I shall 
 dedicate a portion of these exercises to the celebration of two other historical 
 events of signal interest and importance, namely : the conquest of California by 
 the United , v tates, which took place twenty years ago, on the 7th day of July, 
 A. D. 1846, and the foundation of San Francisco, which was consummated 
 ninety years ago, on the 17th day of September, A. D. 1776. Two decades 
 have therefore elapsed since California has become Anglo-American, and nine 
 decades since San Francisco was inscribed upon the map of political geography. 
 It will therefore be peculiarly interesting on this occasion to cast a retrospect- 
 ive glance into history, and to inquire how it has come to pass that we are here, 
 and by what title we claim to possess this fair California of ours. 
 
 IGNORANCE OF EARLY GEOGRAPHERS. 
 
 It was only by accident, after all, that Columbus discovered the vast region 
 of continents and islands which are now called America. He was not in quest 
 of new continents, nor of the golden-fruited gardens of the Hesperides. Believ- 
 ing, from inductive reasoning, that the earth was round, but with very imperfect 
 notions of its magnitude, he was firmly persuaded that by sailing in a westerly 
 direction from the coast of Spain, he would in due time arrive on the coast of 
 China, which was then classed as a portion of the Indies ; and when he dis- 
 covered the first American islands, believing that he had already reached the 
 Indies, he gave to the natives the name of Indians, which inaccurate classifi- 
 cation they have ever since retained. Looking over the books and maps of the 
 old geographers, it is curious and wonderful to observe how much they did 
 know, and how much they did not know, of the geography of the northwestern 
 coast of America for more than two hundred years after the discoveries made 
 by Columbus. Although Cortez, when he fell into that inevitable disgrace 
 with which the kings of Spain have always rewarded their greatest benefactors, 
 sent out various expeditions from Mexico for the exploration of the northwest- 
 ern coast, and even accompanied some of them as far as La Paz, in Lower Cal- 
 ifornia, and although the viceroys who succeeded him sent out various expedi- 
 tions within fifty years after the conquest of Mexico, both by sea and by land, 
 which must have penetrated as far north as the 42d degree of latitude, yet the 
 physical geography of that region remained in the most mythical condition, and 
 the very existence of the Bay of San Francisco was contested as fabulous by the 
 Spanish viceroys of New Spain less than a hundred years ago. There is in the 
 possession of the Odd Fellows' library of this city an engraved map of the world, 
 published at Venice in the year 1546, which is remarkable for its general accu- 
 racy, and for the beauty of its execution ; but on this map, at the latitude of San 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 307 
 
 Francisco, the American continent is represented as sweeping around in a 
 large circle, and forming a junction with that of Asia ; while the Colorado, 
 the largest river in the world, rising in the mountains of Thibet, and 
 meandering through a course of 15,000 or 20,000 miles, pours its vast 
 volume of waters into the Gulf of California. In the year 1588, a Span- 
 ish captain of marine, named Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, published an ae- 
 count of a voyage which he pretended to have made from the Atlantic ocean, 
 through the Northern sea, to the Pacific, and thence to China, giving all its 
 geographical details and personal incidents. This apocryphal voyage proved a 
 delusion and a stumbling-block to historians and voyagers for more than two 
 hundred years, and it was not until the year 1791 that two Spanish frigates, 
 sent out for that purpose by authority of the King of Spain, by a thorough 
 exploration of the extreme northwestern coast, established the fact that a pas- 
 sage through the North sea did not exiet, and that the pretensions of Maldonado 
 were utterly false. It is only within a comparatively recent period that the fact 
 has been generally received in modern geography that California was connected 
 with the main continent, and was not an island. In Ogilvie's " America, being 
 the latest and most accurate account of the New World," a most elegant and 
 luxurious folio, published in London in the year 1671, California is laid down 
 as an island, extending from Cape St. Lucas, in the tropic of Cancer, to the 
 45th degree of latitude, and including the famous New Albion of Sir Francis 
 Drake. The same map is reproduced by Captain Shelvocke, of the royal navy, 
 in his account of his "Voyage Around the World by way of the South Sea," 
 in his Majesty's ship-of-war, published in London in 1726 ; and in a geograph- 
 ical work published in London in the same year, by "Daniel Coxe, esq.," an 
 account is given of "a new and curious discovery and relation betwixt the river 
 Meschachebe (Mississippi) and the South sea, which separates America from 
 China by means of several large rivers and lakes, with a description of the 
 coast of the said sea to the Straits of Uries, as also of a rich and considerable 
 trade to be carried on from thence to Japan, China, and Tartary." I cannot 
 ascertain that California was relieved of its insular character among geographers 
 until the publication of a map by Father Begert, a missionary of the Society of 
 Jesus, in an account of Lower California which he printed at Manheim in the 
 year 1771, on his return to Germany after his order had been expelled, in 1769, 
 by order of the King of Spain, from the missions which they had successfully 
 established among the Indians of Lower California. Even after it was ad- 
 mitted that California was not an island, but a part of the main land, the most 
 indefinite notions prevailed as to the extent to which the Gulf of California 
 penetrated towards the north; and to the very last of the Spanish and Mexican 
 dominion, when any specific description was given to California in official docu- 
 ments, it was spoken of as a peninsula. 
 
 OUR TITLE TO CALIFORNIA. 
 
 If a Californian of ordinary historical intelligence were asked by what legal 
 title we assume to possess this country, after following the chain through Mexico 
 to Spain he would probably pause for Want of further specific information, or, 
 at the most, suggest that Spain derived her title to California through the right 
 of first discovery. If he were told that all the rights of Spain, and our rights 
 through her, to this land were derived entirely from a grant made to Spain by 
 the Pope, he would undoubtedly be greatly surprised; yet such is the historical 
 fact. Previous to the discovery of America by Columbus, in 1492, the Portu- 
 guese had discovered the Azore islands, in longitude 31 west, and on the strength 
 of that discovery claimed that the countries discovered by Columbus belonged 
 to the crown of Portugal, and that the Spaniards should be wholly excluded 
 from them, But the Spaniards refused to admit this pretension, and referred 
 
308 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 the matter for decision to the then Pope, Alexander VI. It was then a part of 
 the law of nations, ancl of the public law of the world, that the Pope was 
 the ultimate source of all temporal power ; that he could make and unmake 
 kings, and dispose of all the kingdoms of the earth powers which he fre- 
 quently exercised, and against which it were vain to contend. He was, there- 
 fore, by general consent, the acknowledged source of all lawful title to land. 
 He assumed to decide the case thus referred to his decision, and on May 3, A. 
 D. 1493, determined the matter in dispute between the crowns of Portugal 
 and Spain by drawing an imaginary line of longitude one hundred leagues 
 west of the Azores, and granting to the Spanish monarchs all countries 
 inhabited by infidels which they had already discovered, or might afterwards 
 discover, lying to the west, and to the crown of Portugal all those lying to the 
 east of that line. This line was afterwards removed two hundred and seventy 
 leagues further to the west, by a treaty subsequently made, in the year 1494, 
 between the Kings of Portugal and Spain ; but so thoroughly was the title thus 
 conceded by the Pope respected by the civilized world that when Henry VII 
 of England was afterwards about to intrude upon "some of the dominions thus 
 granted to Spain, he abandoned his project 011 being warned by the Pope to 
 desist. Our title to California is therefore deduced from the grant by the Pope 
 to Spain, from Spain by revolution to Mexico, from Mexico by conquest and 
 treaty to the United States, and from the United States, by the operation of 
 various grants and political acts, to the State and people of California. 
 
 At the time when this partition was thus made by the Pope between the 
 crowns of Spain and Portugal, the earth was supposed to consist of a large 
 plain, even although Columbus had been prompted to his discoveries from his in- 
 ference that the earth was a sphere, because in eclipses it cast a circular shadow 
 tipon the disc of the moon. It was not until the voyage of Magellan, concluded 
 in the year 1521, by which they reached the Spice islands of Portugal, in the 
 East Indies, by sailing westward from Spain, that it was proved by actual 
 demonstration that the earth was round, and the world learned that neither our 
 spiritual teachers, nor even the Scriptures themselves, were given to us to teach 
 us lessons in geography. 
 
 OUR POSITION HERE NOT AN ACCIDENTAL ONE. 
 
 Our position, as possessors of this land of realized promise and of future hope, 
 is by no means an accidental one. The popular notion probably is that the 
 acquisition of California by the United States was one of the accidental conse- 
 quences of our war with Mexico, which broke out in 1846. On the contrary, 
 the acquisition of California by the United States was the result of plans long 
 matured and persistently followed, and of a train of causes carefully laid by the 
 government of the United States, during nearly half a century before its con- 
 summation. Nay, more : not only the United States, but the governments of 
 England, France, and Russia had determined to acquire California ; and it was 
 only by superior promptness and skill that the United States finally became 
 the winners in the race. The very plan lately attempted to be put into execu- 
 tion by the Emperor of the French, of placing and maintaining an Austrian 
 archduke upon an imperial throne in Mexico, was not conceived by Napoleon 
 III, but was matured and published to the .world by the government of Louis 
 Philippe as early as the year 1844, four years before the French revolution of 
 1848, and was a part of a scheme devised by the French government to pre- 
 vent England or the United States from getting possession of Mexico, in case 
 France could not gain it for herself. From this programme, published by the 
 order of Louis Philippe by Marshal Soult, his minister of war, we shall gather 
 easily the charges made by France against Mexico before the tribunal of the 
 public opinion of the world, by which Louis Philippe attempted to justify, in 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 300 
 
 advance, that intervention in the affairs of Mexico which his government was 
 the first to propose, and which that of Napoleon III has since attempted to 
 effectuate. The following are the principal features of these charges : 
 
 JLOUIS PHILLIPPE'S BILL OF INDICTMENT AGAINST MEXICO. 
 
 Mexico was always prosperous under the rule of her Spanish kings. Private 
 enterprises succeeded; agriculture and mines were successful and remunerative; 
 public works were constructed of utility, magnitude, and permanence ; religion 
 and public and private morality prevailed ; the finances of the country were suc- 
 cessful and prosperous ; the people were contented and happy. The attainment 
 of independence from the mother country has completely reversed these happy 
 conditions. There is now no security for property or for private enterprise. The 
 agriculture of the country is becoming reduced to the rudest processes, its products 
 are diminishing from year to year, and the lands are returning to waste ; the mines 
 are neglected and deserted, and falling into a state of ruin. Public works are no 
 longer constructed, and those which were erected under the dominion of Spain 
 are mostly deserted and falling into a condition of dilapidation and ruin. The 
 priesthood is becoming corrupt, and public and private morals are rapidly fall- 
 ing to the lowest point of degradation. The finances of the country have long 
 since been in a condition of insolvency, and the expenditures have for many 
 years exceeded the receipts by an annual deficiency of several millions of dol- 
 lars. The army is composed of bandits ; it is recruited by taking from the 
 public prisons convicted murderers and other malefactors, who have yet to serve 
 a term of imprisonment not less than ten years, and granting them a free pardon 
 on condition of their serving five years as soldiers. The officers of the army, 
 who, under the government of Spain, belonged to distinguished and educated 
 families, are now drawn from the most despicable classes, or rise by promotion 
 from the ranks of this bandit soldiery ; and the disproportion of officers is so 
 great that the army of 20,000 soldiers is commanded by 84,000 officers, who 
 are entirely deficient in military faith and personal honor ; they murder in cold 
 blood their political and military prisoners ; they protect robbers and share 
 their spoils ; they are accomplices in assassination and murder ; and theft si 
 practiced by every one from the President of the republic down to the lowest 
 officers of the custom-house. Republican Mexico has always been the enemy 
 of France, oppressed her commerce, and practiced the moat atrocious tyranny 
 upon our citizens resident in her territory. She has discriminated against 
 French products, first by her tariffs, and afterwards in the manner in which she 
 has executed her custom-house regulations. She has, on the most frivolous 
 and unlawful pretences, confiscated the property of French merchants, for 
 which acts of robbery and violence she owes them at this time several millions 
 of dollars, for which she refuses to make them the least compensation. She 
 has thus fallen to the lowest condition of insolvency, brigandage, and ruin. 
 She is a public nuisance and robber on the highway of nations ; and any 
 nation, especially those having claims against her, has a right, as a matter of 
 international policy, to interfere and establish a solid government in Mexico, 
 which shall fulfil the obligations of national faith towards the world, maintain 
 order, decency, and morality, and secure life, liberty, and property within her 
 own borders. This can be done only by the establishment of a Mexican mon- 
 archy ; for republican institutions have been tried there, and have resulted in an 
 utter and hopeless failure. The best citizens of Mexico desire the re-establisn- 
 ment of a monarchy ; those who are distinguished for their piety, morality, 
 culture, and the possession of property are willing to pledge themselves in ad- 
 vance to the support of the movement. Some of her most distinguished states- 
 men, in the face of threats of assassination, have already publicly declared, in 
 the capital of Mexico, that the adoption of this plan presented the only possible 
 
310 EESOUECES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 hope for the restoration of Mexico to a condition of respectability and pros- 
 perity. " But there are certain conditions necessary to the success of this 
 scheme. The new monarchs of Mexico must he Catholic, and must have fam- 
 ily ties connecting them with the dynasties which formerly ruled in Mexico. 
 The infantas of Spain, the French princes, and the archdukes of Austria possess 
 these requisites, and any one of them would be unanimously welcomed by the 
 Mexican population. The establishment of any monarchy whatsoever in Mex- 
 ico is of the greatest importance to the policy of France, for a stable govern- 
 ment erected there would at once remove the disabilities and oppression to which 
 our commerce and citizens are subjected in that country ; and this can easily 
 be accomplished, for a column of 3,000 infantry, and a few vessels-of-war dis- 
 tributed upon the Atlantic and Pacific coasts are all that is wanted to subdue 
 the empire of Montezuma, whose conquest would be easier to-day than it was 
 in the time of Hernando Cortez !" 
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE ENFORCES THE NECESSITY OF PROMPT ACTION. 
 
 But, continues the programme, if a Catholic monarchy is to be established in 
 Mexico, it should be done at once. The English, among all foreign nations, 
 have a preponderating political and commercial interest in Mexico. English 
 subjects own a large portion of the funded debt of Mexico, upon which the 
 annual interest is not paid, although pretended to be secured by an illusory 
 charge upon the customs. She is ready, therefore, at any moment, to make 
 this a pretext for seizing any portion of the coast or territory of the republic. 
 She has already acknowledged the independence of the revolted provinces of 
 Texas, with a view of taking them under her protection, or of establishing even 
 more intimate political relations with them. She has by her intrigues hitherto 
 prevented the United States from acquiring any portion of the Mexican terri- 
 tory ; and, if she retains her present influence at Mexico, and still more, if 
 she adds to it by gaining any territory there, or in any other manner, the 
 results cannot fail to be most disastrous to the interests of France. 
 
 The United States, too, have for more than forty years looked upon the 
 territories of Mexico with that covetousness of acquisition which has ever 
 distinguished that 'energetic people. The expedition of Burr would have 
 been hailed with favor if it had been successful, and his acquittal by a jury 
 must be taken as evidence of the popular sentiment in favor of the objects of 
 his expedition. After the purchase of Louisiana from France, and by the 
 treaty of Florida, so called, and by other subsequent treaties, the United States 
 gained a large extension of territory in the direction of the Pacific, and brought 
 down their possessions in Oregon and on the Pacific coast to the forty-second 
 parallel of latitude. They even sought, by other propositions communicated 
 to the court of Spain for the avowed purpose of defining the boundaries be- 
 tween the two countries south of that parallel, and proposing limits which were 
 altogether too vague for geographical or political boundaries, but which they 
 would have found sufficiently specific for the purpose of intrusion, to gain a 
 further extension of territory in the direction of New Mexico ; but these latter 
 propositions werft indignantly rejected by the Spanish monarchy. But since 
 the establishment of Mexican independence, and the weakness, demoralization 
 and ruin which have resulted from it, Mexico has seemed to the United 
 States to have become an easy prey to their grasping ambition. They 
 have permitted their own citizens to pass in armed bands over their borders 
 into Texas, and there to stir up revolt, which has culminated in successful 
 revolution ; they have acknowledged the independence of that country with the 
 view to its annexation to the Union as one of the federal States. A treaty of 
 annexation is at this moment in progress between Texas and the United States, 
 and will doubtless be accomplished as the crowning act of the present aclminis- 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 311 
 
 tration of President Tyler. When that treaty is ratified by the contracting 
 parties, the military establishment of Texas will be occupied by the forces of 
 the United States, and war will immediately ensue between the United States 
 and the Mexican republic. That war can issue in but one result : the armies 
 of the United States will overrun and occupy the territories of the weaker 
 republic, and they will be at once and forever absorbed in the domain of the 
 federal Union. If France, therefore, determines to protect her interests by the 
 establishment of a Catholic monarchy in Mexico, she should act promptly *nd 
 decisively. 
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE CONSIDERS THE DOMINION OF THE UNITED STATES IN MEXICO 
 PREFERABLE TO THAT OF ENGLAND. 
 
 But if Mexico is still to exist under a republican government, it is much 
 better for the interests of France that she should be absorbed by the North 
 American Union than that England should either maintain or increase her 
 influence there. The people of the United States have a strong instinct for a 
 government of law, and even the administration of their famous " lynch law," 
 in their newly settled territories, arises from their sentiment of order. Under 
 their rigid administration, the persons and property of French citizens in Mex- 
 ico would be protected and respected, and we should not be compelled to make 
 vain reclamations on the government for official robberies and confiscations. 
 The sentiment of the people of the United States is favorable and even 
 friendly to France, and under their dominion we should not have occasion to 
 complain of odious and hostile discriminations against cmr commerce, and what 
 we should gain in these respects, England would be certain to lose. She would 
 no longer be the nation favored either by the terms of the laws, or by their vio- 
 lation in her behalf, but would be reduced, at least, to a position of equal com- 
 petition in matters of commerce, which is all that France desires. Our property 
 would be respected, the lives of our citizens would be secured, and, on equal 
 terms, we could exchange our products for the agricultural and mineral riches of 
 Mexico. 
 
 GRANDEUR OF THE AMERIGO-MEXICAN DOMINION. 
 
 This programme of the government of Louis Philippe concludes with a pre- 
 diction of the future greatness of the United States, which might well excite the 
 envy of the most enthusiastic eulogist of " the American bird of liberty :" 
 
 " If this takes place, the Union will command the Pacific ocean, through that 
 part of the territory of Oregon which will belong to her through California and 
 the western coast of Mexico, Guatemala, Central America, and New Granada. 
 On the east, she will be mistress of the Atlantic coast, from Canada to the Isth- 
 mus of Darien, and thus will threaten the group of islands situated at the entrance 
 of the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Caribbean sea." 
 
 FAILURE OF THE FRENCH PROGRAMME IN MEXICO. 
 
 It is instructive to pause a moment and contemplate the results of this pro- 
 posed scheme for the overthrow of republican institutions and the establishment 
 of a monarchy in Mexico. Louis Philippe, its responsible author, and the crafty 
 schemer who prostituted the interests of France to the aggrandizement of his 
 own family, and who had thus published to the world this libellous imputation 
 of degeneracy and weakness against the republic of Mexico, was himself, within 
 four years afterwards, driven from the throne, and his dynasty subverted, with- 
 out his having the courage to permit a single musket-shot to be fired in their 
 defence. His scheme has since been taken up by his successor, Napoleon III, 
 a monarch of greater sagacity, resources, and force of will. But the Mexican 
 
312 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 population has not received an Austrian archduke as their emperor with unani- 
 mous acclamations; a column of three thousand men lias not conquered -the 
 Empire of Montezuma; and the republic of Mexico still lives ! 
 
 ATTEMPTS OF VARIOUS GOVERNMENTS TO ACQUIRE CALIFORNIA. 
 
 But while a covetousness of all the territories of the Mexican republic was 
 thus charged upon some of the great political powers of the world, upon circum- 
 stances of mere suspicion, the desire to acquire California was openly avowed 
 by several of them, and made equally manifest by the acts of others. France, 
 in particular, endeavored to qualify herself for the conquest of California, by a 
 previous exploration of the country of the most thorough and accurate character. 
 In 1841, Marshal Soult, the French minister of war, detached from the French 
 legation at Mexico one of its attaches, M. Duflot de Mofras, a gentleman per- 
 fectly competent for that purpose, with directions to make a thorough explora- 
 tion of California in respect to military resources, geography, agriculture, natural 
 history, meteorology, geology, population, and civil and political history. This 
 work he accomplished during a sojourn of two years, during which, as he him- 
 self states, he visited every mission, every village, and every rancho in Califor- 
 nia. The results of his exploration were published to the world by the French 
 government at the same time with their programme in regard to Mexico, of which 
 I have above spoken. This publication was accompanied with charts of all the 
 harbors on the coast of California, with their soundings ; with the most explicit 
 and accurate directions for entering them from the ocean; and with plans of all 
 the forts and presidios of California, which were so accurate that a distinguished 
 military officer of the United States, to whom I lent them, was enabled to re- 
 trace, at San Diego, the lines of some of the old fortifications there, respecting 
 which the officers in command at that station could not obtain any other reliable 
 information. 
 
 I shall trespass upon the patience of my audience by reproducing many of the 
 details of the report of this remarkable exploration. The inhabitants, saidDe Mofras, 
 in substance, are very friendly to France, for they are tired of the republic, and 
 desire a return to the old form of government. They hate the Americans, because 
 they are rapacious, protestant, and republican. They incline towards France, 
 because she is monarchical, powerful, catholic, and is of the same Latin race to 
 which they themselves belong. They have a presentiment of the approaching 
 downfall of the Mexican republic, and would hail in advance their annexation 
 to a strong European monarchy. The Americans, however, and the English, 
 have set their hearts upon the acquisition of California. England has already 
 offered to take California in payment of that portion of the public debt of 
 Mexico which is held by British subjects, amounting to several millions sterling 
 and to liquidate that debt herself, while the United States have already offered 
 $5,000,000 for that portion of California lying north of a line of latitude drawn 
 at equal distances from the bay cf San Francisco and that of Monterey. 
 While I was at San Francisco I visited a fleet of American vessels-bf-war 
 (Wilkes's exploring expedition) lying in the harbor there, and was received 
 hospitably on board by the officers, who made no secret of the fact that they 
 were executing a thorough survey of the harbor and of the surrounding country. 
 During my stay in California I also visited English men-of-war lying in the 
 same harbor, an$ evidently sent there for the same purpiose. English men-of-war 
 are almost always constantly cruising on the coast, as if waiting for a pretext 
 or opportunity to seize the country. The Americans have constantly a naval 
 force upon the coast, with instructions to seize the capital upon probable in- 
 formation of a rupture between Mexico and the United States. And in the 
 year 1842, Commodore Jones, upon such a rumor, which afterwards proved to 
 be unfounded, actually seized Monterey, the capital of California, and raised the 
 
WEST OP THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 313 
 
 American flag there; Jmt, upon learning that the information upon which he 
 had acted was not true, he restored the place to ,the California authorities; 
 "yet, in my opinion, having once taken it, he would have done better to have 
 kept it, and also to have seized the port of San Francisco." There are many 
 persons in California who are friendly to France, and who can be very useful 
 to us; one of our countrymen, Maturin, at San Francisco; Baric, a French- 
 man, at Los Angeles ; Sunol, a Spaniard by birth, who served in the French 
 navy, who speaks our language well, who was on the French brig which 
 Napoleon quitted, in 1815, when he surrendered himself to the captain of the 
 Bellerophon. The most important point on the northwestern coast of the 
 Pacific is the port of San Francisco, which is in reality the key of the north- 
 west coast of America and of the northern Pacific ocean, Captain Beechey, 
 of the royal British navy, in 1813, describes it as being " sufficiently extensive to 
 contain all the British navy, well sheltered, and with good anchorage every where, 
 surrounded with a country varied with hills and valleys, partly wooded anil 
 partly of fine pasturage, and abounding with cattle of every kind." " It is 
 easy to enter this harbor from the ocean," says De Mofras ; <k one should, after 
 crossing the bar, lay well to the south, having the island of Alcatraz on a line 
 with the fort, and then, on approaching the gate or strait, one should keep in 
 the centre until Point Bonita is well passe/l, and then sail well over to the 
 north. There is a dangerous reef, called Blossom rock, which lies on a line 
 drawn from the southwestern point of Yerba Buena island and that of Alcatraz, 
 which is to be avoided; but just behind the point of Saucelito lives an English- 
 man, who is married to a native Californian, one Captain Richardson, who is 
 captain of the port, and an excellent pilot. There is no military force in Cali- 
 fornia. There are no garrisons at the presidios. The gun-carriages at the forts 
 have rotted away, and the guns, which were mostly cast at Manilla, more than 
 a hundred years ago, lie rusting on the ground. It is perfectly clear that Cali- 
 fornia will belong to whatsoever nation will take the trouble to send there a ship- 
 of-war and two hundred soldiers." 
 
 EFFORTS OF THE UNITED STATES TO OBTAIN POSSESSION OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Having thus giving a re'sume of the French report of our own intentions and 
 desires respecting the acquisition of California, I shall endeavor to give an au- 
 thentic account of them, and of those of other governments. It is true, as above 
 stated, that the English offered to receive Upper California in payment of a portion 
 of the public debt of Mexico ; and it is also undoubtedly true that the English 
 were prepared to avail themselves of the pretext of an indemnity for that debt 
 to take possession of California upon any favorable conjuncture. It is also true 
 that the acquisition of California had long been an object much desired by the 
 government of the United States. As early as the year 1835 President Jackson 
 proposed to the government of Mexico to purchase that portion lying east and 
 north of a line drawn from the Gulf of Mexico along the eastern bank of the Rio 
 Bravo del Norte up to the 37th degree of north latitude, and thence along that 
 parallel to the Pacific ocean. This would have included within the proposed 
 cession to the United States all the Bay of San Francisco, and the territory to 
 the north and east of it, and have left to the south the bay of Monterey. This 
 proposition was favorably received by the Mexican government, and would 
 doubtless have been accepted had i\ not been for the intrigues and powerful re- 
 monstrances of the British diplomatic representatives. The American govern- 
 ment, however, did not relinquish its designs, nor desist in the execution of its 
 plans for promoting the desired result. It continued to encourage and protect 
 the emigration of its citizens to California. It caused to be made scientific and 
 popular explorations by land, such as those of Fremont, and by sea, such as 
 those sucessfully and thoroughly made by Wilkes's exploring expedition. 
 
314 EESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 Indeed, it is more than suspected that the main object of organizing Wilkes's 
 exploring expedition was a thorough hydrographic survey of the harbor of San 
 Francisco and its tributaries a work which was so well accomplished that the 
 maps and soundings of the bays and rivers from San Francisco to Sacramento, 
 which were made on that occasion, are reliable to the present time. What Fre- 
 mont's instructions were on his last expedition to California is a well-kept cabi- 
 net secret, which will probably not be divulged, at least in our time ; but it is 
 evident from his course of action that he was directed, in case of receiving reli- 
 able information of the breaking out of war, to do all in his power to secure 
 possession of California. It is also very certain that the commanders of the 
 American men-of-war cruising on the coast of California had explicit instructions 
 not to suffer the country to fall into the hands of any other power. And the 
 popular impression is that the English were about to take possession of Cali- 
 fornia, and were prevented only by the seizure of Monterey by Commodore Sloat 
 on the 7th of July, 1846. 
 
 MOVEMENTS OF THE CALIFORNIANS IN RELATION TO THEIR ANNEXATION TO A 
 
 FOREIGN POWER. 
 
 Meanwhile the natives of California, with that instinctive apprehension of the 
 coming storm which seems to prevail in the political as well as in the natural 
 world, began to consult upon the policy of preventing the anticipated acts of 
 foreign governments by declaring their independence of Mexico, and placing 
 California under the protection of some great political power. In the year 1836 
 Don Juan Bautista Alvarado revolted against Mexico, and by the aid of sixty 
 American riflemen, headed by Isaac Graham, drove Gutierrez, the constitutional 
 governor of California, out of the department, and was himself proclaimed gov- 
 ernor in his stead. Acting in conjunction with General Mariano Gaudalupe 
 Vallejo and Don Jose Castro, and aiming at annexation with the United States, 
 he declared California to be completely independent of Mexico, and erected into 
 a free and sovereign state el Estado libre y sober ana de la Alt a California 
 and raised a flag like that of the United States, but with a single star. This re- 
 volt was finally abandoned on certain concessions being made by the central gov- 
 ernment, including the appointment of Alvarado as constitutional governor. In 
 1842 President Santa Anna sent General Manuel Micheltorena to California as 
 governor and commandant general, with 150 persons to act as officials, and 
 an army of 300 convicts, drawn from the prisons of Mexico.* But he 
 
 I should not dare to credit this act of Santa Anna if it were not officially substantiated 
 beyond any doubt. It was published at the time, at Mexico, in El Observador Judicial 
 y de Legislation, 1842, vol. i, p. 372, and also afterwards, in the Coleccion de las Decrctos y 
 Ordenes de Interes Comun, que dicto el gobierno provisional en virtud de las bases de Tncubaya, 
 Mexico: Imprenta de J. M. Lara, 1850, page 352, under date of February 22, A. D. 1842, 
 and is in the following terms : 
 
 " MINISTERIO DE JUSTICIA E INSTRUCTION PUBLICA. 
 
 " Exmo. Senor el exnio. Senor Presidente Provisional, en uso de la Facultad que concede 
 et art. 7 de las bases acordadas en Tacubaya y juradas por los represeritantes de los departa- 
 mentos, ha tenido a cien disponer : que de los reos senteuciados a presidio que existan en las 
 earceles de esta capital, se destinen trescientos al departamento de California^ escogiendo al 
 efecto a los que sengan algun oficio 6 industria util ; en el concepto de que si al llegar & aquel 
 destino hubieren guardado buena conducta, a juicio del gobierno departmental, se les recajar 
 una parte de su cond6na, o se les indultara del todo, segun los servicios que prestaren, y 
 aun se auxiliara a sus familias para que vayan unirse con ellos, dandoles terrenos y los in- 
 strumeritos que necesiten para colonizar: (with the purpose of rebating a part or the whole 
 of their term of punishment, according to the services they render; and also their families 
 shall be assisted to join them, and lands and implements of cultivation furnished them.) 
 
 "Lo quetengo el honor de cornunicar a V. E. para su debido cumplimiento, y que sesirva 
 hacer saber esta suprema disposition a los presidiarios que al indicate efecto fueren escogidos. 
 
 "Exmo. Senor Gobernador del Departamento de Mexico." 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 315 
 
 too, after a stormy administration, was forced to retire, in the year 1845, after 
 having stipulated with the insurgents by the treaty of Cahuenga so styled 
 from the rancho of that name where it was conducted that he and his adher- 
 ents might march away with their side arms with all the honors of war. The 
 crisis of severance from the mother republic became every day more inevitable. 
 Dissatisfied as the Californians were with the exactions and oppressions of the 
 central government, and with the importation from Mexico of a convict soldiery, 
 who graduated from the camp to become turbulent citizens or ferocious bandits, 
 the question of secession from Mexico was freely discussed and its policy ap- 
 proved. They differed only as to what great political power should be invoked 
 for protection and annexation. The departmental assembly of California, in the 
 year 1846, passed a law for the election of delegates to a junta, or extraordi- 
 nary convention, to be styled "The general council of the united pueblos of the 
 Californias : el concejo general de Jos pueblos unidos de California," which was 
 to meet at Santa Barbara on June 15, 1846, for the purpose of determining the 
 destiny of California. Meanwhile the resident consuls and agents of the three 
 great powers which were striving for the possession of California Forbes for 
 Great Britain, Guys for France, and Larkin for the United States commenced 
 their movements and counter movements, each hoping to gain the predominat- 
 ing influence in the coming convention. But the result of an informal meeting 
 of some of the leading men of California, at the house of Don Jose Castro, in 
 Monterey, dissipated all these hopes, and showed that the convention, even if 
 held, must prove an utter failure. On that occasion a native Californian, whom 
 it would be invidious to mention, as he is now a loyal citizen of California, but 
 who then represented the monarchical party, spoke as follows : * 
 
 " Excellent Sirs, to what a deplorable condition is our country reduced ! 
 Mexico, professing to be our mother and our protectress, has given us neither 
 arms, nor money, nor the materials of war for our defence. She is not likely 
 to do anything in our behalf, although she is quite willing to afflict us with her 
 extortionate minions, who come hither in the guise of soldiers and civil officers 
 to harass and oppress our people. We possess a glorious country, capable of 
 attaining a physical arid moral greatness corresponding with the grandeur and 
 beauty which an Almighty hand has stamped upon the face of our beloved Cali- 
 fornia. But although nature has been prodigal, it cannot be denied that we are 
 not in a position to avail ourselves of her bounty. Our population is not large, 
 and it is sparsely scattered over valley and mountain, covering an immense 
 area of virgin soil, destitute of roads, and traversed with difficulty ; hence it is 
 hardly possible to collect an army of any considerable force. Our people are 
 poor, as well as few, and cannot well govern themselves and maintain a decent 
 show of sovereign power. Although we live in the midst of plenty, we lay up 
 nothing ; but, tilling the earth in an imperfect maner, all our time is required to 
 procure subsistence for ourselves and our families. Thus circumstanced, we 
 find ourselves threatened by hordes of Yankee emigrants, who have already 
 begun to flock into our country, and whose progress we cannot arrest. Already 
 have the wagons of that perfidious people scaled the almost inaccessible summit 
 of the Sierra Nevada, crossed the entire continent, and penetrated the fruitful 
 valley of the Sacramento. What that astonishing people will next undertake, 
 I cannot say ; but in whatever enterprise they embark, they will be sure to prove 
 successful. Already are these adventurous land-voyagers spreading themselves 
 
 The alleged design of converting California into a convict colony was only a flimsy pre- 
 text for furnishing Micheltoreua with three hundred desperate soldiers ; still, it is interesting 
 to know that the intention of making our State the Botany Bay of Mexico was once thus 
 officially announced. 
 
 * The speeches which follow were reduced to writing at the time, by the late Thomas O. 
 Larkin, then American consul at Monterey. The first had already been delivered, in sub- 
 stance, in the Departmental Assembly. 
 
316 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 far and wide over a country which seems suited to their taste. They are cul- 
 tivating farms, establishing vineyards, erecting mills, sawing up lumber, build- 
 ing workshops, and doing a thousand other things which seem natural to them, 
 but which Califomians neglect or despise. What, then, are we to do 1 Shall 
 we remain supine, while these daring strangers are overrunning our fertile plains, 
 and gradually outnumbering and displacing us ? Shall these incursions go on 
 unchecked, until we shall become strangers in our own land ? We cannot suc- 
 cessfully oppose them by our own unaided power, and the swelling tide of 
 emigration renders the odds against us more , powerful every day. We cannot 
 stand alone against them, nor can we creditably maintain our independence 
 even against them, nor can we creditably maintain our independence even against 
 Mexico ; but there is something which we can do, which will elevate our country,, 
 strengthen her at all points, and yet enable us to preserve our identity and re- 
 main masters of our own soil. Perhaps what I am about to suggest may seem 
 to some faint-hearted and dishonorable. But to me it does not appear so. It 
 is the last hope of a feeble people, struggling against a tyrannical government, 
 which claims their submission at home, and threatened by bands of avaricious 
 strangers from without, voluntarily to connect themselves with a power able and 
 willing to defend and preserve them, It is the right and duty of the weak to 
 demand support from the strong, provided the demand be made upon terms 
 just to both parties. I see no dishonor in this last refuge of the oppressed and 
 powerless, and I boldly avow that such is the step I would now have California 
 take. There are two great powers in Europe, which seem destined to divide 
 between them the unappropriated countries of the world. They have large 
 fleets and armies not unpracticed in the art of war. Is it not better to connect 
 ourselves with one of these powerful nations than to struggle on without hope, 
 as we are doing now ] Is it not better that one of them should be invited to 
 send a fleet and an army to protect California, rather than we should fall an easy 
 prey to the lawless adventurers who are overrunning our beautiful country ? I 
 pronounce for annexation to France or England, and the people of California will 
 never regret having taken my advice. They will no longer be subjected to the 
 trouble and grievous expense of governing themselves, and their beef, and their 
 grain, which they produce in such abundance, would find a ready market among 
 the new comers. But I hear some one say, "No monarchy !" But is not mon- 
 archy better than anarchy] Is not existence in some shape better than anni- 
 hilation ? No monarchy ! And what is there so terrible in a monarchy ? Have 
 we not all lived under a monarchy far more despotic than that of France or 
 England, and were not our people happy under it ? Have not- the leading men 
 among our agriculturists been bred beneath the royal rule of Spain, and have 
 they been happier since the mock republic of Mexico has supplied its place ? 
 Nay, does not every man abhor the miserable abortion christened the republic 
 of Mexico, and look back with regret to the golden days of the Spanish mon- 
 archy ? Let us restore that glorious era. Then may our people go quietly to 
 their ranches, and live there as of yore, leading a merry and thoughtless life, 
 untroubled by politics or cares of state, sure of what is their own, and safe 
 from the incursions of the Yankees, who would soon be forced to retreat into 
 their own country." 
 
 To these arguments General Mariano Gr. Vallejo,-a native of California, whom 
 we are proud to number among the members of this society, and who has not 
 lost our esteem in consequence of the assaults macle upon him by those who 
 have succeeded in confiscating so large a portion of that landed property of the 
 native Californians, whose possession was guaranteed to them by the treaty of 
 Guadalupe Hidalgo, replied as follows : 
 
 " I cannot, gentlemen, coincide in opinion with the military and civil func- 
 tionaries who have advocated the cession of 'our country to France or England. 
 It is most true that to rely any longer upon Mexico to govern and defend us 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 317 
 
 would be idle and absurd. To this extent I fully agree with my distinguished 
 colleagues. It is true that we possess a noble country, every way calculated, from 
 position and resources, to become great and powerful. For that very reason I 
 would not have her a mere dependence upon a foreign monarchy, naturally alien, 
 or at least indifferent to our interests and our welfare. It is not to be denied that 
 feeble nations have in former times thrown themselves upon the protection of their 
 powerful neighbors. The Britons invoked the aid of the warlike Saxons, and fell 
 an easy prey to their protectors, who seized their lands and treated them as slaves. 
 Long before that time, feeble and distracted provinces had appealed for aid to 
 the all-conquering arms of imperial Rome, and they were at the same time pro- 
 tected and subjugated by their grasping ally. Even could we tolerate the idea 
 of dependence, ought we to go to distant Europe for a master ? What possi- 
 ble sympathy could exist between us and a nation separated from us by 
 two vast oceans ? But waiving this insuperable objection, how could we 
 endure to come under the dominion of a monarch ? for although others 
 speak lightly of a form of government, as a freeman I cannot do so. We 
 are republicans. Badly governed and badly situated as we are, still we 
 are all, in sentiment, republicans. So far as we are governed at all, we, at 
 least, profess to be self-governed. Who, then, that possesses true patriotism 
 will consent to subject himself and children to the caprices of a foreign king 
 and his official minions ? But, it is asked, if we do not throw ourselves upon 
 the protection of France or England, what shall we do ] I do not come here to 
 support the existing order of things, but I come prepared to propose instant and 
 effective action to extricate our country from her present forlorn condition. My 
 opinion is made up that we must persevere in throwing off the galling yoke 
 of Mexico and proclaim our independence forever. We have endured her 
 official cormorants and her villanous soldiery until we can endure no longer. 
 All will probably agree with me that we ought at once to rid ourselves of what 
 may remain of Mexican domination. But some profess to doubt our ability to 
 maintain our position. To my mind there comes no doubt. Look at Texas 
 and see how long she withstood the power of united Mexico. The resources of 
 Texas were not to be compared with ours, and she was much nearer to her enemy 
 than we are. Our position is so remote, either by land or sea, that we are in no 
 danger from a Mexican invasion. Why, then, should we hesitate still to assert our 
 independence ? We have indeed taken the first step by electing our own governor ; 
 but another remains to be taken. I will mention it plainly and distinctly. It is an- 
 nexation to the United States. In contemplating this consummation of our destiny 
 I feel nothing but pleasure, and I ask you to share it. Discard old prejudices, dis- 
 regard old customs, and prepare for the glorious change which awaits our coun- 
 try. Why should we shrink from incorporating ourselves with the happiest 
 and freest nation in the world, destined soon to be the most wealthy and power- 
 ful ? Why should we go abroad for protection, when this great nation is our 
 adjoining neighbor ? When we join our fortune to hers we shall not become 
 subjects, but fellow-citizens, possessing all the rights of the people of the United 
 States, and choosing our own federal and local rulers. We shall have a stable 
 government and just laws. California will grow strong and flourish, and her 
 people will be prosperous, happy, and free. Look not, therefore, with jealousy 
 upon the hardy pioneers who scale our mountains and cultivate our unoccupied 
 plains, but rather welcome them as brothers who come to share with us a com' 
 mon destiny." 
 
 Upon the conclusion of these remarks General Vallejo and his friends retired 
 in a body from the meeting, and he immediately addressed a letter to the gov- 
 ernor reaffirming the views which he had expressed, and declared that he would 
 never assist in any project for annexation to any nationality except that of the 
 United States, or hold any office under any government which proposed to sur- 
 render California to any European monarchy ; and thereupon he and his sup- 
 
318 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 porters retired to their homes. This movement on the part of General Vallejo 
 destroyed the prospects of the convention, so that, although its members were 
 elected, it never met for want of a quorum ; and within a few months thereafter 
 California was in the possession of the United States, by the taking of Mon- 
 terey, by Commodore Sloat, on July 7, A. D. 1846. 
 
 ENDEAVORS OF RUSSIA TO OCCUPY CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Meanwhile the Russians had for some time been quietly insinuating them- 
 selves upon the northern coast of California, with a view to its permanent occu- 
 pation. In the year 1812 they established themselves at the port of Bodega, 
 having previously obtained permission to do so from the authorities of Spain, for 
 the alleged purpose of maintaining fisheries and hunting for furs. But already, 
 as early as the year 1815, they had established large ranches in the interior, 
 had purchased cattle of the Spanish inhabitants, and had devoted themselves to 
 the rearing of herds and the production of wheat. During the revolutionary 
 troubles in Mexico, the Russians held themselves to have become the actual 
 owners of the territory which they occupied. About forty miles from Bodega, 
 beyond the river San Sebastian, they constructed a fort, which they called 
 Slawianski, but which the Mexicans designated as the Fort of Ross. Over this 
 floated the Russian flag, and a military governor was in command, appointed by 
 the Czar of Russia. So carefully was this military colony fostered by its own 
 government, that it possessed one-sixth of the white population of California in 
 the year 1842. But, on the final acquisition of California by the United States, 
 the military colony was withdrawn, and most if not all the Russian population 
 retired at or about the same time. 
 
 THESE VARIOUS GOVERNMENTS HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE MINERAL WEALTH 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 When we consider what the causes were which have so rapidly developed 
 California to her present position, it seems surprising to us that the existence of 
 precious metals within her limits was not only not suspected, but was even most 
 authoritatively denied. The acquisition of California was considered desirable 
 by all these nations, because it was known that her conditions of climate and 
 soil were such, that her agricultural sources and productions must be almost 
 incalculable ; that she must become the seat of an immense population of a 
 highly civilized and prosperous people, and there form the nucleus of an empire of 
 political and commercial power which must exert a controlling influence over all the 
 coasts of the Pacific ocean. The United States, in particular, found themselves 
 almost in contiguity with the future seat of so much prosperity, wealth, and 
 power, and naturally desired that it should become their own. But although 
 rumors of the existence of gold in California had occasionally been heard, still 
 they had never been verified, or traced to any reliable source ; and they were 
 regarded as we now regard the fabulous stories of the golden sands of Gold 
 lake, or those of " Silver Planches," which are said to exist in the inaccessible 
 deserts of Arizona. It seems strange to us, that, when the geological character 
 of this country was so well known and so minutely described, the existence of 
 the precious metals in any large quantity should have been so explicitly denied. 
 De Mofras uses the following language : 
 
 " There are no minerals which can be exported from California. The mines 
 of silver and of lead which are situated near Monterey are known only by the 
 result of some very simple assays. Some deposits of marble, of copper and iron, 
 some traces of mineral coal which are found near Santa Cruz, some mines of 
 ochre, sulphur, asphaltum, kaolin, and of salt, have not been examined with 
 sufficient care. The only mine at present operated in this country is a vein of 
 virgin gold near the mission of San Fernando, which yields about an ounce a 
 day of pure gold, and is worked by a Frenchman named Baric. 
 
WEST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 319 
 
 "The geological constitution of the soil of California is very simple. The 
 base of the Rocky mountains is formed of granites of various colors, sometimes 
 whitish with spots of black, sometimes gray or red ; above are stratifications of 
 gneiss, hornblende, quartz and talcose slate, similar to those which in Mexico 
 enclose veins of gold, micaceous schist, and talcose schist." 
 
 And yet, with all this explicit description, which gave rise to the recorded 
 suggestion that this geological formation was the same as that which in Mex- 
 ico contained veins of gold, v it never occurred to anyone of the statesmen or ex- 
 plorers who interested themselves in the acquisition of California that mines of 
 the precious metals existed within her limits.* 
 
 OUR GRATITUDE TO THE GIVER OF THIS GIFT. 
 
 We have thus shown that our position in California is not an accidental one, 
 but was the result of a long train of causes in which human agencies were ac- 
 tively at work. We should do injustice to ourselves, on this occasion, if we did 
 not give utterance to higher sentiments than those of admiration for the patriot- 
 ism of our fathers and the skill of our statesmen. We do not entertain those 
 notions of modern atheism, thinly disguised under the epithet of pantheism, 
 which limit the operative creation of God to the diffusion of a thin, gaseous sub- 
 stance throughout infinite space, upon which he set the impress of his law and 
 then went to sleep, leaving the existing universe to be evolved from a succession 
 of vortices. We do not believe that the whole animal and vegetable creations 
 have been evolved from bubbles of albumen, nor even that pantheistical philos- 
 ophers are only fully developed baboons, however probable this latter might 
 seem. This theory was first popularly presented to the world in a most shal- 
 low and unscientific work called The Vestiges of Creation, whose author never 
 dared to expose himself to general ridicule by revealing his name, because, just 
 after the publication of his book, Lord Rosse turned his tremendous telescope 
 upon the gaseous pantheistic nebulae, and instantly resolved them into fixed, 
 starry points. We believe as geology teaches us, that God has often, and at 
 remotely successive periods, interposed in the formation of the physical world, fit- 
 ting it for the creation and habitation of man. We believe that He still acts in 
 history, preparing great events, rewarding nations and men for goodness, and 
 punishing them for crime. We believe that His adoration is not superstitious, 
 nor prayer an unphilosophical act. " If the Lord had not been on our side 
 yea, if the Lord had not been on our side," we should not now possess this 
 beautiful and glorious California, nor hope to transmit it as an inheritance to our 
 descendants. To Him, therefore, we pour out our collected tribute of gratitude, 
 and invoke His protection for ourselves and our children. 
 
 OUR DUTY TO THE FUTURE. 
 
 Standing, as we do, between the mighty past and the mysterious future, 
 recognizing our gratitude to our fathers and our duty to our children, let 
 us this day make a public confession and a solemn covenant. Let us con- 
 
 * In closing the historical narrative, it may be assumed as a fact that the inevitable rup- 
 ture between Mexico and the United States was hastened by the governments of both coun- 
 tries with the expectation that the existence of war would defeat the plans of the monarchical 
 party in Mexico. It is well known that the friends of Santa Anna, who was then in exile, 
 applied to the American government to pass htm through its blockade of Vera Cruz on his 
 proposed return to Mexico, upon the frank representation that although he was the ablest 
 general the Mexicans could have, and would undoubtedly command their armies during the 
 war, yet his presence and influence in the country would prevent the establishment of a 
 foreign monarchy there ; and that the President of the United States, appreciating these con- 
 eiderations, permitted Santa Anna to land at Vera Cruz perfectly free to pursue his own 
 course of action. There are gentlemen of the highest respectability residing in California 
 who came here upon the personal assurance of President Polk, in 1846, that the war should 
 not be concluded until Upper California was secured by treaty to the United States, 
 
320 RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 
 
 fess that those of us who have come into this country since the discovery 
 of gold in California was announced to the world, came here rather with 
 the spirit of adventure than with the intention of remaining here as per- 
 manent residents ; that we came here to gather our share of the mineral 
 treasures of the land, and then to return to the homes of our youth, there to 
 spend the remainder of our lives ; that, at first, we took no thought to found 
 here the institutions of a higher civilization, nor even to cultivate social rela- 
 tions ; and that, in this solitary isolation to which we condemned ourselves for the 
 Bake of gain, it was true, in a certain sense, of us, as individuals, that " our 
 hands were against every one, and every one's hand against us." Let us con- 
 fess that this Ishmaelitish tradition has still a certain influence upon us, and 
 that we do not devote ourselves as fully as we ought to the preparation for th 
 great future of California ; and let us resolve that this day shall form a new era 
 in our organized efforts. The faculties of man are threefold, intellectual, moral, 
 and aesthetic ; he has reasoning powers which can be cultivated ; a moral and 
 religious sense which can be elevated ; and a perception of the beautiful in 
 nature and art which can be developed into a source of happiness and refinement. 
 As of men, so of nations, for nations are but aggregates of men. The man who is 
 wanting in cultivation of any of these faculties is but an imperfect man; a 
 nation which is thus deficient can never act a perfect part in the history of the 
 world. The Greeks and Romans were powerful peoples, highly developed in 
 intellect and aesthetics, but in religion and morals they possessed only the gross 
 and sensual superstitions of paganism. The Puritans of New England were 
 highly cultivated intellectually and morally, but not aesthetically; they were a 
 strong, stern, and unsocial race. The politicians of the French revolution were 
 men of powerful intellects, and of high culture in literature and art, but they 
 were wanting in religious sentiment, and disbelievers in the ever-present working 
 of an intelligent and personal Deity ; so that even Robespierre, contemplating 
 the threatened dissolution of his political system, cried out in his agony : " If there 
 is no God, then we must create one!" Deficiency in aesthetic culture is com- 
 monly the want of new countries. The want of culture has been ascribed to us in 
 California ; by this is meant the want of intimate and refined social culture, of 
 the perception of the beautiful in nature and in art of that beautiful in nature, 
 and that ideal of human perfection, which the painter strives to perpetuate on 
 his canvas, the statuary to embody in marble, the poeb to crystallize in his 
 verse, and the musician to bring up from the profoundest depths of the human 
 soul. The charge brought against us is in a -large measure true, as it is always 
 true of new populations ; but we have advanced so rapidly to a high degree of 
 prosperity that it ought to be true no longer, and we ought ourselves to remove 
 this great reproach. Let us resolve, then, that we will do all in our power to 
 develop aesthetic culture in California ; that we will not only devote ,our aid to 
 the foundation of churches, colleges, schools, and the kindred institutions of 
 morals, science, and humanity, but also to the cultivation of arts, of the percep- 
 tion of the beautiful, to the advancement of painting and statuary. So shall 
 we do our duty to the future ; so shall come after us generations of Californians 
 against whom no such reproach can be brought a perfect race, equally devel- 
 oped in their threefold faculties, by intellectual, moral, and aesthetic culture. 
 
 OUR CELEBRATION, TEN YEARS HENE, OF THE HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY OF 
 
 OUR CITY. 
 
 San Francisco was founded by a colony of soldiers and settlers who came 
 up for that purpose from Monterey, overland and by sea, in 1776, and imme- 
 diately set about constructing a chapel at the presidio, after which the following 
 proceeding took place, as recorded by Father Palou, one of the missionary 
 priests who belonged to the expedition : 
 
WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 321 
 
 " We took formal possession of the presidio on the seventeenth day of Septem- 
 ber, the anniversary of the impression of the wounds of our Father San Francisco, 
 the patron of the presidio and mission. I said the first mass, and after blessing 
 the site, (despues del bcndito,} tha elevation and adoration of the holy cross, and 
 the conclusion of the service with the Te Deum, the officers took formal pos- 
 session in the name of our sovereign, with many discharges of cannon, both on 
 Bea and land, and the musketry of the soldiers." 
 
 The seventeenth of September, A. D. 1776, must therefore be considered the 
 date of the foundation of San Francisco. 
 
 Ten years from now San Francisco will have completed the hundredth year 
 of her existence. In ten years most of us, under the ordinary providence of 
 God, will be still living. Let us then, on the hundredth birthday of our be- 
 loved city, go up and celebrate it on the plain of the presidio, where she was 
 born. Let us at that time renew the solemn exercises by which the soil was 
 consecrated to civilization : the blessing of holy mother church will not hurt the 
 most zealous Protestant among us. Let us rear mast -high the old flag of Spain, 
 with full military honors, to be replaced with equal honor by that of Mexico, 
 which in its turn shall give place, with " great discharge of musketry and of 
 cannon," to our own national emjblem of unity and strength 1 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 *It is the singularly good fortune of the members of our society that they have 
 an assured position in the history of California, and one which can never be 
 taken away from them. Whatever the future may have in store for us as indi- 
 viduals, the Corporate Society of California Pioneers has had an existence whose 
 records must always remain in the literature and history of California. Our 
 banner is here, on which our names are inscribed, and that banner will always 
 float at the head of the "innumerable caravan" of the countless generations who 
 are to succeed us of that column which, like the Macedonian phalanx, widen- 
 ing as it deepens, shall draw its vast recruits as well from the tropical regions of 
 the equator as from the confines of the frozen ocean. Behold the thin mist curl- 
 ing up from the ripple where the sunbeam kisses the western sea! It mounts 
 to Heaven, and on its slight curtain Aurora paints the glories of ,the rising 
 sun ; condenses itself into the fleecy whiteness which decorates the sky of 
 June; piles up the mighty thunder-cloud, with blackened .base and Al- 
 pine peaks of dazzling brightness; and, at the signal of the far-flash- 
 ing red artillery" of Heaven, and with reverberating crash, dissolves itself 
 in gentle rain ; descends with refreshing coolness on the thirsty land, rushes 
 in torrents of sheety foam adown the mountain side ; swells the vast river to its 
 grassy brink, and then returns its tributary volume to the mother ocean. So count- 
 less as the innumerable drops of rain shall be the people that come after us. So 
 shall they rise up from the mists of the future, filling Heaven and earth and sea 
 with the beauty, greatness, and goodness of their acts, and then return, like us, 
 to the great source from which they came. And among them, what multitudes 
 of unborn painters, sculptors, poets, merchant-princes, generals and statesmen ! 
 Unknown they are to us, but sure to be most of them still sleeping in the vast 
 caverns where repose the unborn generations of mankind. But from the depths 
 of the mists which conceal them, we already hear the reverberations of their 
 heavy tread. The parting haze already reveals the outline of the giant 
 forms of their leaders, but, alas, their faces are veiled ! These are the men for 
 whose coming we are to prepare this California of ours ; these are the men who 
 are to erect on the Pacific coast the imperial throne of the great American em- 
 pire! 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 2921 
 
LETTER 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, 
 
 ENCLOSING 
 
 Report of James W. Taylor, special commissioner Jor the collection of statistics 
 upon gold and silver mining east of the Rocky mountains. 
 
 FEBRUARY 15, 1867. Referred to the Committee on Mines and Mining and ordered to be 
 
 printed. 
 
 TKEASURY DEPARTMENT, 
 
 Washington, February 13, 1867. 
 
 SIR : I have the honor to transmit a preliminary report upon gold and silver 
 mines and mining in the States and Territories east of the Rocky mountains, by 
 Mr. James W-. Taylor, who has been appointed a special commissioner for the 
 collection of statistical information on that subject by this department. 
 
 Congress having made provision by the civil appropriation act of July 28, 
 1866, for the collection, by the Secretary of the Treasury, of " reliable statistical 
 information concerning the gold and silver mines of the western States and Ter- 
 ritories," I referred the inquiry in relation to districts west of the Rocky moun- 
 tains to Mr. J. Ross Browne, whose report was transmitted to the House of 
 Representatives on the 8th of January. There remained for consideration ex- 
 tensive districts of New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Dakota, and Minnesota, 
 which may be properly designated as " western" States and Territories ; and 
 the mineral statistics of those regions,* especially in regard to the production of 
 gold and silver, were referred to Mr. Taylor. 
 
 The report herewith forwarded also contains some information upon the sit- 
 uation and prospects of gold mining along the eastern slope of the Alleghany 
 range, with some generaUstatements of the production of the precious metals in 
 Canada, Nova Scotia, and other parts of British America a compilation made 
 by the direction of this department with a view to exhibit all the gold-bearing 
 districts within the territory of the United States or closely related to our 
 northern frontier. The kindred topics of the present and future production of 
 gold and silver in other quarters of the world, and the effect of our own treasure 
 supply upon the internal commerce and communications of the west, are briefly 
 noticed in the report herewith enclosed. 
 
 I repeat the hope expressed on a former occasion, that the reports above re- 
 ferred to may prove valuable contributions to the public information in reference 
 to the great mineral resources of the United States. 
 I am, very truly, your obedient servant, 
 
 H. McCULLOCH, 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Hon. SCHUYLRR COLFAX, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives 
 
324 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 SAINT PAUL, February 8, 1867. 
 
 SIR: In pursuance of your letter of instructions of September 12, 1866, I 
 present some general information in regard to the production of gold and silver 
 in the Territories of New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana, in a district of Min- 
 nesota northwest of Lake Superior, of which the lake and river Vermillion in- 
 dicate the locality, and upon the eastern slope of the Alleghany range in the 
 States of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, 
 with some notice of recent discoveries of gold in New Hampshire, Nova Scotia, 
 and Canada. 
 
 In a second instalment of this communication a general review of the pro- 
 duction of gold and silver in other quarters of the world is submitted, with the 
 purpose of indicating relatively the commercial and social importance of the 
 treasure product of the United States. 
 
 A third division presents a summary of the domestic commerce from the Mis- 
 souri river westward to the interior or mining districts of the United States, 
 having reference prominently to the situation and prospects of railway commu- 
 nication with the Rocky mountains and the Pacific coast. 
 
 The brief period and the limited means of information which have been avail- 
 able since the date of your commission will confine the present communication 
 to the form of a preliminary report, postponing a fuller consideration of the topics 
 enumerated to a subsequent occasion. 
 
 THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 This designation no longer includes the whole breadth of the Andean chain in 
 the United States. It refers only to the formation known in Mexico as the 
 Sierra Madre, or Mother mountain, from which the Sierra Nevada of California, 
 or the western wall of the mountain mass, diverges in northern Mexico, while 
 the intervening plateau of table lauds is now recognized as a distinct and char- 
 acteristic division of the continent. The Rocky mountains, or the cordillera of 
 the Sierra Madre, traverses the territory of the United States in a north-north- 
 west direction, from the 29th to the 49th parallel of latitude. The average 
 elevation of its crest is 12,000 feet above the sea, lifting, for a breadth of 300 
 miles, above the altitude of its eastern and western piedmonts, which, in the lati- 
 tude of Denver and Great Salt Lake, is fully 6,000 feet. Those valleys, slopes, 
 and gorges, which supply the sources of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Platte, 
 Arkansas, and Rio Grande rivers, are the prominent features of the Territories 
 of Montana, Colorado, and New Mexico, and will be the first topics of consid- 
 eration in relation to gold and silver mining east of the Rocky mountains. 
 
 NEW MEXICO. 
 
 If we compare a map of this Territory with any similar publication of the 
 last century, even as early as a chart in Moll's atlas of 1720, the vicinity of 
 Santa Fe is represented as even more populous than at present. The Spaniards 
 thoroughly explored the valley of the Rio Grande, and their mining settlements 
 were very numerous in the mountains of New Mexico. There is a tradition 
 that the Indians, whose labor had made the.mines of g^ld v silver, and copper 
 available to their Spanish conquerors, were at length driven into insurrection, 
 which was so far*successful as completely to interrupt all systematic mining. 
 This was about 1680, and at no subsequent period have the conditions of society 
 and industry been favorable to the resumption of mining enterprises. At this 
 time Indian hostilities prevent permanent labor, and almost exploration, in the 
 'remote districts of New Mexico. 
 
 Twenty years ago, when Colonel Doniphan led a column of American troops 
 to Santa Fe and Chihuahua, Dr. A. Wizlizenus, who accompanied the expedi- 
 tion as surgeon and for the sake of scientific investigation, reported that gold 
 
GOLD* MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 325 
 
 wns? found to a large extent in all the mountains near Sante F, south to a dis- 
 tance of about one hundred miles, or as far as Gran Quivira, and north for about 
 one hundred and twenty miles, to the river Sangre de Cristo. Throughout this 
 whole region gold-dust was then abundantly found by the poorer classes of 
 Mexicans, who occupied themselves with the washing of this metal in the moun- 
 tain streams, while at the Placer mountain, about thirty miles from Santa Fe, 
 gold-bearing quartz was worked. These statements in regard to gold are con- 
 firmed by the second annual message of acting Governor Arny, delivered in 
 December, 1866, to the legislature of New Mexico, who also reports the discov- 
 ery of thirty lodes of gold-bearing quartz at Pinos Altos, paying from $40 to 
 $200 per ton; of quartz veins at San Jose, in the Sierra Madre, intersecting 
 each other in all directions for a mile in width and three miles in length; of a 
 similar formation near Fort Davis, Texas ; and of extensive placer mines on the 
 San Francisco and Mimbres rivers.- 
 
 Governor Arny gives prominence to these gold discoveries, but adds that sil- 
 ver is the prominent and most abundant mineral of the Territory. Lodes of 
 silver, with its many combinations, are very numerous. He thinks it will be 
 the most profitable branch of mining in that Rocky mountain region, and enu- 
 merates as prominently argentiferous the districts of the Placer mountains near 
 Santa Fe, the Organ mountains near the Mesilla valley, and the Sierra Madre 
 near Pinos. The first and last of these localities are, as we have seen, gold-pro- 
 ducing also. In the Organ mountains over fifty silver mines have been discov- 
 ered, the ore being generally argentiferous galena. The district near Mesilla 
 valley in the'Organ mountains has a mean altitude of 4,400 feet, and is intersected 
 with ravines, affording favorable opportunities for horizontal drifts in opening the 
 veins. There is a belt or series of veins containing six principal veins and many 
 smaller ones, the six larger veins varying from two to fifteen feet in width. On 
 the largest of these veins is the celebrated " Stephenson" mine. This belt of 
 veins crosses the Organ mountains at or near the San Augustine pass, and both 
 sides of the chain of mountains present similar features and equal richness. 
 The country bordering on the north portion of Chihuahua is a rich silver dis- 
 trict. Immediately adjoining the new Mexican boundary are* the mines of " Cor- 
 ralitos,'' the most successful silver mines in the State of Chihuahua, having 
 been mined for forty years in a region most exposed to Indian hostility. Near 
 the old town of El Paso, tradition places the locality of one of the richest silver 
 mines known to the Spaniards, but its site was lost during the insurrection of 
 1680. 
 
 Dr. Wizlizenus, writing in 1847, thus proceeds with his enumeration of the 
 mineral resources of New Mexico : "In Spanish times, several rich silver mines 
 were worked at Avo, at Cerillos, and in the Nambe mountains, but none at pres- 
 ent. Copper is found in abundance throughout the country, but principally at 
 Los Tijeras, Jemas, Abiquin, Guadelupita de Mora, &c.; iron, though also 
 abundantly found, is entirely overlooked. Coal has been discovered in differ- 
 ent localities, as in the Raton mountains, near the village of Jemez, southwest 
 of Santa Fe, and near, but south of, Placer mountain. Gypsum, both common 
 and selenite, is found in large quantities, extensive layers of it existing in the 
 mountains near Algodones, on the Rio Grande, and in the neighborhood of the 
 celebrated Salinas. It is used as common lime for whitewashing, and the crys- 
 talline, or selenite, instead of window-glass. About one hundred miles south- 
 southeast of Santa Fe, on the high table-land between the Rio Grande and Pe- 
 cos, are some extensive salt lakes, or salinas, from which all the salt (muriate of 
 soda) used in New Mexico is procured." 
 
 Governor Arny, in his late message, observes of the production of copper, 
 that, before the late civil war, two copper mines were extensively worked the 
 Santa Rita and the Hanover turning out about twelve tons of copper per week, 
 and employing jointly about five hundred hands. Other copper mines had been 
 
326 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 opened, and were about to commence operations. A copper mine has lately 
 been discovered a short distance from Fort Union, the specimens indicating a 
 rich deposit. The locality of this discovery will render it very valuable, as it is 
 convenient for the return wagons from Santa Fe and Fort Union to the Mis- 
 souri river. * 
 
 The indispensable conditions to the development of the mines of New Mexico 
 are, first, Indian pacification ; second, railway communication with New Orleans, 
 Vicksburg, Memphis, and St. Louis ; third, a geological reconnoissance. 
 
 Some additional statements, on the authority of Doctor Wizlizenus, in regard 
 to the mineral production of the adjoining State of Chihuahua, are valuable as 
 indicating what may be reasonably anticipated in New Mexico. Referring to 
 the rich silver mines of Chihuahua, he remarks that they are found principally 
 in the western part of the State throughout the length of the Sierra Madre, and 
 in a mean breadth of thirty leagues. The ores occur generally as sulphurets, 
 with iron or lead, sometimes as native silver and muriate of silver, and are found 
 either entirely in porphyritic rocks, or in stratified rocks, (limestone,) passing at 
 greater depth into igneous rocks. They are worked either by amalgamation or 
 by fire in common furnaces. Ifor the latter process they need generally an ad- 
 dition of greta, (litharge or oxyd of lead,) which forms, therefore, a valuable 
 article of trade. 
 
 The celebrated mine of Santa Eulalia, near the city of Chihuahua, produced 
 in seventy-two years, from 1717 to 1789, $52,800,000. The abundance of lead 
 found in Santa Eulalia makes the smelting of the ore very convenient. These 
 mines are not exhausted ; but from intrusion of water, want of capital, and the 
 attraction of new mines, they are but little worked. Doctor Wizlizenus describes 
 five other districts where silver ores have been found far superior in richness 
 and extent to the mines of Central Mexico, but in which little has been accom- 
 plished on account of the invasions of hostile Indians ; and he mentions gold and 
 copper mines as holding a similar relation to the lodes of silver, as prevails in 
 New Mexico. The annual production of silver and gold in 1 846 was estimated 
 
 at about $1,031,251. 
 
 
 
 COLORADO. 
 
 The summits and valleys of Colorado are the sources of the rivers Platte and 
 Arkansas, which are affluents of the Mississippi, and of the Rio Grande, directly 
 tributary to the Gulf of Mexico, and of the Colorado,. which falls into the Pacific 
 gulf of that name. No similar area of the Rocky mountains is more imposing 
 in scenery or physical relations than Colorado. Its mineral development is fully 
 commensurate. 
 
 The traveller by the route of the Union Pacific railway, in approaching the 
 Rocky mountains, will first traverse a formation of coal and iron. For over one 
 hundred and fifty miles, from the Arkansas to the Cache le Poudre, bituminous 
 coal, or a superior quality of lignite, has been discovered, at many points accom- 
 panied by iron ore* Next in situation westward quite within the mountains, but 
 much below their snow-covered summits is a mineral range from five to fifteen 
 miles wide, and extending from Long's Peak two hundred miles southwardly in 
 Colorado, within which most of the discoveries of gold, especially of auriferous 
 quartz, have occurred. Crossing the snowy range, on the western slope, ex- 
 tensive silver mines have been discovered. Governor Evans, of Colorado, in 
 November, 1866, remarked at a public meeting in Chicago: " I have just re- 
 turned from visiting a district about one hundred miles by ten or fifteen in ex- 
 tent, lying across the main mountain range west of Denver City, which is 
 pervaded throughout by extensive and rich veins of silver; some are of pure 
 silver ores, but the majority of them are argentiferous galena ores, varying in 
 richness, many of them yielding in the smelting furnace as high as six hundred 
 
GOLD 'MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 327 
 
 dollars of* silver to the ton of ore." Salinas, or extensive deposits of salt, are 
 accessible, as in New Mexico ; and even petroleum is found near the eastern 
 base of the mountains. The forests supply timber even for exportation to 
 Kansas, and the mountain streams are generally available for the uses . of ma- 
 chinery and. irrigation. 
 
 The area of Colorado is 67,723,520 acres, and the most sanguine view of its 
 future agriculture is comprised in a statement by Surveyor General Pierce, in 
 1866, that "there are about 4,000,000 acres of agricultural land susceptible of 
 irrigation, which will make productive farms." 250,000 acres were entered under 
 the homestead and pre-empton acts in 1866, and 141,000 acres in 1865. A much 
 larger area is suitable for the sustenance of domestic animals. "The whole of 
 the plains," according to the testimony of Governor Evans, " and the parks in 
 the mountains of Colorado, are the finest of pastoral lands. Stock fattens and 
 thrives on them the year round, large herds and flocks being kept there in the 
 finest possible condition. In some parts, it is true, the snow covers the grass 
 for a part of the winter, but in other places cattle and sheep are wintered with- 
 out feeding, with entire success. The celebrated parks, North, Middle, South 
 and San Luis, are fine agricultural valleys for grass and small grains/' 
 
 Gulch 'or placer mining, although the first form of gold discovery in 1859, 
 has been prosecuted in Colorado with less success than in California a remark 
 applicable to all the districts east of the Rocky mountains, with perhaps the 
 single exception of the Confederate gulch near Helena, in Montana Territory. 
 This may be owing to the less degree of disintegration to which the veins, or 
 gold geologically in situ, have been exposed. It has been observed that on the 
 eastern flank of the great Rocky mountain mass volcanic and other igneous 
 action has been less violent, the country is less abrupt, and the action of the 
 elements has been less marked than on the Pacific slope, and therefore placers 
 are not so frequent or productive. Whatever may be the force of this expla- 
 nation, the discoveries and developments of auriferous quartz lodes in the 
 Gregory district have mostly contributed thus far to the settlement of Colorado. 
 This district extends from Gold Hill to Empire City, about thirty miles along 
 the base of the snowy range, amd is, on the average, about ten miles in width- 
 an area of three hundred square miles of gold-producing mountains, in which 
 many quartz mills are in operation. It is now generally admitted that the 
 range of gold-bearing quartz is .not^ limited to the Gregory district, but is as 
 extensive as the snowy range itself. t * 
 
 The successful reduction of auriferous rock is a problem of the future. The 
 immense production of Siberia, California, and Australia is mostly washed from 
 the sands of rivers or the adjacent detritus, nature, in each, case, having over- 
 come the mechanical and chemical difficulties presented by the matrix of gold. 
 In the reduction of Colorado ores the chemical are the chief difficulties. The 
 auriferous quartz of the Sierra Nevada, when pulverized, yields the gold readily 
 to the attraction of quicksilver the gold is "free;" but, with hardly an excep- 
 tion, a Colorado mine exhibits a most refractory combination of gold with the 
 sulphurets of iron and copper. Nor are these the only mineral associations 
 which often baffle all former appliances for the separation of baser metals. 
 Quartz mining in Colorado has hitherto been unsuccessful from the failure of 
 numerous processes and methods of desulphurization and amalgamation which 
 had proved efficient in Europe and even in California; but during 1866 several 
 American inventions, or new combinations of existing methods, have been intro- 
 duced, and are now in course of trial. I shall not venture to describe their practical 
 operation or decide upon their success. Hereafter, as a result of personal exam- 
 ination and a full comparison of opinion, it may be practicable to do so; but at 
 present there is no subject which would more appropriately command the atten- 
 tion of a scientific commission. 
 
 The mechanical obstructions to working a gold mine in Colorado are very 
 
328 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 great. In working a vein or lode, the iron or copper pyrites are usually sep- 
 arated from surface quartz by what is called cap, or a shutting up of the vein 
 by the wall rock. This is the great difficulty in opening a mine it recurs in 
 descending, but the intrusion is less and less. The Montgomery district in 
 southern Colorado will afford an illustration. First, the blossom rock, desul- 
 phurized by the action of the atmosphere, was readily crushed and yielded 
 its gold to amalgamation; but soon the surface ore was exhausted; it became 
 necessary to traverse the cap rock, often 150 feet deep, which was a tedious 
 and expensive process, but at length the indurated pyritous ore was reached, 
 very productive of gold, but requiring to be removed and reduced at a great 
 cost of time, labor, capital, and skill. {Still, as some compensation, the testimony 
 is quite general that the mine widens and grows more productive of gold at its 
 lower stages. 
 
 The auriferous veins of Colorado are represented to be from six inches to 
 nine feet in width. Governor Evans claims that in most of the lodes now 
 worked the quartz rock yields an average of thirty-six dollars per ton, but that 
 .a production, threefold greater may be expected when the reduction of ores 
 reaches the perfection of a scientific assay. Lodes in California with present 
 facilities of labor, transportation, and supplies, are found to pay the* owner, if 
 $10 per ton gross can be obtained from the rock. In Nevada, over the moun- 
 tains, only 300 miles from the coast, and with very considerable adv^^ntages of 
 transportation by turnpikes, a lode must yield $25 gross per ton to reward the 
 owner for working it ; and this statement may be made in regard to quartz 
 mining in Colorado, while in New Mexico and Montana, even with security from 
 Indian hostilities, a lode must yield $40 per ton to pay. If the advantages in 
 prices, freights, &c., which exist in California, were supplied to the interior by 
 railroads, all the mining territories would profitably develop their quartz mines 
 at $10 per ton gross product. 
 
 MONTANA. 
 
 Of the streams which unite to form the Missouri river, the Jefferson, or most 
 western tributary, has been the principal scene of gold discovery. In the sum- 
 mer of 1862 a party of Minnesota emigrants crossed the northern plains destined 
 to the Salmon river mines. On reaching the Rocky mountains they found par- 
 ties of prospectors upon the Prickly Pear and Beaver Head branches of the Jef- 
 ferson, and in the Deer Lodge valley, upon remote tributaries of the Columbia. 
 In September these explorations were successful on Grasshopper creek, a tribu- 
 tary of the Beaver Head, and the placer mines of Bannock City soon attracted 
 a considerable mining population. In May, 1863, a discovery of bar or placer 
 mines was made about fifteen miles west of Bannock, on Horse Prairie creek, 
 another branch of the Beaver Head. It was of limited extent, but quite pro- 
 ductive. In June, 1863, there were further discoveries of placer mines about 
 seventy miles east of Bannock, on Alder creek, a tributary of the Jefferson. 
 These have proved of much larger extent and richness, extending continuously 
 more than fifteen miles. Virginia City is in their vicinity. These two districts 
 are respectively about fifty miles eastward from the summits of the Rocky 
 mountains, being within the semicircular park which the Rocky mountains en- 
 close between latitudes 44 to 46 and longitude 112 to 114. A still more 
 remarkable development of gulch or placer mining occurred in 1865 at Helena, 
 a district about one hundred and thirty miles east of north from Virginia City, 
 but still two hundred miles southwest of Fort Benton, ascending the course of 
 the Missouri and the Jefferson. Some of the statements in regard to Confed- 
 erate gulch, near Helena, are difficult of belief. It is said that during three 
 months of the summer of 1866 three miners took 2,100 pounds of gold, or 
 8441,000, from a space three rods square, on Montana bar, in Confederate gulch. 
 A total production of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 for 1866 is also claimed. 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 329 
 
 There "are many inducements to exaggeration in these statements. For some 
 years after the California discovery the demand for coinage induced large de- 
 posits at the government mints, but for the last half of the period since 3848 a 
 great proportion of the gold and silver product in the United States has been 
 cast into bars or ingots by private assayers. This proportion may now be stated 
 at fully one-half. Since, therefore, the United States mints and assay office re- 
 port $5,505,687 30 from Montana for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, it 
 will be safe to double that amount as the probable production in that year. A 
 communication to the Treasury Department from an intelligent citizen of Mon- 
 tana only claimed $6,000,000 as the production of 1865. The following state- 
 ment is more likely to be correct than the bulk of newspaper reports : 
 
 1863 , $2, 000, 000 
 
 1864 5, 000, 000 
 
 1865 - 6, 000, 000 
 
 1866 . . 12, 000, 000 
 
 25, 000, 000 
 
 Considerable progress has been made in quartz mining. Over two hundred 
 lodes have been opened sufficiently to prove their value. The average yield of 
 the vein-rock is stated at forty dollars per ton. There are seventeen quartz 
 mills in the Territory, of which ten are in operation. Thirty are in process of 
 erection. In the vicinity of the minmg centres enumerated Bannock, Virginia, 
 and Helena 2,500 lodes represented to be gold-bearing have been prospected 
 and titles recorded. 
 
 About the first of June, 1864, ores of argentiferous galena, of which some 
 indications had been previously observed, were discovered to be valuable. The 
 first silver mines were opened on Rattlesnake creek, a branch of Beaver Head 
 river, about fifteen miles north of Bannock. Then followed, during the summer 
 of 1864, discoveries of similar veins in the Prickly Pear region, within three or 
 four miles of Bannock, in a district about twenty-four miles northwestwardly of 
 Virginia City, near gulches known as the Mill and Wisconsin, and upon the 
 mountains enclosing Deer Lodge valley. These silver veins, although bearing 
 more or less gold, are not necessarily connected with the gold districts hitherto 
 explored ; and a geological exploration would probably show that the silver de- 
 posits of Montana are more extensive, with a probability of becoming more pro- 
 ductive, than the gold mines. The assays of argentiferous galena have exhibited 
 results from $100 to $1,700 per ton. Three furnaces for smelting silver are in 
 operation one at Bannock, one at Argenta, on a tributary of the Beaver Head, 
 and the third in the valley of the Boulder, a tributary of the Jefferson. 
 
 Upon the foregoing basis of exploration and discovery in Montana, the popu- 
 lation may be estimated as follows : 
 
 Jefferson and Edgerton counties, including Prickly Pear and Helena 
 
 districts 12, 000 
 
 Madison county, Virginia City v , 7, 000 
 
 Beaver Head county, Bannock City 2, 000 
 
 Deer Lodge valley, (western slope) 3, 000 
 
 Bitter Root valley, (western slope) 1, 000 
 
 Fort Benton and vicinity 1, 000 
 
 Other parts of the Territory 2, 000 
 
 28, 000 
 
 It is now well ascertained that the coal, iron, and petroleum formations ob- 
 served in Colorado are extended northward under the same conditions and in 
 
330 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 equal proportion along the eastern flank of the Rocky mountains and far into 
 British territory. As the general level of the plains at Fort Benton and vicinity * 
 is also ascertained to be about four thousand feet above the sea, or two thousand 
 feet less than the altitude of Denver, there is no appreciable difference of climate 
 between those localities, and the remarks in regard to agriculture and stock- 
 raising in Colorado will equally apply to Montana. 
 
 In the autumn of 1866 a large number of copper lodes was discovered on the 
 head-waters of the Mujscleshell river, which yield from thirty to seventy per 
 cent, of the pure copper, in crevices ranging from four to six feet in width. The 
 metal is found in combination with the oxide and green carbonate of copper. 
 These copper mines are convenient to the wagon road, from Helena to the mouth 
 of the TMuscleshell, which is substantially the head of steamboat navigation on 
 the Missouri river. 
 
 Near the old Mormon settlement at Fort Lemhi, upon the head-waters of 
 Salmon river, in Idaho, important gold discoveries in 1866 have attracted popu- 
 lation a settlement forty miles distant from Bannock city, and having business 
 relations almost exclusively with Montana. 
 
 UTAH. 
 
 The dominant ecclesiastical organization of Utah is adverse to mining for gold 
 and silver, although iron and copper mines have been worked successfully in the 
 Wahsatch mountains. The general testimony is that silver will be discovered 
 in many localities. Sixty miles south of Great Salt Lake city veins of argen- 
 tiferous galena in Rush River district have proved valuable, and mining opera- 
 tions, including the construction of furnaces, are well advanced. These ores assay 
 260 ounces of silver. Coal for the supply of Great Salt Lake city is mined at 
 a distance of forty miles. An extensive silver district, in the southwestern 
 Angle of Utah, was lately transferred to the State of Nevada. 
 
 DAKOTA. 
 
 In addition to the Missouri and Yellowstone mines of Montana, under the 
 average longitude of 110, the explorations of Lieutenant G. K. Warren, in 
 1847, and "of Captain W. F. Reynolds, in 1859 and 1860, under directions of 
 the United States topographical office, have satisfactorily established that the 
 Black hills of Dakota Territory, situated on the forty-fourth parallel of latitude 
 and between the 103d and 105th meridians of longitude, are rich in gold and 
 silver, as well as coal, iron, copper, and pine forests. 
 
 The area occupied by the Black hills, as delineated on a map which accom- 
 panies Lieutenant Warren's report, is 6,000 square miles, or about the surface 
 of Connecticut.* Their bases are elevated from 2,500 to 3,500 feet, and the highest 
 peaks are about 6,700 feet above the ocean level. The whole geological range 
 of rocks, from the granite and metamorphosed azoic to the cretaceous formations 
 of the surrounding plains, are developed by the upheaval of the mountain mass. 
 Thus, at the junction of silurian rocks, gold becomes accessible, while the car- 
 boniferous strata bring coal measures within reach. 
 
 With the pacification of the Sioux Indians, and the establishment of emigrant 
 roads, this district of Dakota would doubtless be the scene of great mining ex- 
 citement, as the gold-field of the Black hills is accessible at a distance of 120 
 miles from the Missouri river. 
 
 SASKATCHEWAN. 
 
 As early as 1862 some American explorers washed from the bed of the North 
 Saskatchewan river, at a distance of two hundred miles from its extreme sources 
 in the Rocky mountains, minute particles of gold, but with no return exceeding one 
 cent to the pa?i or five dollars per day. In subsequent years the emigrants from 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 331 
 
 Selkirk settlement, and a few American adventurers, obtained more satisfactory 
 results, there being frequent instances of ten dollars as a daily average, from bars 
 or gulches nearer the mountains. As the Montana explorations have advanced 
 towards the international frontier, each encampment proving more productive than 
 its predecessors, the opinion has prevailed that the sources of the Saskatchewan 
 would develop rich deposits of gold and silver, especially near the great centre 
 of physical disturbance, where Mount Hooker reaches an elevation of 16,000 feet, 
 and Mount Brown 15,700 feet above the sea, and from which the waters of the Sas- 
 katchewan, Peace, Frazer, and Columbia rivers diverge to three oceans. So 
 prevalent is this belief in Montana that a sudden migration of thousands may at 
 any moment be anticipated. Probably the intelligence received in Oregon^during 
 November, 1866, that American prospectors at the Kootonais mines had passed 
 the mountains on or beyond the boundary of 49 and found rich washings, re- 
 turning even $60 daily to the hand, on the sources of the South Saskatchewan, 
 will, if fully confirmed, be the signal of a movement over the border into' thi 
 Saskatchewan basin as remarkable as that which filled the valley of Frazer river 
 with miners from California and Oregon in 1859. 
 
 VERMILLION DISTRICT. 
 
 In 1865, attention was directed to discoveries of gold and silver northwest 
 of Lake Superior, in the State of Minnesota. Lake Vermillion, an expansion 
 of a stream of that name, is the centre of the district in question. The outline 
 of this lake is very irregular. With a diameter of thirty miles, its surface is so stud- 
 ded with islands, its shore so broken with bays and headlands, that the entire 
 coast line cannot be less than two hundred miles in extent. In 1848, Dr. J. G. 
 Norwood, of Owens's geological survey, passed from the mouth of the St. 
 Louis river, at the western extremity of Lake Superior, to the sources of the 
 Vermillion river, and descending through the lake to the Rainy river, furnished 
 a sketch of its natural features and mineral exposures. His statements are re- 
 peated, so far as they record the usual indications of a gold formation. 
 
 Before entering Vermillion lake from the south, Dr. Norwood mentions a per- 
 pendicular fall of eight feet over " silicious slate, hard and gray, with minute 
 grains -of iron pyrites sparsely disseminated through it." This rock bears 
 east and west, with thin seams of quartz between the laminse running in the 
 line of bearing. There are also irregular patches of quartz from eight to ten. 
 feet long, and from six to twelve inches wide, which cross the strike at right 
 angles. The river is broken by falls three-quarters of a mile above, or south 
 of, Lake Vermillion. 
 
 The islands in the lake indicate very distinctly volcanic action, one of them 
 being an extinct crater. The prevalent rocks are talcose slate, which Dr. Nor- 
 wood describes as " eminently magnesian, thinly laminated and traversed by 
 numerous veins of quartz from an inch to five feet, wide, some of which contain 
 beautiful crystals of iron pyrites." He adds, that " from some indications no- 
 ticed, other more valuable minerals will probably be found associated with it." 
 A specimen obtained about midway of the lake is catalogued as " quartz of 
 reddish brown color ; cristaline, with yellow iron pyrites, crystallized as well as 
 foliated, disseminated through it." 
 
 These quartz veins were ascertained in 1865-'66 to be auriferous. A speci- 
 men weighing three pounds, containing copper pyrites, was forwarded by the 
 governor of Minnesota to the mint in Philadelphia, and upon assay, was found 
 to contain $23 63 of gold and $4 42 of silver per ton of 2,000 pounds. The State 
 geologist, Mr. H. H. Eames, reports an abundant supply of quartz equal in rich- 
 ness. Other assays in New York in one instance, by officers of the United 
 States assay office show results from $10 to $35 per ton. There are rumors 
 of larger proportions, but the above are fully authenticated. Professor J V. Z. 
 
332 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN 
 
 t 
 
 Blaney, of Chicago, describes a vein ten feet in width, at the foot of a shaft of 
 fifty feet, which is " indubitably gold-bearing ;" and adds, " that specimens taken 
 from its central portion, as proven by a^say, would be sufficient in California, 
 Colorado, and other successful mining regions, to warrant further exploration." 
 Washings of the drift near the veins opened have produced gold, but in limited 
 quantities. 
 
 The productiveness of the Vermillion mines is not yet determined, but will be 
 tested by several mining organizations during the current year. 
 
 CANADIAN MINES. 
 
 When in 1862 gold was discovered upon the sources of the Saskatchewan, a 
 newspaper at Selkirk settlement, the Norwester, published statements of the 
 existence of gold between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg. Since the Ver- 
 million discovery, rumors of its extension into British America aro prevalent, and 
 suggest a probability that the mountain chain known to geographers as the 
 Laurentian, which separates the waters of the St. Lawrence and its lakes from 
 the tributaries of Hudson bay, may reveal to future explorers extensive de- 
 posits of gold and silver. The basin of the St. Lawrence, including the sand- 
 stones of Lake Superior, is a lower silurian formation ; that of Hudson bay, 
 granitic or primary, with many evidences in Minnesota, and along the Canadian 
 shore of Lake Superior, of eruptive or igneous agencies. 
 
 Sir Roderick Murchison has frequently advanced the opinion that the pro- 
 ductive gold districts of the world occur where the, silurian, and perhaps the 
 lower strata of devonian rocks are in contact with, or have been penetrated by, 
 greenstones, porphyries, serpentine, granitic and other rocks of the primary for- 
 mation. Gold, especially when traced to its original matrix, is found to occur 
 chiefly in veins or lodes of quartz rising from beneath and cutting through the 
 secondary strata or beds of which the surface was previously composed. These 
 conditions are observed in the Vermillion district, and Professor Owen, as early 
 as 1850, traced in this locality of Minnesota, and northeastwardly along the 
 north shore of Lake Superior, in Canada, what he denominated a " great plutonic 
 chain," and " the main axis of dislocation," from which silurian sandstones ex- 
 tend southwardly through Wisconsin and Minnesota, while on the north the 
 streams which are turned towards Hudson bay traverse a region exclusively 
 granitic, or primary. If in Minnesota an auriferous belt has marked this line of 
 junction, we may with reason 'anticipate its extension eastwardly into Canada, 
 and northwestwardly towards Lake Winnipeg. Indeed, as English explorers 
 trace this contact of primary and silurian formations along the basins of Lakes 
 Slave and Athabasca, and the channel of the Mackenzie to the Arctic ocean, it 
 becomes an interesting problem for future solution, whether the auriferous de- 
 posits of British Columbia and Saskatchewan may not be extended with various 
 degrees of productiveness along the crest which separates the waters of the 
 Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence from those of the Arctic ocean and Hudson 
 bay, quite as the discoveries of this century now follow the Ural mines eastward 
 through Siberia to the Pacific. 
 
 The intrusion of granitic rocks is not confined in Minnesota to the north- 
 eastern angle of the State. *It has been traced southwestwardly, near Sauk 
 Rapids, upon the Upper Minnesota, and even to the northwestern boundary of 
 Iowa, in a wedge-like shape, although covered in most places by the mass of 
 drift which constitutes so large a portion of the surface of Minnesota. A similar 
 granitic cape, with its associated minerals, may be the explanation of the alleged 
 gold deposits in the township of Madoc, near Kingston, in Canada West. 
 
 In regard to the Madoc mines, the only facts fully established at the date of 
 this report are, that Chicago parties have become purchasers of fifteen acres, 
 the principal locality of the alleged discovery, for the sum of $35,000 ; that at 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 333 
 
 an excavation of six feet, made originally in search of copper, gold in consid- 
 erable quantities has been found in coarse sand, in decayed/ quartz, and also in 
 a cream- colored quartz that abounded in a crevice and its surroundings ; and 
 that an assistant of Sir William Logan, the government geologist, has written 
 a letter to L'Ordre, of Montreal, in which he says that the mine " the Rich- 
 ardson" " is as remarkable for its richness as for the manner of its existence," 
 and that " he sees in the Richardson the best as well as the most encouraging 
 of all indications for the search of gold in Upper Canada." A correspondent 
 of the New York Tribune, apparently disinterested, and writing from the vi- 
 cinity January 22, 1867, asserts that " some thousands of dollars of native 
 gold have already been secured from this mine and other adjacent localities, and 
 sold in Belleville, Canada West, to jewellers, who pronounced it a very good 
 quality, fully equal to that of Australia." This section of Canada is also 
 known to abound in copper, iron, lead, slate, and marble. 
 
 The Chaudiere mines, near Quebec, are probably a development of the Alle- 
 ghanian range. They have hitherto been confined to placer or alluvial mining 
 on the tributaries of the Chaudiere. Quartz mining has not been prosecuted to 
 any great extent, although an official publication by the Canadian government 
 reports assays at $21, $37, and even $95 p5r ton. 
 
 NOVA SCOTIA. 
 
 The gold fields of Nova Scotia consist of some ten or twelve districts of 
 quite limited area in themselves, but lying scattered along the southeastern coast 
 of the province. The whole of this coast, from Cape Sable on the west to 
 Cape Canso on the east, a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles, is 
 bordered by a fringe of hard, slaty rocks, slate and sandstone in irregular al- 
 ternations, sometimes argillaceous and occasionally granitic. These rocks are 
 always, when stratified, found standing in a high angle, sometimes almost ver- 
 tical, and with a course in the main very nearly due east and west. They 
 seldom rise to any great elevation, the promontory of Aspatagon, about five 
 hundred feet high, being the highest land on the Atlantic coast of the province. 
 The general aspect of the shore is low, rocky and desolate, strewn often with 
 large boulders of granite or quartzite. This zone of metamorphic rocks varies 
 in width from six or eight miles at its eastern extremity to' forty or fifty at its 
 widest points, presenting in its northern boundary only a rude parallelism with 
 its southern margin, and composing about six thousand square miles of surface, 
 the general outline of ^hat may, geologically speaking, be called the gold region 
 of Nova Scotia. 
 
 A contributor to the Atlantic Monthly magazine for May, 1864, enumerates 
 Tangier Harbor, Wine Harbor, Sherbrooke, Ovens, Oldham, Waverly, Stormont, 
 and Lake Loon a small lake only five miles distant from Halifax as localities 
 which have fully determined the auriferous character of the district already de- 
 scribed, and selects for specific description, and as a specimen of other veins, the 
 Montague lode at Lake Loon. The course of this is E. 10 N., that being the 
 strike of the rocks by the compass in that particular district. It has been traced 
 by surface-digging a long distance not less, probably, than half a mile. At 
 one point on this line there is a shift or fault in the rocks, which has heaved the 
 most productive portion of the vein about thirty-five feet to the north ; but for 
 the rest of the distance, so far as yet open, the whole lode remains true and un- 
 disturbed. 
 
 " Its dip with the rocks around it is almost vertical, say from 85 to 80 south. 
 The vein is- contained between walls of slate on both sides, and is a double or 
 composite vein, being formed, first, of the main leader ; second, of a smaller vein 
 on the other side, with a thin slate partition-wall between the two ; and third, 
 of a strongly mineralized slate foot-wall, which is in itself really a most valuable 
 portion of the ore-channel. 
 
334 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 " ^he quartz which composes these interposed sheets, thus separated, yet 
 combined, is crystallized throughout, and highly mineralized ; belonging, in fact, 
 to the first class of quartz lodes recognized in all the general descriptions of the 
 veins of this region. The associated minerals are, here, cuprite or yellow- 
 copper, green malachite or carbonate of copper, mispickel or arsenical pyrites, 
 zinc blende, scsquioxide of iron, rich in gold, and also frequent ' sights' or visible 
 masses of gold itself. The gold is also often visible to the naked eye in all the 
 associated minerals, and particularly in the mispickel and blende. 
 
 " The main quartz vein of this interesting lode varies from three to ten inches 
 in thickness at different points on the surface-level, but is reported as increasing 
 to twenty inches thick at the bottom of the shaft, already carried down to a 
 depth of forty feet. This very considerable variation in thickness will be found 
 to be owing to the folds or plications of the vein, to which we shall hereafter 
 make more particular allusion. 
 
 "The minerals associated with the quartz in this vein, especially the cuprite 
 and mispickel, are found most abundantly upon the foot- wall side, or underside, 
 of the quartz itself. The smaller accompanying vein before alluded to appears 
 to be but a repetition of the larger ^ne in all its essential characteristics, and is 
 believed by the scientific examiners to be fully as well charged with gold. That 
 this is likely to come up to a very remarkable standard of productiveness, per- 
 haps more so than any known vein in the world, is to be inferred from the offi-* 
 cial statement in the Royal Gazette of Wednesday, January 20, 1864, published 
 by authority at the chief gold commissioner's office in Halifax, in which the 
 average yield of the Montague vein for the month of October, 1863, is given as 
 3 oz. 3 dwt. 4 gr.; for November, as 3 oz. 10 dwt. 13 gr.; and for December, as 
 5 oz. 9 dwt. 8 gr., to the ton of quartz crushed during these months, respectively. 
 Nor is the quartz of this vein the only trustworthy source of yield. The under- 
 lying slate is filled with bunches of mispickel, not distributed in a sheet or in 
 any particular order, so far as yet observed, but developed throughout the slate, 
 and varying in size from that of small nuts to many pounds in weight masses 
 of over fifty pounds having been frequently taken out. This peculiar mineral 
 has always proved highly auriferous in this locality, and a careful search will 
 rarely fail to detect sights ' of the precious metal imbedded in its folds, or lying 
 hidden between its crystalline plates. 
 
 " Nor is the surrounding mass of slate in which this vein is enclosed without 
 abundant evidences of a highly auriferous character. Scales of gold are everywhere 
 to be seen between its laminae, and, when removed and subjected to the proceeds of 
 'dressing,' there can be little doubt of its also yielding a very handsome return. 
 In fact, the entire mass of material, which is known to be auriferous, is not less 
 than twelve to fifteen inches at the surface, and will doubtless be found, as all 
 experience and analogy in the district have hitherto shown to be the case, to in- 
 crease very considerably with the increased depth to which the shafts will soon 
 be carried. No difficulties whatever are apprehended here in going to a very 
 considerable depth, as the slate is not hard and easily permits the miner, in his 
 progress, to bear in upon 4t without drilling upon the closer and more tenacious 
 quartz. 
 
 " The open cut made by the original owners of the Montague property, and 
 by which the veins have been in some degree exposed, absurd and culpable as 
 it is as a mode of mining, has yet served a good purpose in showing in a very 
 distinct manner the structure of these veins a structure which is found to be on 
 the whole very general in the province. The quartz is not found, as might 
 naturally be supposed from its position among sedimentary rocks, lying in any- 
 thing like a plain, even sheet of equal thickness. On the contrary, it is seen to 
 be marked \>y folds or plications, occurring at tolerably regular intervals, and 
 crossing the vein at an angle of 40 or 45 to the west. Similar folds may be 
 produced in a sheet which is hung on a line, and then drawn at one of the 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 335 
 
 lower corners. The cross-section of the vein is thus maile to resemble some- 
 what the appearance of a chain of long links, the rolls or swel& alternating with 
 the plain spaces throwgh its whole extent. Perhaps a better comparison is that 
 of ripples or gentle waves as seen following each other on the ebb-tide in a still 
 time on the beach. 
 
 "The distribution of the gold in the mass of the quartz appears to be highly 
 influenced by the peculiar wavy or folded structure. All the miners are agreed in 
 the statement that the gold abounda most at the swells or highest points of the 
 waves of rock, ami that the scarcely less valuable mispickel appears to follow the 
 same law. The spaces between are not found to be so rich As these points of 
 undulation ; and this structure must explain the signal contrast in thickness and 
 productiveness which is everywhere seen in sinking a shaft in this district. As 
 the cutting passes through one of these swells the thickness of the vein at once 
 increases, and again diminishes with equal certainty as the work proceeds ; be- 
 low this point destined again to go through with similar alternations in its mass " 
 The gold of Nova Scotia is remarkable for its great purity, it being on the 
 average twenty-two carats fine, as shown by repeated assay. The bars or in- 
 gots are current in Halifax at $20 an ounce. Assays by Prfessor Silliman, of 
 Yale College, have ascertained values of $1*9.97 and $20 25, and the gold com- 
 missioner of Nova Scotia assumes $19.50 as the basis of his calculations of the 
 gold product of the province. 
 
 The official returns of the deputy gold commissioners for the several districts 
 to the chief commissioner at Halifax are unusually exact and reliable in re- 
 gard to the most important point of the whole subject, namely, the average 
 yield per ton of quartz crushed at the mills. By regulations of the mining 
 department, every miner, or the agent or chief superintendent of each mine, is 
 required, under penalty of forfeiting possession of the mine, to make a quarterly 
 return of the amount of days' labor ex pended, the number of tons raised and 
 crushed, and the quantity of gold. These returns are not likely to be exaggera- 
 ted, as a government royalty of three per cent, on the gross product is exacted. 
 Besides the miner's report, all owners of quartz mills are also required to render 
 official returns under oath, and in a form minutely prescribed by the provincial 
 law, of all quartz crushed by them during each month, stating particularly 
 from what mine it was raised, for whose account it has been crushed, and what 
 was the exact quantity in ounces, pennyweights, and grains. Upon this basis 
 it appears that the average for all the mining districts is $30 per ton ; while the 
 maximum yield at some of the prominent mines has been $1,000 per ton at 
 Wine Harbor, $240 at Sherbrook, $220 at Oldham, and $100 at Stormont, 
 during the months of October, November and December, 1863. These results 
 are independent of the great waste which attends the reduction of pyritous 
 ores. The cost of reduction at this time does not exceed $7 per ton, owing to 
 the moderate scale of prices for labor, supplies, and fuel in Nova Scotia. 
 
 The writer in the Atlantic Monthly, already referred to, accounts for the 
 absence %f alluvial gold by the peninsular formation of Nova Scotia. The ac- 
 tion of the glacial period would only transport the detritus of auriferous rocks 
 beneath the Atlantic ocean. Therefore, the gold of Nova Scotia is to be suc- 
 cessfully sought under the application of the most scientific and systematic 
 methods of deep quartz-mining. His summary of these methods is so suggest- 
 ive that it will be cited : 
 
 " The ill-considered system of allotting small individual claims at first adopted 
 by the colortial government was founded, probably, on a want of exact know- 
 ledge of the peculiar nature of the gold district, and the consequent expectation 
 that the experiences of California and Australia in panning and washing were 
 to be repeated here. This totally inapplicable system in a manner compelled 
 the early single adventurers to abandon their claims as soon as the surface-water 
 began to accumulate in their little open pits or shallow levels, beyond the con- 
 
336 GOLD MIKES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 trol of a single buckgt or other .such primitive contrivance for bailing. Even 
 the more active and industrious digger soon found his own difficulties to accu- 
 mulate just in proportion to his own superior measure of activity, since, as sooa 
 as he carried his own excavation a foot or two deeper than his neighbors, he 
 found that it only gave him the privilege of draining for the whole" of the less 
 enterprising diggers, whose pits had not been sunk to the same level as his own. 
 Thus the adventurers who should ordinarily have been the most successful were 
 soon drowned out by the accumulated waters from the adjacent and sometimes 
 abandoned claims. Nearly all of these early efforts at individual mining are 
 now discontinued, and the claims thus shown to be worthless in single hands 
 have been consolidated in the large companies, who alone possess the means to 
 work them with unity and success. 
 
 " The present methods of working the lodes, as now practiced in Nova Scotia, 
 proceed on a very different plan. Shafts are sunk, at intervals of about three 
 hundred feet, on the course of the lodes which it is proposed to work, as these 
 ore distinctly traced on the surface of the ground. When these shafts have 
 been carried down to the depth of sixty feet, or, in miner's language, ten fathoms, 
 horizontal drifts or levels are pushed out from them, below the ground, and in 
 either direction, still keeping on the course of the lode. While these subter- 
 ranean levels are being thus extended, the shafts are again to be continued 
 downwards, until the depth of twenty fathoms, or one hundred and twenty feet, 
 has been attained. A second and lower set of levels are then pushed out beneath, 
 and parallel to, the first named. At the depth of thirty fathoms a third and 
 still lower set of levels will extend beneath and parallel to the second. The 
 work of sinking vertical shafts, and excavating horizontal levels to connect 
 them, belongs to what is denominated the ' construction of the mine,' and it is 
 only after this has been completed that the work of mining proper can be said 
 to begin. 
 
 " The removal .of the ore, as conducted from the levels by which access to it 
 has thus been gained, may be carried on either by 'direct' or by 'inverted 
 grades ' that is, either by breaking it up from underneath, or down from over- 
 head, in each of the levels which have now been described, or, as it is more 
 commonly called in mining language, by ' understoping ' or by 'overstoping.' 
 When the breadth of the lode is equal to that of the level, it is perhaps not 
 very material which plan be adopted. But when, as at Oldham, Montague, or 
 Tangier, the lodes are only of moderate width, and much barren rock, however 
 soft and yielding, has of necessity to be removed along with the ore, so as to 
 give a free passage for the miner through the whole extent of the drifts, we 
 shall easily understand that the working by inverted grades, or ' overstoping, ' 
 is the only proper or feasible method. In this case, the blasts being all made 
 from the roof, or 'back ' as it is called, of the drift, the barren or ' dead ' rock, con- 
 taining no gold, is left on the floor of the drift, and there is then only the labor 
 and expense of bringing the valuable quartz itself, a much less amount in bulk, 
 to the surface of the ground. The accumulating mass of the dead rock under- 
 foot will then be constantly raising the floor of the drift, and as constantly 
 bringing the miners within convenient working distance of the receding roof. In 
 the case of 'understoping,' however, in which the blasts are made from the floor 
 of the drift, it will be perceived that all the rock which is moved, of whatever 
 kind, must equally be brought to the surface, which entails much greater labor 
 and expense in the hoisting; and gravity, moreover, instead of co-operating 
 with, counteracts, it will be understood, the effective force of the powder." 
 
 There is quite a concurrence of testimony that the quartz seams increase in 
 richness as they descend, although the excavations have not-, as yet, been car- 
 ried to depths exceeding one hundred feet. 
 
 The mining statistics of Nova Scotia exhibit very accurately the average 
 yield per man, which, in 1863, was 95 cents a day ; in 1864, $1 39 j and in 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 337 
 
 1865, $2 13. At the rate per diem last mentioned, eacji man employed pro- 
 duced $684 80 per annum. The Australian estimates of the production per man 
 of the mining population do not exceed an annual average, since 1851, of $500. 
 The value of gold produced in Nova Scotia during the year ending Septem- 
 ber 30, 1865, was $509,080, (paying $18,038 in rents and royalties;) in 1864, 
 $400,440 ; in 1863, $280,020 ; and in 1862, $145,500. The earliest discovery 
 of gold occurred in 1860. The productiveness of the mines was not diminished 
 during 1866. 
 
 ALLEGHANY GOLD-FIELD. 
 
 It can only be determined by a geological exploration, which shall embrace 
 Lower Canada, Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, 
 whether the gold formation of Nova Scotia is associated with the Laurentian 
 range, or is an extension of the auriferous belt which, first observed upon the 
 Coosa river in Alabama, extends in a general northeast direction along the eastern 
 flank of the Alleghanies to the Potomac river, with some partial developments 
 in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and upon the 
 Chaucliere river, of Lower Canada. In the latter case, the mining experience of 
 Nova Scotia may yield valuable suggestions in regard to the auriferous lodes 
 which are known to be very numerous in the talcose and chloritic schists of the 
 southern Alleghanies. Since the California discovery of 1848, little attention 
 has been given to alluvial mining in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia ; and 
 until recently capitalists fcave acquiesced in the opinion, so confidently ex- 
 pressed by Sir Roderick Murchison in "Siluria" and other publications, that, 
 notwithstanding numerous filaments and traces of gold near their surface, the 
 Alleghany vein-stones held no body of ore downwards which would warrant 
 deep quartz mining. At present, with twenty years' experience in gold mi- 
 ning ; with the testimony of miners in Colorado that a lode apparently closed 
 by cap-rock can be recovered, with increased richness, at a lower depth ; with 
 other analogies, however imperfect, from the successful treatment of pyritous 
 ores in Nova Scotia; and with the earnest application of inventive minds to 
 new and improved processes of desulphurization, it is evident that the working 
 of the southern mines will be resumed, perhaps with the encouragement of a 
 scientific survey under the auspices of the general government. 
 
 The deposits of gold at the United States mint and its branches between 1804 
 and 1866 from the States traversed by the Appalachian gold-field are reported 
 as follows : 
 
 Virginia $1, 570, 182 82 
 
 North Carolina 9, 278, 627 67 
 
 South Carolina 1, 353, 663 98 
 
 Georgia 6, 971, 681 50 
 
 Alabama , 201,734 83 
 
 19, 375, 890 80 
 
 If we admit '.hat an equal quantity passed into mamifactures or foreign com- 
 merce without deposit for coinage, the aggregate production would be about 
 $40,000,010, of which fully three-fourths, or $30,000,000, was mined between 
 1828 and 1848. . 
 
 It is not the purpose of this report to enumerate the enterprises now organ- 
 izing for the development of the Alleghany mines, but to recall some evidence, 
 mostly compiled before the California discovery, in regard to their situation and 
 mineralogical characteristics. 
 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 22 
 
338 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 The gold veins of Virginia extend through Fairfax, Prince William, Fauquier, 
 Culpeper, Orange, Spottsylvania, Louisa, Fluvanna, Goochland, Buckingham, 
 and a few adjoining counties. 
 
 In 1837 Professor Benjamin Silliman published (Journal of Science, first series, 
 vol. 32, p. 98) the results of a personal examination of mines in the vicinity of 
 Fredericksburg, of which a brief summary will be given. He describes the gold- 
 bearing quartz as embedded in talcose and mica slate, principally the latter. In 
 far the greater number f cases the eye detects nothing but quartz, or sometimes 
 metallic sulphurets of iron, zinc, or lead, and the observer, unless previously in- 
 structed, would never suapect the presence of gold, either distinct or in the 
 metallic sulphurets. In the vicinity of the quartz veins rich washings occur. 
 In Spottsylvania county, on a branch near the Whitehall mine, $10,000 was 
 taken in a few days from a space twenty feet square, and $7,000 was found near 
 Tinder's mine, in Louisa county, in the course of one week. It often happened 
 that successful alluvial mining preceded the discovery of vein mines. Of the 
 latter several are described : 
 
 1. Busty'* mine, situated fifty miles from Richmond and fifty -three miles from 
 Fredericksburg, in solid quartz veins, fifteen to eighteen inches thick, at depth 
 of twenty-two feet ; structure of vein coarsely granular, like loaf-sugar, free from 
 foreign matter except inherent gold, and so white that even when pulverized it 
 showed no tint of color ; yield on one trial $80 per ton ; on another trial $240 
 per ton. 
 
 2. Moss mine, near the above ; situated in decomposed slate-rock ; surface of 
 vein little else than red clay, but firmer, and stratified below ; inclination of rock 
 and included quartz vein about 45 ; direction by compass north by east, and 
 south by west; diameter of vein sixteen, eighteen, twenty-four, twenty-seven, and 
 thirty inches, averaging twenty-four inches; quartz laminar, easily broken. and 
 separated from slate by blasting, but showing no signs of gold, though examined 
 by a magnifier; three tests returned $100, $140, and $200 per ton, yet in neither 
 case was gold visible in quartz or ore. 
 
 3. Walton mine, situated in Louisa county, forty miles southwest of Freder- 
 icksburg ; quartz vein firm and compact ; one foot wide ; occasionally porous 
 and interspersed with iron pyfttes and a dark iron ore, probably proceeding 
 from their decomposition; penetrated by two shafts of seVenty and forty feet; 
 first trial of poor ore, $80 ; second trial of averag,e ore, $160 ; third trial of ore 
 taken at random, $400 ; fourth trial of specimen, showing gold to the naked 
 eye, $2,660 per ton ; average of the series of assays, $820 per ton. 
 
 4. Culprper mine, situated eighteen miles west of Fredericksburg, upon the 
 Rapidan ; a tract of 524 acres ; hydraulic power for a twenty-stamp mill ; four 
 adits with connecting shafts ; main vein ten feet wide, but prone to divide into 
 strings not larger than a finger, nearly parallel and separated only by portions 
 of the slaty rock; gold more abundant in these strings than in larger veins; 
 much iron accompanying the ore; pulverized quartz always red or brown ; iron 
 pyrites in some places fresh and brilliant, elsewhere decomposed ; strata nearly 
 perpendicular ; specimens from fourteen localities, mixed together, returned $30 
 per ton ; specimen from a vein considered rich, but showing no sign of gold, 
 gave $80 per ton. 
 
 In the following paragraph, Professor Silliman only anticipates the experience 
 of miners at this day : 
 
 " Gold is often found in pyritical ores in which the gold is embedded in fine 
 particles. This mass when reduced to fine powder gives a residium of oxidized 
 iron about equal in weight to the fine gold, the latter being malleable or flat- 
 tened, while the former, being brittle, remains rounded or angular. In washing 
 this mixture in the pan the gold generally remains on the upper side of the 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 339 
 
 mass, and is therefore more liable to be washed off by the slightest ripple of th^ 
 water. On the other hand, when the gold is embedded in quartz ores, especially 
 those with fine fractures, called in Virginia ' sugar ore,' or more properly gran- 
 ular quartz, the gold being of a similar form, is more quickly disengaged, and 
 appears in larger grains. 
 
 "On the contrary, the ferruginous grains, or iron sand, are so fine as to be 
 scarcely visible, and are invariably found at the bottom of the mass or residuum, 
 and therefore, as well as on account of their greater weight, are much less liable 
 to be carried off by the ripple of the waters." 
 
 Several successful instances of alluvial mining near the Rapidan are also 
 mentioned; on a Hempstead farm, $4,000 in 1831-'32, of which nearly $3,000 
 in sixty days; another instance two or three miles from Rapidan, $12,000; a 
 third, $40,000; all in the vicinity of the Culpepper mine. 
 
 The most remarkable of the foregoing statements relate to the assays of ores 
 from the Walton mine. Professor Rogers, of the University of Virginia, in- 
 spected this mine in 1836, and ascertained that in the lower adit leading from 
 the main shaft, the auriferous vein was twelve inches in width, and that the 
 talcose rock underlying the vein was also auriferous to a distance of six inches, 
 and sometimes more, from the quartz. He also observed the continued yield from 
 the quartz, and the uniform dissemination of the gold throughout the vein, and 
 the lower enclosing rock. An assay of Professor Rogers returned $280 per ton. 
 
 A writer in Harper's Monthly Magazine for December, 1865, describes the 
 gold mines in the vicinity of Richmond ; having previously given some general 
 information of the conditions under which gold has been discovered and mined. 
 "Sienite, gneiss, greenstone, and porphyry," he says, "appear to be the pri- 
 mary sources, and the pyrites are evidently the immediate matrix of gold. All 
 iron pyrites contain gold, and often silver, only excepting those of the coal 
 formation ; and the extensive gold deposits of Virginia may be said to be liter- 
 ally one continuous belt or accumulation of veins of iron pyrites. 
 
 "Most of the gold-bearing rock which has hitherto be eumined in Virginia is 
 principally a kind of talcose slate, somewhat resembling soapstone, but not so 
 greasy to the touch. This slate is red and ferruginous at the surface, but at a 
 greater depth is filled with small crystals of iron pyrites which are decomposed 
 near the surface and appear as peroxyd of iron, giving the slate a brown or 
 yellow tinge. This slate is a metamorphic rcfck, and runs in a regular belt 
 parallel with the Alleghany mountain chain. 
 
 " The gold found in the State of Virginia occurs in exceedingly small grains, 
 often so fine as to be not only invisible to the naked eye, but undiscernible even 
 by the assistance of a strong lens. This is the case even when the ores are 
 worth three or four dollars per bushel. Some veins of the slate region contain, 
 coarse gold in grains as large as the head of a pin, and even larger. These are 
 generally found in veins of quartz in which the pyrites are concentrated into 
 larger masses. Where the pyrites are disseminated in fine crystals through the 
 mass of the rock, the gold is found to be very fine. In the first pyrites the gold 
 is often invisible, even if after separation it appears to be coarse. By natural 
 or artificial decomposition the gold becomes visible, the pyrites are converted 
 into oxyd of iron, and, by aid of a lens, the gold can be detected embedded in 
 the oxyd of iron. Another form in which the native gold is not unfrequeutly 
 found in Virginia is in quartz, in whick it is embedded. Solid white quartz, 
 both in veins and in crystals, is found, in which the gold appears in spangles, 
 plates, grains, and also in perfectly developed crystals. Throughout the gold 
 regions of Virginia copper pyrites are found in all the metallic deposits. It in- 
 variably accompanies the gold bearing iron pyrites, and is always considered a 
 good indication of richness. Cases have often occurred in which the largest 
 amount of treasure has been abandoned, because the miners had not the knowl- 
 edge of proper appliances for separating the precious yield of gold and copper. 3 ' 
 
340 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The writer of the article here quoted proceeds to give many interesting details 
 of the gold mines of Goochland, Buckingham, and Flu van na counties. Among 
 these are the Belzoro mine, developing seven veins, which vary in width from 
 two feet six inches to thirty feet; Marks mine, with four gold-bearing quartz 
 veins; Waller mine, vein of brown oxyd of iron, six feet thick; Tellurium 
 mine, sold in 1848 to Commodore Stockton, who is reported to have ex- 
 tracted $250,000 in nine years; Snead gold mine, of three veins, one of them 
 being four feet wide, and composed of white quartz, which contains argentif- 
 erous galena, copper sulphates, and gold ; Ford mine, revealing copper pyrites 
 largely ; and Lightfoot mine, with four well-known and very rich veins ; all 
 of which have been worked successfully at different periods since 1 828. 
 
 The mineral wealth of Virginia in other respects is unsurpassed by Pennsyl- 
 vania or any part of the Union. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 The gold district of North Carolina extends from northeast to southwest in 
 the general direction of its leading counties, namely : Guilford, Randolph, Da- 
 vidson, Rowan, Stanly, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Union. 
 
 In 1825 Professor Denison Olmstead designated as the district within which 
 alluvial mining was prosecuted, the counties of Montgomery and Anson, and the 
 eastern portions of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus as then organized. Gold was 
 first discovered in a "thin stratum* of gravel enclosed in a dense clay, usually of 
 a pale blue, but sometimes of a yellow color." This description is easily recog- 
 nizable as the detritus of th'e gold bearing rock afterwards discovered further 
 to the west. Many facts of the early success of placer mining on the tributa- 
 ries of the Pedee might be adduced, but it must suffice, in this connection, to 
 repeat from Wheeler's History of North Carolina an enumeration of the nuggets 
 which have been obtained since the first discovery in 1799 : 
 
 Tears. Pounds. Years. Pounds. 
 
 1799 , 4 1826 16 
 
 1803 28 1826 9 
 
 1804 9 1826 8^ 
 
 1804 ', 7 1835 13| 
 
 1804 3 1835 4J 
 
 1804 2 1835 5 
 
 1804 ... 1 1835 8 
 
 No more intelligible account of the placers of North Carolina exist than the 
 -communication of Professor Olmstead in 1825, from which a few paragraphs 
 will be given. After describing the gold-bearing alluvium as " gravel enclosed 
 in pale blue or yellow clay," he adds : " On ground that is elevated and exposed 
 to be washed by rains this stratum frequently appears at the surface, and in 
 low grounds, where the alluvial earth has been accumulated by the same agent, 
 it is found at the depth of eight feet ; but where no cause operates to alter its 
 original depth it lies about three feet below the surface. A miner sometimes 
 meets a stratum of the ferruginous oxide of manganese in a rotten, friable state. 
 In some instances the clay is deep red." 
 
 Very soon, however, thele gold deposits were traced to the auriferous lodes 
 traversing a belt of talcose, micaceous, chloritic, and hornblende slates, which 
 passes through several counties on the east side of another belt of granite and 
 west of one of trap. These veins, as early as 1828, were described as follows 
 by Charles E. Rothe, a miner and mineralogist from Saxony: "They occur 
 in greenstone formation often from two to four feet in thickness and a mile 
 or more in length, which give assurance that they sink to a considerable 
 
4 
 
 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 341 
 
 depth. Their general direction is east and west, dipping occasionally 40 to 
 50 north. The ores and minerals in these veins are rhomboidal iron ore, 
 prismatic iron ore, pyramidal copper pyrites, and prismatic iron pyrites. 
 In. the last two is a mechanical mixture with each other. They 
 show distinct signs of having been changed from their original form. 
 Where the atmosphere could have any influence on the pyrites we find that 
 one part of the sulphur has escaped, the consequence of which is, the metallic 
 appearance of the pyrites is changed to that of brown-reddish oxide of iron, and 
 owing to this color we can see the fine particles of gold, and ascertain the rich- 
 ness of the deposit. But where the pyrites have not undergone this change, then 
 the gold cannot be discovered, owing to the color being nearly the same. The 
 greenstone near the vein is most generally decomposed, and mixed with a great 
 number of loose crystals of prismatic iron pyrites. Between the greenstone and 
 the vein, or at the place of junction, the gold is most generally found." 
 
 The gold district of North Carolina is the second belt of the table-land, its 
 positions moderately elevated, and it is very seldom that the highest hills of 
 Davidson, Randolph, Rowan, Cabarrus, and Mecklenburg counties are traversed 
 by vein fissures. 
 
 In 1856 a report by Ebenezer Emmons, upon the geology of the midland coun- 
 ties of North Carolina, was published, which gives a detailed description of thirty 
 mining localities. Abstracts of his observations upon the leading mines of Guil- 
 ford, Randolph, Davidson, Rowan, Stanly, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Union 
 counties will best illustrate the characteristics of the auriferous belt through the 
 State. The order in which these counties are named coincides with their geo- 
 graphical position, commencing on the north : 
 
 1. McCulloch mine, in Guilford county, brown or desulphurized ore, to a depth 
 of one hundred and thirty feet ; vein two feet wide at surface, increasing to twenty- 
 four feet, with a dip at rfngle of forty-five degrees ; brown ore, soft and easily 
 crushed, yielding $30 to $40 per ton, and sometimes $100 ; at level of one hun- 
 dred and thirty feet, there are six inches brown ore on foot-wall, then copper 
 pyrites, then a belt of brown ore containing nodules or concretions of pyrites 
 more or less changed the middle of which is rich in gold, and then the principal 
 mass of porous quartz against hanging wall, which, though sometimes showing 
 films of gold, is usually poor ; wall rock, sienitic granite. ,, 
 
 2. Fis/ier H'H, in Randolph county; veinstone quartz, with white sulpburet 
 of iron mixed irregularly through it ; free from copper pyrites ; burnt to advan- 
 tage ; two to four feet wide near surface ; brittle, and when burnt easily pulver- 
 ized; average sixty dollars per ton, and gold worth ninety cents to pennyweight. 
 
 3. Conrad Hill, in Davidson county, six miles east of Lexington Court-House ; 
 situated eighty-eight feet above plain to the south; five gold bearing veins from 
 eighteen inches to two feet at surface ; third vein fifteen inches at surface, widen- 
 ing to eighteen feet at depth of one hundred feet, and finally developing sui- 
 plmrets of iron and copper rich in gold ; only four feet rich in gold ; wall-rock 
 talcose slate, but adjacent country traversed by trap. 
 
 4. Gold Hill, on southern border of Rowan county ; product to 1856, 
 $2,000,000 ; three strong and well-defined veins, one mile east of granitic belt ; 
 angle of dip 80 ; strata undisturbed by eruptive rocks ; veins associated with 
 sulphurets of iron and copper ; Earhardt vein worked 400 feet, expanding from 
 six inches to seven feet, a succession of lenticular segments overlapping at their 
 edges ; chief difficulties, fineness of gold and heavy giilphurets ; if sand saved 
 and exposed for a year the bulphurets are decomposed and metal liberated; 
 in 1854 $136,636 76 obtained in thirteen months from Gold Hill, expense* 
 $60,331 06, profit $76.305. 
 
 5. Parker mine, in Stanly county; most productive parts of rock are natural 
 joints or quartz seams ; pieces in proximity to natural joints sometimes weighing 
 a pound : " not a vein, but a decomposed mass with gold distributed in seams ;" 
 
. 
 342 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 has produced $200,000 ; some masses at rate of eighty to one hundred dollars 
 per ton. 
 
 6. Reed mine, in Cabarrus county ; productive alluvial mining, as already 
 stated ; a vein at depth of ninety feet yields twenty- two dollars per ton. A . 
 Phoenix mine, in Cabarrus, was rich to 140 feet, twenty to sixty dollars per ton ; 
 but at that level white quartz and sulphate of barytes replaced the brown ore, 
 reducing yield to five dollars per ton. The Pioneer mine, also in Cabarrus, is 
 & fissure in granite sixteen to seventeen feet wide, but true veinstone eight to ten 
 inches ; gold in pure quartz mixed with sulphurets ; yield sixty-three dollars 
 per ton. 
 
 7. Howie and Lawson mine, in Union county, near the line of South Car- 
 olina ; fine, white, and granular quartz which near contact with slate-wall rock 
 is mottled with brown oxide of iron ; on this surface gold visible ; width of vein 
 six to thirty inches ; average sixty dollars per ton ; some specimens two hun- 
 dred and twenty dollars; traced three-quarters of a mile; sold in 1856 to Com- 
 modore Stockton. 
 
 8. Rudisili's mine, near Charlotte, Mecklenburg county ; three veins, three 
 or four feet wide ; gan'gue slaty, with stripes of quartz and copper pyrites, yield- 
 ing twenty dollars per ton; quartz brittle and readily crushed; "arrangement 
 of ore in the lode is usually in rich bunches, connected by strings." Dunn 
 mine, seven miles from Charlotte, remarkable for limonite produced from iron 
 pyrites, but unproductive of gold. The gold in the vicinity of Charlotte is 
 worth one dollar the pennyweight. 
 
 Copper mining has also received attention in North Carolina the most per- 
 sistent and prosperous enterprise of the kind being in Guilfbrd county. The 
 " Washington silver mine," in Davidson county, produces a great variety of 
 metals in association with silver, which are difficult to treat metallurgically ; but 
 the attempt will doubtless be resumed with the aid of improved methods of 
 amalgamation. 
 
 The mineral wealth of North Carolina is by no means confined to the eastern 
 slope of the Blue Ridge. West of that range, between the Snowy mountain 
 and the Blue Ridge, and its transverse from the upper waters of the French 
 Broad river to the Lookout mountain, containing 5,000 square miles, there is a 
 field presented to the mineralogist not perhaps equalled for extent and interest 
 in the Unitec^ States. ' Smoky mountain constitutes the line between primitive 
 and transition rocks, and its acclivities are steep and broken, developing familiar 
 Muriferous combinations. Gold has been taken from all its streams ; and where 
 the spurs and belts of this mountain have been cut by denudation, veins of quartz 
 running with talcose slate are very apparent. Gold is often found in quartz 
 rock, out of place, and much decomposed. Coco creek is a very rich deposit. 
 Rumors of &ilver deposits were current in the army, during the late military cam- 
 paigns. This remote interior district will amply reward exploration. 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 The auriferous belt already traced from Fredericksburg to Charlotte ex- 
 tends to the vicinity of Abbeville, in South Carolina more restricted in width, 
 but with indications of greater richness. 
 
 Mines of Mr. William Dome, in the Abbeville and Edgefield districts, yielded 
 gold of the value of $300,000 in fifteen months preceding July, 1853. The 
 ore was highly ferruginous and silicious, and the gold was found among the 
 layers of the vein in streaks and pockets of extraordinary richness. It WHS 
 supposed to have been exhausted; but during 1866 work was resumed with 
 satisfactory results. 
 
 Professor Lieber, State geologist of South Carolina, has reported that the 
 most auriferous rocks are clay and talcose slates, catawberite, (a compound of 
 tale and magnetic iron,} specular iron, schist and itaberite. None of the later 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 343 
 
 formed rocks contain gold, and the mioa slates, and other older formations, con- 
 tain comparatively little; This is in accordance with the views of Murchison, 
 already referred to, who refers the position of gold universally to veins in altered 
 silurian slates, chiefly lower Silurian, and most frequently near their junction 
 with eruptive rocks. 
 
 The first mint deposits from South Carolina were $3,500 in 1829 ; the aggre- 
 gate of such deposits to June 30, 1866, was $1,353,663 98. 
 
 . GEORGIA. 
 
 The width of the gold range through the southern States is not yet defined. 
 If narrower in South Carolina, it is wider in Georgia than elsewhere. A line 
 crosses the State from Augusta on the Savannah, by Macon on the Ocmulgee, 
 to Columbus on the Chattahoochee, north of which is a platform of granitic and 
 palaeozoic rocks, which stretches to the Alleghanies, within which gold occurs 
 in almost every county. Near this southern limit a gold mine has been worked 
 in Columbia county, not far from Augusta, which has been continuously pro- 
 ductive for eighteen years. But with this breadth to the general auriferous 
 formation, there is evidence of two belts, which are separated by unproductive 
 metamorphic rocks. Probably the district of Georgia and Alabama, which is 
 most distinctly and remarkably gold-bearing, is from latitude 34 to 35 n and 
 between longitude 83 and 86. 
 
 Gold was first discovered in Habersham county about 1831. It was followed 
 by numerous developments along a line of hornblende slate from Alabama, 
 northeast through Cass, Cherokee, Hall, and Hart counties, and extending to 
 the Blue Ridge. Within this limit are the productive counties of Gilmer, Lump- 
 kin, Habersham, and Kayburn. 
 
 A mint was established at Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, in 1837, which 
 has received $600,000 in a single year, with an aggregate coinage to February 
 28, 1861, of $6,121,919. Of this amount, $5,825,747 was received during the 
 period from 1838 to 1857. 
 
 Placer mining has been prosecuted in northern Georgia in a manner and with 
 a success not unlike the experience of California. Besides the true veins, which 
 traverse the strata in which they lie in various angles of dip and direction, 
 there are many depositories of gold in all directions around Dahlonega, which 
 * are auriferous beds of slates, often decomposed, and sometimes containing 
 pyrites, and the gossan resulting from its decomposition. In Lumpkin and 
 Habersham counties especially, these metalliferous beds have been worked like 
 open quarries, and the gold, in some instances, has been collected with the rocker 
 or the pan, without recourse to crushing ; worked, in fact, like deposit mines. 
 They contain rich nests and fine gold, most unequally diffused through the. dif- 
 ferent layers among the slates ; some are perfectly barren, in immediate contact 
 with other streaks that may yield many dollars to the hundred-weight of mate- 
 rial ; but they are so intimately mixed that all must be treated alike when 
 worked on the large scale. The immense quantities in which these materials 
 are obtained, and the ease with which they are quarried, sometimes render it 
 an object to work them, though their yield is, on the whole, very small. These 
 conditions are very favorable to the application of hydraulic mining, as carried 
 to perfection in California.* 
 
 * See article " Gold," in Appleton's American Cyclopaedia. The writer, who refers to his 
 personal experience in Georgia mines, adds that when the ores are not pyritilerous, and 
 there are facilities for stamping such as are used in cement mining by Californians, these 
 materials can be profitably worked, when only producing eighty cents or one dollar per ton, 
 or 1.8 part in 1,000,000; but, of course, where the material is hard quartz, and more espe- 
 cially if it is pyritiferous, the expense of working would be more than quadruple. Prof. W. 
 P. Blake in 1857 published a pamphlet, advising the improved methods of sluice-washing 
 for use in Georgia. 
 
344 GOLD MINES EiST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Waiving Further details, the following general observations may accompany 
 this brief review of the Alleghany gold mines : 
 
 1. There is yet much room for the vigorous and intelligent prosecution of al- 
 luvial mining. Especially in Georgia, where the country is abrupt and nature has 
 subjected the auriferous rocks to much dislocation and atmospheric exposure, 
 not only the beds of the rivers, but the adjacent detritus of their valleys, will 
 unquestionably give large returns to the new and powerful methods for washing 
 ponderous masses of earth. It is understood that companies are now organized, 
 who propose to introduce these hydraulic appliances upon the Chestatee and 
 other tributaries of the Chattahoochee river. 
 
 2. There is abundant evidence also that the upper portions of auriferous lodes 
 have been in a remarkable degree desulphurized, and may be worked to a con- 
 siderable depth with great advantage before the intrusion of what is called "cap'' 
 in Colorado, or before the main body of the vein becomes obstinately pyritifer- 
 ous. Surface quartz mining, if the phrase is admissible, will warrant consider- 
 able investments, whatever subsequent experience shall demonstrate in regard to 
 the refractory sulphurets. It may be admitted that, hitherto, a quartz so modi- 
 fied in chemical constitution as to be ''honey-combed," having become cellular 
 and brittle from the decomposition of pyrites, with the gold set free from its 
 matrix, is the only material which it is profitable to reduce ; but the testimony 
 is ample that immense quantities of ore in this favorable situation are accessible 
 in the Alleghany gold district. 
 
 3. There are no grounds for the opinion that the auriferous lodes, strongly 
 marked as they are by native sulphurets, will not prove true fissure veins, im- 
 proving in quantity and quality with their depth. Professor Frederick Overman, 
 in a work entitled "Practical Mineralogy," published'in 1851, claims that the 
 pyritous veins of Virginia and other south Atlantic States will be more sure and 
 lasting than the gold-beariog localities of California. If the lower beds of Col- 
 orado mines can be raised and reduced with profit, deep sinking will be equally 
 successful in the Carolinas. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE AND OTHER LOCALITIES. 
 
 In the townships of Franconia and Lisbon, lying immediately north of Mount 
 Washington on the lower Ammonoosuc river, gold has recently been discovered % 
 in quartz rock and a shaft sunk by a company of Boston capitalists to the depth 
 of seventy-five feet. A correspondent of the American Exchange and Review, 
 a monthly publication of Philadelphia, describes the gold-bearing quartz as tra- 
 versing talcose slate, and containing sulphurets of iron and copper and seams of 
 magnetic iron. Some extraordinary statements of recent assays from this locality 
 have been published one by Dr. Hays, State assayer of Massachusetts, at 
 $867 of gold per ton, and another specimen of mixed quartz talcose slate, gossan, 
 pyrites, &c., at $312 42 per ton. In the adjacent township of Waterford, sur- 
 face quartz yielded $30 per ton; quartz taken at nineteen feet below the surface 
 $45. Gulch mining has been successfully prosecuted in the vicinity. 
 If the New Hampshire discovery should warrant investments, there may be 
 a renewal of exploration and experiment in Vermont, where the Appalachian, 
 mountain system is likewise largely developed. 
 
 During the year 1863 lodes of argentiferous galena were traced in the vicinity 
 of Marquette, on Lake Superior. This district is from ten to twenty feet in 
 breadth and about fifty miles in length, and is situated between the schistose or f 
 iron range and Lake Superior. Assays reveal from ten to thirty pounds of sil- 
 ver to the ton of metal. In the same vicinity east of Marquette the Huron 
 mountains were reported in 1864 to be gold-bearing; but the rumors have led 
 to no practical results. 
 
 A geological exploration of Arkansas undertaken a few years since indicated 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROC&Y MOUNTAINS. 345 
 
 the probability of profitable mining for silver, and perhaps gold, in the Ozark 
 mountains of that State. 
 
 A district of Alabama, in the northeastern portion of the State, is a well-de- 
 fined extension of the Appalachian gold-field. Its production of gold deposited 
 in the United States mint and branches has amounted to $201,734 83, with an 
 equal amount probably diverted to commercial channels. 
 
 METALLURGICAL TREATMENT OF GOLD ORES. 
 
 A few general suggestions on the treatment of gold ores, and more particu- 
 larly the auriferous sulphurets so prevalent in the formations east of the Rocky 
 mountains, are submitted. 
 
 The direct method of attacking these ores is byjre, as is always done by the 
 assayer in his laboratory, when he wishes to extract from a sample of ore all 
 the metal which it contains. Undoubtedly, when the. cost of fuel, fluxes, and 
 labor is reduced to something near the standard which prevails in the seaboard 
 States, the richer ores of Colorado, Montana, &c., will be reduced by smelting. 
 At present, however, there is reason to believe that the proper economic condi- 
 tions for smelting do not exist, except possibly in the case of argentiferous ga- 
 lena ; although experiments recently made at Swansea, England, upon large 
 quantities of pyritic ores sent from Colorado have proved entirely successful. 
 In conducting these experiments, and estimating their cost, care was taken 
 to make the conditions as to fuel, fluxes, labor, &c., the same as those existing 
 in Colorado. It is stated that smelting works upon a large scale, upon the Swan- 
 sea plan, are to be started immediately in Colorado. If this should be done, 
 there will ensue a subdivision of labor in the business of mining gold and silver, 
 as is now the case in iron mining. The miner will limit his efforts to the raising 
 of ore from his mine, and the smelting furnace will afford a market where the ore 
 will command its price. This will be better for all parties than the method hith- 
 erto pursued of raising and reducing ores under one administration. 
 
 But it will be a long time before the great mining regions of the Rocky moun- 
 tains will have a sufficient number of smelting works to meet the wants of our 
 enterprising miners, who are constantly prospecting new fields ; and there will 
 always be a class of ores too poor to bear the cost of smelting. 
 f The cheaper process of amalgamation, now universally employed in all our 
 mining districts, (and, when no sulphurets are present, the very best process,) 
 will continue to be very generally resorted to. This process consists in reducing 
 the ore to a fine powder by means of stamps, arastras, Chilian mills, or other 
 mechanical contrivance, and subjecting it to a continuous agitation with mercury, 
 with water enough to give a pasty consistency to the mass, the object being to 
 expose as fully as possible the fine particles of gold and silver to the attractive 
 power of the mercury, with which they form an amalgam easily separable by 
 subsidence in the lighter pulp of earthy matter of which the ore consists. The 
 amalgam thus obtained, on being subjected to moderate heat in an iron retort, 
 gives up its mercury, which passes over in vapor, and is condensed again in an- 
 other vessel, the metal being left in the retort. , 
 
 In the case of pyritic ores, however, it is found that the process of amalga- 
 mation is seriously retarded by the impurities with which the gold and silver 
 are associated. Probably the ores of Colorado do not yield, by simple amal- 
 gamation, an average of twenty per cent, of their assay value. A previous 
 process of desulphurization is, therefore, indispensible ; and how best to 
 accomplish this is the problem which has occupied the attention of metallur- 
 gists for many years. Many methods have been advised, the majority of which, 
 being merely empirical, have had but an ephemeral reputation. 
 
 As already intimated further details are reserved for a subsequent occasion, 
 when an effort will be made to describe the various processes now in course of 
 experiment. 
 
346 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The treatment of silver ores rests upon a far more satisfactory basis of chemi- 
 cal experience, and the different methods in successful use are clearly and accu- 
 rately compiled in the last edition of Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, 
 and Mines. 
 
 TREASURE PRODUCT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ^ 
 
 When America was discovered the gold and silver supply of Europe did not 
 exceed $200,000,000, of which $60,000,000 was gold and $140,000,000 was 
 silver. According to the estimates of Humboldt sixty years, elapsed before this 
 aggregate of two hundred millions was doubled by the treasure product of 
 America. 
 
 M. Chevalier estimates that the total amount of gold and silver in 1848, the 
 t epoch of the California discovery, was $8,500,000,000, of which one-third was 
 geld. It will require thirty-two years, or from 1848 to 1880, to duplicate this 
 supply, even if $250,000,000 is assumed to be the average annual production of 
 gold and silver during that period. 
 
 We have the authority of Adam Smith that it was not until after 1570 that 
 the increased supply from the American mines produced any appreciable effect 
 upon prices. In 1550, or twenty years previously, the treasure stock of Europe 
 has been doubled ; and in 1570 it reached an aggregate of $600,000,000. To 
 this point the product of the American mines was absorbed by the new demands 
 of commerce. It was only until 1620, or fifty years later, with a further addi- 
 tion of $600,000,000 to the stock of money in circulation, that silver fell to 
 about one-third of its former value, with a corresponding appreciation of prices, 
 In these statements full allowance is made, for the consumption of the precious 
 metals by casualties, abrasion, and the arts. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the great social and commercial activities of the six- 
 teenth century, the development of human industry and intelligence in the nine- 
 teenth century will prove far more effective for the absorption of the vast quan- 
 tity of gold and silver now or hereafter produced. 
 
 The world in the sixteenth century received and assimilated three-fold the 
 treasure supply of 1492 without material change of prices, which was postponed 
 fifty years later, until a six-fold supply, or an aggregate of $1,200,000,000, had 
 been applied to commercial uses. Then was observed a reduction to one-third 
 of the former value of silver. If we compare the experience of the world since 
 1848, the stock of specie in that year of $8,500,000,000 will be doubled in 1880, 
 without any other effect than to vitalize commerce ; and $400,000,000 per an- 
 num can still be absorbed by the trade and intercourse of all the continents for 
 twenty years thereafter, or until A. D. 1900, before the monetary situation will 
 correspond with that of Europe in 1570, when the first effect upon the exchange- 
 able value of money is recorded. 
 
 We are assisted, by the experience of the sixteenth century, to the conclusion 
 that an aggregate of $25,000,000,000 in the year 1900 will hold a similar rela- 
 tion to the trade and intercourse of mankind that the amount of $8,500,000,000 
 sustained to the population and commerce of the world in 1848. If, as early in 
 the next century as 1920, the stock on hand sliould be increased six-fold, reach- 
 ing a total of $50,000,000,000, it might be attended, as in 1620, by a sensible 
 reduction in the exchangeable value of money ; but this contingency is too re- 
 mote and capable of satisfactory compensation to justify much solicitude in be- 
 half of posterity. 
 
 There are indications that the large excess in the production of gold over thafc 
 of silver, which, since 1848, has reversed the former relations of these metals, 
 may be less marked in future. The vast quantities of gold produced since 1848 
 are mostly from placers from the detritus of auriferous rocks. These surface 
 
GOLD MINES EAST OF THE SOCKY MOUNTAINS. M7 
 
 mines are soon exhausted. In California, notwithstanding the skilful applica- 
 tion of hydraulic power, the production of gold by gulch or placer mining has 
 diminished from $60,000,000 in 1853 to $20,000,000 in 1866. Except for new 
 discoveries, and some successful enterprises of quartz mining, the Australian 
 supply of gold would have likewise diminished. Very few diggings hold a min- 
 ing population longer than a single season. The " dust of gold " is soon gathered. 
 It may be admitted that Australia, Siberia, perhaps the sources of the Zambesi 
 arid the Nile in Africa, and northwest British America will, when further ex- 
 plored, reveal a great many districts \vhere the surface deposits are rich and ac- 
 cessible ; but each will be in turn a scene of great excitement and of rapid ex- 
 haustion, and, perhaps, before the close'of the present century alluvial gold mining 
 will be almost a tradition. This tendency is so apparent in erery gold-producing 
 community that public attention turns constantly, aad with solicitude, to the 
 separation of gold from its native matrix of rock as the only permanent means 
 of production. But at that stage silver mining comes into successful competition 
 with all existing methods for the reduction of auriferous rock. It has always 
 been more profitable to work mines of silver than of gold, of which Mexico, dur- 
 ing two centuries of experience, and the Pacific coast, during two decades, are 
 illustrations. 
 
 There was-' very little mention of silver while the discovery and conquest of 
 America were in progress. Among the vast mineral treasures of Montezuma, the 
 quantity of silver was small compared with gold. It was "El Dorado" which 
 was eagerly sought for by European explorers. Each country was ransacked, 
 with the forced labor of Indian slaves, for gold. This was the era of placer- 
 mining in the American dominions of Spain. In consequence of the importatioa 
 of gold, Isabella of Castile was obliged, as early as 1497, to modify greatly the 
 relations of gold and silver at the mints. The Spanish sovereigns acknowledged 
 the grant by the pontiff, Alexander VI, of their discoveries "in India" by a 
 donation of gold from Hayti. At length, however, after* the discovery of the 
 silver mines in Peru and Mexico, and when the experience of miners had elabo- 
 rated a systematic industry, gold ceased to be of much practical importance and 
 silver became the leading metallic product of Spanish America. Of the coinage 
 of Mexico from 1535 to 1845, $2,465,275,954 was of silver and $126,981,021 
 of gold. Except for Brazil, the proportion in South America would be fully 
 equal to that recorded in Mexico. 
 
 In the case of California, after many unsuccessful experiments, the reduction 
 of auriferous lodes has been established. The veinstones, when pulverized, 
 readily release the gold ; there is a remarkable absence of refractory alloys ; all 
 the conditions, especially in Grass valley, are favorable. Yet the yield of gold 
 does not exceed $9,000,000 per annum, while on the eastern slope of the Sierra 
 Nevada the annual production of silver, chiefly from the Comstock lode, amounts 
 to $16,000,000 per annum. 
 
 As the mining territories are explored, the discoveries of argentiferous veins 
 are reported in all directions. The interior of the vast mountain mass developes 
 in Sonora, Chihuahua, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, 
 and Montana, the identical formations and conditions which, in a lower latitude, 
 characterize Durango, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and the other well known silver 
 districts of Mexico. With the exhaustion of the placers (perhaps a remote con- 
 tingency) it is quite possible that the production of silver, as compared to gold, 
 will be restored to the old ratio of three of silver to one of gold. 
 
 But at present, as well as for the last eighteen years, the ratio of production 
 is reversed three of gold to one of silver. The following statement is submitted 
 as an approximation, carefully avoiding exaggeration, of the quantities of the 
 precious metals produced in 1866 : 
 
348 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 
 
 Gold. Silver. Total. 
 
 United States $60,000,000 $20.000,000 $80.000,000 
 
 Mexico and South America 5,000,000 35,000,000 40 : 000,000 
 
 Australia. 60,000,000 1,000,000 61,000,000 
 
 British America 5,000,000 500,000 5,500,000 
 
 Siberia 15.000,000 1,500 000 16,500,000 
 
 Elsewhere 5,000,000 2,000,000 7,000,000 
 
 150,000,000 60,000,000 210,000,000 
 
 The annual production of silver since 1853 has not exceeded $50,000,000, or 
 ,000, COO. Yet, within the period of fourteen years from 1853 to 1866 the 
 Bum of cll,250,000 has Been annually transported from European ports (in- 
 cluding shipments from Egypt) to Asia. The aggregates of bullion exports 
 were as follows : 
 
 Gold , c24,773,647 
 
 Silver 157,424,757 
 
 Total 182,198,404 
 
 France alone, although the richest country of the world in the precious metals, 
 has, since 1848, parted with $165,947,253 of silver and taken gold in exchange. 
 This has resulted from a fall in the value of gold, as compared with silver, of 
 2J per cent, which, by comparison of the course of exchanges between England, 
 using -a gold standard, and Hamburg and Amsterdam, using a silver standard, 
 is the only monetary result of the excess of gold supply since 1848. Europe 
 and America will substitute gold for silver as money, while Asia will probably 
 continue to absorb silver for many years to come, before the ratio of currency to 
 population now existing in Europe shall extend over the eastern world. 
 
 A brief statement will illustrate the extent of the oriental demand for the 
 precious metals, which, now mostly confined to silver, will hereafter, or as soon 
 as the world shall desire it, extend to gold. India, in 1857, had a circulating 
 ^medium of $400,000,000 for the use of a population of 180,000,000, or $2 22 per 
 capita. France has a population of 38,000,000, with a money supply of 
 $y 10. 000,000, or $24 per capita. Suppose China, Japan, and the other indus- 
 trious populations of Asia to be in the situation of India, and that the current 
 of bullion since 1853 has supplied the Asiatics with $3 per capita, there yet 
 remains a difference of $21 per capita before the monetary level of France is 
 attained, demanding a further supply of $21 per capita over a population of 
 600,000,000, or not less than $12,600,000,000. 
 
 The railway system will soon connect Europe and Asia, and constitutes a 
 most important ag^icy for the transfer of capital and distribution of money 
 among the populations of the eastern continent. Since the suppression of the 
 Indian mutiny, an English writer estimates that more than one hundred millions 
 sterling have been added to the currency and reproductive capacity of India, 
 mostly from England, in the construction of railroads and canals. There were 
 3,186 miles of railway in operation in 1865, having cost $86,000 per mile, and 
 having been constructed with the aid of a guaranty of five per cent, to stock- 
 holders by the province" of India. The system, for which the government in- 
 dorsement is already given, will be 4,917 miles of railway, at an estimated cost 
 of ^77,500,000. These roads will relieve the government of liability when 
 their earnings reach ^25 per mile per week, a point whi"h the leading lines have 
 nearly reached and which all are destined to attain. Such is the success of In- 
 dian railways that th a ir connection with Europe by the valley of the Euphrates, 
 and their extension into China, will probably be accomplished within tfc?? next 
 ten years. By that tiins Kussia will have undertaken a railway from Moscow 
 
V 
 
 .GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 349 
 
 to Pekin, through southern Siberia a great trunk line that would soon justify 
 a series of southern lines, penetrating central Asia over those leading caravau 
 routes which have been the avenues of Asiatic commerce for centuries. 
 
 If an investment of $430,000.000 in 5,000 miles of railway is financially 
 successful in Hindostan at this time, it may be anticipated that a population of 
 180,000,000 will warrant the enlargement of the system within the present cen- 
 tury fully four -fold, which would be only a fifth of similar communications 
 required and supported by an European or American community Suppose 
 gueh a ratio of railway construction extended over China, central and western 
 Asia and Siberia, it would be only one mile for every 9,000 people ; while in 
 the United States there are 36,000 milea for 36.000,000 people, or a mile to 
 every 'thousand ; and yet the Asiatic ratio, moderate as it is, presents the start- 
 ling result of 66.000 miles of railroad constructed by the expenditure of 
 $5,676,000,000. Such a disbursement of European accumulations in Asia 
 would go far to diffuse not only the blessings of civilization, but any excess of 
 production from the gold and silver mines of the world. 
 
 In Australia a railway has been constructed from Melbourne to the Ballarat 
 gold fields, 380 miles, at a cost of $175,000 per mile, which pays a net profit 
 nearly equal to the interest on the immense investment. It is difficult to esti- 
 mate the amounts destined to be absorbed for railways in all the continents, 
 under the direction of the great powers of the world projected, constructed, 
 and administered by the wealth and intelligence of America, Russia, England, 
 Germany, and France. But the railway system is but an instance, among many 
 other causes, conducing, in the language of an eminent English writer,* " to 
 augment the real wealth and resources of the world ; to stimulate and foster 
 trade, enterprise, and production, and, therefore, conducing, with greater and 
 greater force, to neutralize by extension of the surface to be covered, and by 
 multiplying indefinitely the number and magnitude of the dealings to be car- 
 ried on, the a priori tendency of an increase of metallic money to raise prices 
 by mere force of enlarged volume. Already the boundaries within which capi- 
 tal and enterprise can be applied, with the assurance and knowledge alone com- 
 patible with durable success, have been extended over limits which ten or even 
 five years ago would have been regarded as unattainable. There have come 
 into play influences by which it seems to be the special purpose to contribute, 
 by the aid of the concurrent advance of knowledge, to tho removal or mitiga- 
 tion of many chronic evils against which past generations have striven almost 
 in vain." 
 
 TRANSPORTATION FROM THE MISSOURI RIVER TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 While postponing'a detailed consideration of the character and extent 'of trade 
 and transportation from the Missouri river to the mining' territories of the inte- 
 rior since 1848, some idea of the westward movement of merchandise and the 
 cost of its transportation, may be obtained from the Quartermaster General's 
 report to the Secretary of War for the year ending June 30, 1866, which ex- 
 hibits the transportation on account of .government, and the rates paid per hun- 
 dred pounds per hundred miles The rates from the Missouri river to northern 
 Colorado, Nebraska, Dakota, Idaho, and Utah were $1 45 ; to southern Colo- 
 rado, Kansas, and New Mexico, $1 38, with an addition from Fort Union in 
 New Mexico to posts in that Territory, in Arizona, and western Texas of $1 79 
 per hundred pounds per hundred miles. The total number of pounds trans- 
 ported was 81,489,321 or 40,774 6-10 tons, at a cost of $3,314^495. Parties 
 familiar with the course of this inland trade, estimate that the transportation on 
 account of government is one-ninth the total amount of transportation. At thi^ 
 rate the whole amount paid in 1866 for freights from the Missouri river west- 
 ward was $30,830,055 According to a statement recently made by the ofiicers 
 
 * Tooke's History of Prices, rol. vi, p. 230, published iu 1857. 
 
350 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 of the California division of the Union Pacific railroad $13,000,000 in gold was 
 paid in 1863 for transportation eastward from San Francisco to the State of Ne- 
 vada and Territories east of the Sierra Nevada. The details of return freights 
 and the amount paid for the movement of passengers are, as yet, too incomplete 
 for publication. Not less than $50,000,000 per annum is expended on or near 
 the line of the Union Pacific railroad for the transportation of travellers and 
 merchandise. 
 
 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 I beg leave to close this communication with a few observations of a general 
 nature : 
 
 1. There are two indispensable requisites to the development of the western 
 mines security from Indian hostilities, and the establishment of railway com- 
 munication to the Pacific coast on the parallels of 35, 40, and 45. Of these, 
 the completion of the " Union Central " on the average latitude of the fortieth 
 parallel may be anticipated in 1870 and will unquestionably give a great 
 impulse to the communities which it will traverse, probably in such a degree as 
 to warrant the immediate construction of a northern line central to Minnesota, 
 Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, and a southern line equally 
 indispensable to the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and south- 
 ern California. 
 
 2. Great results of a social* no less than a material character may be antici- 
 pated from the act of July 26, 1866, extending facilities for acquiring title to 
 mineral lands. By that act, freedom of exploration, free occupation of govern- 
 ment lands for placer mining, a right to pre-empt quartz lodes previously held 
 and improved according to local customs or codes ' of mining, the right of way 
 for aqueducts or canals, not less essential to agriculture than to mining, and the 
 extension of the homestead and other beneficient provisions of the public land 
 system in favor of settlers upon agricultural lands in mineral districts, have been 
 established as most important elements for the attraction of population, and the 
 encouragement of mining enterprises. The Commissioner of the Land Qflice 
 has carefully analyzed this enactment, and greatly facilitated its execution by 
 a circular recently issued. The spirit of the legislation under consideration is 
 in the interest of actual settlement and occupation, and adverse to absentee 
 ownership for merely speculative purposes, of mining properties. It will pro- 
 bably be necessary to supplement the act in question by some general revision 
 of the local mining customs, which, although generally founded on the Spanish 
 code so long in use in Mexico, are often incongruous and obscure. 
 
 3. Great loss and disappointment have resulted from the unique geological 
 and mineralogical development of auriferous and argentiferous lodes of the 
 Rocky mountains and the Alleghanies. Metallurgical machinery and methods 
 which had been successful in Europe, and even in California, have proved inap- 
 plicable or met with unexpected obstacles in the reduction of ores. There is 
 no subject of greater importance than a scientific analysis of the situation arid 
 combinations of the precious metals and the best methods for their treatment. 
 How far Congress or any executive department can judiciously co-operate in the 
 solution of the mechanical and chemical problem which now confronts the skill 
 and experience of all interested in the economical reduction of the ores of gold 
 and silver, it is not within the province of this report to determine ; but the 
 great utility of the geological survey of Lake Superior and the Upper Mississippi, 
 in 1847, under the direction of Professor D. D Owen, may properly be referred 
 to as suggesting the expediency of a similar exploration under national auspices 
 of the mineral districts of the western States and Territories, and which might 
 be appropriately extended to include the metalliferous localities of the Al!e- 
 ghanies. 
 
 JAMES W. TAYLOR. 
 Hon. HUGH McCuLLOCH, Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
CIECULAE 
 
 IN RELATION TO 
 
 . M I 1ST I N G- CLAIMS 
 
 UNDER 
 
 THE ACT OF CONGRESS APPEOVED JULY 26, 1866. U. S. STATUTES, PAGE 
 
 251, CHAPTEE CCLXIL 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 
 
 General Land Office, January 14, 1867. 
 
 GENTLEMEN : Herewith will be found the act of Congress approved 26th 
 July, 1866, " granting the right of way to ditch and canal owners over the pub- 
 lic lands, and for other purposes." 
 
 By the first section of this act all the mineral lands of the United States, sur- 
 veyed and unsurveyed, are laid open to " all citizens of the United States, and 
 to those who have declared their intention to become such, subject to statutory 
 regulations," and also " to the local customs or rules of miners in the several 
 mining districts not in conflict with the laws of the United States." 
 
 It therefore becomes your duty, in limine, to acquaint yourselves with the 
 local mining customs and usages in the district in which you may be called upon 
 to do those official acts which are required by law, whether the same are re- 
 duced to authentic written form, or are to be ascertained by the testimony of 
 intelligent miners, which you are to obtain as occasion may require and justify, 
 in acting upon individual claims, a perfect record whereof is to be carefully 
 taken and preserved by the register and receiver, and to be accompanied by a 
 diagram or plat fixing the out- boundaries of the district in which such customs 
 and usages exist. 
 
 The .second section of the act declares that " whenever any person or asso- 
 ciation of persons claim a vein or lode of quartz or other rock in place, bearing 
 gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper, having previously occupied and improved the 
 same according to the local custom or rules of miners in the district where the 
 same is situated, and having expended in actual labor and improvements there- 
 on an amount of not less than one thousand dollars, and in regard to whose pos- 
 session there is no controversy or opposing claim, it shall and may be lawful 
 for said claimant, or association of claimants, to file in the local land office a di- 
 agram of the same, so extended laterally or otherwise as to conform to the 
 local laws, customs, and rules of miners, and to enter such tract and receive a 
 patent therefor, granting such mine, together with the right to follow such vein 
 or lode, with its dips, angles, and variations, to any depth, although it may enter 
 the land adjoining, which land adjoining shall be sold subject to this condition." 
 
 Mining claims may be entered at any district land office in the United State* 
 under this law, by any person, or association of persons, corporate or incorpo- 
 rate. In making the entry, however, such a description of the tract must be 
 filed as will indicate the vein or lode, or part or portion thereof claimed, to- 
 gether with a diagram representing, by reference to some natural or artificial 
 monument, the position and location of the claim and the boundaries thereof, so 
 far as such boundaries can be ascertained. 
 
 First. In all cases th number of feet in length claimed on the vein or lode 
 
352 CIRCULAR RELATING TO MINING CLAIMS. 
 
 shall be stated in the application filed as aforesaid, and the lines limiting the 
 length of the claim shall, also, in all cases be exhibited on the diagram, and the 
 course or direction of such end lines, when not fixed by agreement with the ad- 
 joining claimants, nor by the local customs or rules of the miners of the district, 
 shall be drawn at right angles to the ascertained or apparent general course of the 
 vein or lode. 
 
 Second. Where, by the local laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, 
 no surface ground is permitted to be occupied for mining purposes except the 
 surface of the vein or lode, and the walls of such vein or lode are unascertained, 
 and the lateral extent of such vein or lode unknown, it shall be sufficient, after 
 giving the description and diagram aforesaid, to state the fact that the extent of 
 such vein or lode cannot be ascertained by actual measurement, but that the 
 said vein or lode is bounded on each side by the wall of the same, and to esti- 
 mate the amount of ground contained between the given end lines and the un- 
 ascertained walls of the vein or lode ; and in such case the patent will issue for 
 all the land contained between such end lines and side walls, with the right to 
 foMow such vein or lode, with all its dips, angles, and variations, to any depth, 
 although it may enter the land adjoining : Provided, The estimated quantity 
 shall be equal to a horizontal plane bounded by the given end lines, and the 
 walls on the sides of such vein or lode. 
 
 Third. Where, by the local laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, 
 no surface ground is permitted to be occupied for mining purposes, except the 
 surface of the vein or lode, and the walls of such vein or lode are ascertained 
 and well known, such wall shall be named in the description, and marked on the 
 diagram, in connection with the end lines of such claims. 
 
 Fourth. Where, by the laws, customs, or rules of miners of the district, a given 
 quantity of surface ground is fixed for the purpose of mining or milling the ore, 
 the aforesaid diagram and description in the entry shall correspond with and in- 
 clude so much of the surface as shall be allowed by such laws, customs, or rules 
 for the purpose aforesaid. 
 
 Filth. In the absence of uniform rules in any mining district limiting the amount 
 of surface to be used for mining purposes, actual and peaceable use and occupa- 
 tion for mining and milling purposes shall be regarded as evidence of a custom 
 of miners authorizing the same, and the ground so occupied and used in connec- 
 tion with the vein or lode, and being adjacent thereto, may be included within 
 the entry aforesaid, and the diagram shall embrace the same as appurtenant to 
 the mine. 
 
 Where the claimant or claimants desire to include within their entry and dia- 
 gram any surface ground beyond the surface of the vein, it shall be necessary, 
 upon filing the application, to furnish the register of the land office with proof of 
 the usage, law, or custom under which he or they claim such surface ground, and 
 such evidence may consist either of the written rules of the miners of the district, 
 or the testimony of two credible witnesses to the uniform custom or the actual 
 use and occupation as aforesaid, which testimony shall be reduced to writing by 
 the register and receiver, and filed in the register's office, with the application, a 
 record thereof to be made as contemplated under the first head in the foregoing. 
 
 By the third section of the act it is required that upon the filing of the diagram 
 as provided in the second section, and posting the same in a conspicuous place 
 c!h the claim, with notice of intention to apply for a patent, the register shall 
 publish a notice of the same in a newspaper nearest the location of said claim, 
 which notice shall state name of the claimant, name of mine, names of adjoining 
 claimants on each end of the claim, the district and county in which the mine is 
 situated, informing the public that application has been made for a patent for 
 same, the register also to post such notice in his office for ninety days. 
 
 Thereafter should no adverse claim have been filed, and satisfactory proof 
 should be produced that the diagram and notice have been posted in the manner 
 
CIRCULAR RELATING TO MINING CLAIMS, 353 
 
 and for the period stipulated in the statute, it will become the duty of the sur- 
 veyor general, upon application of the party, to survey the premises and make 
 plat thereof, indorsed with his approval, designating the number and description 
 of the location, the value of the labor and improvements, and the character of 
 the vein exposed. As preliminary to the survey, however, the surveyor general 
 must estimate the expense of surveying, platting, and ascertain from the register 
 the cost of the publication of notice, the amount of all which must be depos- 
 ited by the applicant for survey with any assistant United States treasurer or 
 designated depositary in favor of the United States Teasurer, to be passed to 
 the credit of the fund created by individual depositors for the surveys of the 
 public lands. Duplicate certificates of'such deposits must be filed with the sur- 
 veyor general for transmission to this office, as in the case of deposits for sur- 
 veys of public lands under the 10th section of the act of Congress approved 
 May 30, 1862, and joint resolution of July 1, 1864. 
 
 After the survey thus paid for shall have been duly executed and the plat 
 thereof approved by the surveyor general designating the number and the de- 
 scription of the location, accompanied by his official certificate of the value of the 
 labor and improvements and character of the vein exposed, with the tesimony 
 of two or more reliable persons cognizant of the facts on which his certificate may 
 be founded as to the value of the labor and improvements, the party claiming shall 
 file the same with the register and receiver, and thereupon pay to the said re- 
 ceiver five dollars per acre for the premises embraced in the survey, and shall 
 file with those officers a triplicate certificate of deposit showing the payment of 
 the cost of survey, plat, and notice, with satisfactory evidence, which shall be the 
 testimony of at least two credible witnesses, that the diagram and notice were 
 posted on the claim for a period of ninety days, as required by law and as con- 
 templated in the foregoing. Thereupon it snail be the duty of the register to 
 transmit to the General Land Office said plat, survey, and description, with the 
 proof indorsed as satisfactory by the register and receiver, so that a patent may 
 issue if the proceedings are found regular, but neither the plat, survey, descrip- 
 tion, nor patent shall issue for more than one vein or lode. 
 
 The unity of the surveying system is to be maintained by extending over the 
 mining districts the rectangular method, at least so far as township lines are 
 concerned. 
 
 The contemplated surveys of the mineral lands will be made by district dep- 
 uties, under contracts, according to the mode adopted in the survey of the pub- 
 lic lands and private laud claims, embracing in them all such veins or lodes a 
 will be called for by claimants entitled to have them surveyed. 
 
 In consideration of the very limited scope of surveying involved in each mi- 
 ning claim, the per mileage allowed by law may not be adequate to secure the- 
 services of scientific surveyors, and hence the necessity of resorting to a per 
 diem principle, it being the most equitable under the circumstances. 
 
 The surveyor general is therefore hereby authorized to commission resident 
 mineral surveyors for different districts, where isolated from each other and abso- 
 lutely inconvenient for one surveyor promptly to attend to the several calls for 
 surveying in such localities ; the compensation not to exceed ten dollars per diem> 
 including all expenses incident thereto. Such surveyors shall enter into bonds-- 
 of $10,000 for the faithful performance of their duties in the survey of suchr 
 claims as the surveyor general may be required to execute in pursuance of the- 
 aforesaid law and these instructions. 
 
 The fourth section contemplates the location and entry of a mine upon un- 
 surveyed lands, stipulating for the surveys of public lands to be adjusted to the 
 lines of the claims, according to the location and possession and plat thereof 
 In surveying such claims, the surveyor general is authorized to vary from the 
 rectangular form to suit the circumstances of the country, local rules, laws>, 
 and customs of miners. The extent of the locations made from and after the 
 H. Ex. Doc. 29 23 
 
354 CIRCULAR RELATING TO MINING CLAIMS. 
 
 passage of the act shall, however, not exceed two hundred feet in length along 
 the vein for each locator, with an additional claim for discovery to the discov- 
 erer of the lode, with the right to follow such vein to any depth, with all its 
 dips, variations, and angles, together with a reasonable quantity of surface for 
 the convenient working of the same as fixed by local rules : Provided, No 
 person may make more than one location on the same lode, and no more than 
 three thousand feet shall be taken in any one claim by any association of per- 
 sons. 
 
 The deputy surveyors should be scientific men, capable of examining and re- 
 porting fully on every lode they will survey, and to bring in duplicate specimens 
 of the ore, one of which you will send to this office, and the other the surveyor 
 general will keep, to be ultimately turned over with the surveying archives to 
 the State authorities. 
 
 The surveyors of mineral claims, whether on surveyed or unsurveycd lands, 
 must designate those claims by a progressive series of numbers, beginning with 
 No 37, so as to avoid interference in that respect with the regular sectional 
 series of numbers in each township ; and shall designate the four corners of 
 each claim, where the side lines of the same are known, so that such corners 
 can be given by either trees, if any are found standing in place, or any corner 
 rocks exist in place, or posts may be set diagonally and deeply imbedded, with 
 four sides facing adjoining claims, sufficiently flattened to admit of inscriptions 
 thereon ; but where the corners are unknown, it will be sufficient to place a well- 
 built solid mound at each end of the claim. The beginning corner of the claim 
 nearest to any corners of the public surveys is to be connected by course and 
 distance, so as to ascertain the relative position of each claim in reference to 
 township and range when the same have been surveyed ; but in those parts of 
 the surveying district where no such lines have as yet been extended, it will be 
 the duty of surveyors general to have the same surveyed and marked, at 
 least so far as standard and township lines are concerned, at the per mileage al- 
 lowed, so as to embrace the mineral region, and to connect the nearest corners 
 of the mineral claims with the corners of the public surveys. 
 
 Should it, however, be found impracticable to establish independent base and 
 meridian lines, or to extend township lines over the region containing mineral 
 claims required to be surveyed under the law, then, and in that case, you will 
 cause to be surveyed in the first instance such a claim, the iriitial point of which 
 will start either from a confluence of waters or such natural and permanent ob- 
 jects as will unmistakably identify the point of the beginning of the survey of 
 the claim, upon which other surveys will depend. 
 
 Section 5 provides that in cases where the laws of Congress are silent upon 
 the subject of rules for working mines, respecting easements, drainage, and other 
 necessary means to the complete development of the same, the local legislature 
 of any State or Territory may provide them, and in order to embody such en- 
 actments into patents, you are directed to communicate any such laws to this 
 office. 
 
 SEC. 6. Should adverse claimants to any mine appear before the approval of 
 the survey, all further proceedings shall be stayed until a final settlement and 
 adjudication are had in the courts of the rights of possession to such claim, ex- 
 cept where the parties agree to settlement, or a portion of the premises is not in 
 dispute, when a patent rnajr issue as in other cases. 
 
 Section 7 provides for such additional land districts as may be necessary. 
 
 Section 8 for the right of way. 
 
 Section 9 for the protection of rights to the use of water for mining, agricul- 
 tural, manufacturing, or other purposes, for the right of way for the construction 
 of ditches and canals ; and makes parties constructing such work (after the pas- 
 sage of this act) to the injury of settlers liable in damages. 
 
 SEC. 10. Homesteads made prior to the passage of this act by citizens of the 
 
CIRCULAR RELATING TO MINING CLAIMS. 355 
 
 United States, or persons who have declared their intentions to become citizens, 
 but on which lands no valuable mines of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper have 
 been discovered, are protected, so that settlers or owners of such homesteads 
 shall have a right of pre-emption thereto, in quantity not to exceed one hundred 
 and sixty acres, at $1 25 per acre, or to avail themselves of the homestead act 
 and acts amendatory thereof 
 
 Section 11 stipulates that, upon the survey of the lands in question, the Secre- 
 tary of the Interior may set apart such portions as are clearly agricultural, and 
 thereafter subjects such agricultural tracts to pre-emption and sale as other pub- 
 lic lands. 
 
 In order to enable the department properly to give effect to this section of 
 the law, you will cause your deputy surveyors to describe in their field-notes of 
 surveys, in addition to the data required to be noted in the printed manual of 
 surveying instructions, on pages 17 and 18, the agricultural lands, and represent 
 the same on township plats by the designation of " agricultural lauds." 
 
 It is to be understood that there is nothing obligatory on claimants to pro- 
 ceed under this statute, and that where they fail to do so, there being no ad- 
 verse interest, they hold the same relations to the premises they may be work- 
 ing which they did before the passage of this act, with Ihe additional guarantee 
 that they possess the right of occupancy under the statute. 
 
 The foregoing presents such views as have occurred to this office in consider- 
 ing the prominent points of the statute, and will be followed by further instruc- 
 tions as the rulings in actual cases and experience in the administration of the 
 statute may from time to time suggest. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOS. S. WILSON, 
 
 Commissioner. 
 
 The UNITED STATES REGISTERS AND 
 
 RECEIVERS AND SURVEYORS GENERAL. 
 
 CHAP. CCLXIL 
 
 AN ACT granting the right of way to ditch and canal owners over the public lands, and for 
 
 other purposes. 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
 States of America in Congress assembled, That the mineral lands of the public 
 domain, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and opea 
 to exploration and occupation by all citizens of the United States, and those 
 who have declared their intention to become citizens, subject to such regulations 
 as may be prescribed by law, and subject also to the local customs or rules of 
 miners in the several mining districts, so far as the same may not be in conflict 
 with the laws of the United States. 
 
 SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever any person or association 
 of persons claim a vein or lode of quartz, or other rock in place, bearing gold, 
 silver, cinnabar, or copper, having previously occupied and improved the same 
 according to the local custom or rules of miners in. the district where the-same 
 is situated, and having expended in actual labor and improvements thereon an 
 amount of not less than one thousand dollars, and in regard to whose possession 
 there is no controversy or opposing claim, it shall and may be lawful for said 
 claimant or association of claimants to file in the local land office a diagram of 
 the same, so extended laterally or otherwise as to conform to the local laws, 
 customs, and rules of miners, and to enter such tract and receive a patent there- 
 for, granting such mine, together with the right to follow such vein or lode with 
 
356 CIRCULAR RELATING TO MINING CLAIMS. 
 
 its dips, angles, and variations to any .depth, although it may enter the land ad- 
 joining, which land adjoining shall be sold subject to this condition. 
 
 SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That upon the filing of the diagram as' 
 provided in the second section of this act, and posting the same in a conspicuous 
 place on the claim, together with a notice of intention to apply for a patent, the 
 register of the land office shall publish a notice of the same in a newspaper 
 published nearest to the location of said claim, and shall also post such notice in 
 his office for the period of ninety days ; and after the expiration of said period, 
 if no adverse claim shall have been filed, it shall be the duty of the surveyor 
 general, upon application of the party, to survey the premises and make a plat 
 thereof, indorsed with his approval, designating the number and description of 
 the location, the value of the labor and improvements, and the character of the 
 vein exposed ; and upon the payment to the proper officer of five dollars per acre, 
 together with the cost of such survey, plat, and notice, and giving satisfactory 
 evidence that said diagram and notice have been posted on the claim during 
 said period of ninety days, the register of the land office shall transmit to the 
 General Land Office said plat, survey, and description, and a patent shall issue 
 for the same thereupon. But said plat, survey, or description shall in no case 
 cover more than one vein or lode, and no patent shall issue for more than one 
 vein or lode, which shall be expressed in the patent issued. 
 
 SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That when such location and entry of a 
 mine shall be upon unsurveyed lands, it shall and may be lawful, after the ex- 
 tension thereto of the public surveys, to adjust the surveys to the limits of the 
 premises according to the location and possession and plat aforesaid ; and the 
 surveyor general may, in extending the surveys, vary the same from a rectan- 
 gular form to suit the circumstances of the country and the local rules, laws, 
 and customs of miners : Provided, That no location hereafter made shall exceed 
 two hundred feet in length along the vein for each locator, with an additional 
 claim for discovery to the discoverer of the lode, with the right to follow such 
 vein to any depth, with all its dips, variations, and angles, together with a reason- 
 able quantity of surface for the convenient working of the same, as fixed by local 
 rules : And provided further, That no person may make more than one location 
 on the same lode, and not more than three thousand feet shall be taken in any 
 one claim by any association of persons.. 
 
 SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That as a further condition of sale, in the 
 absence of necessary legislation by Congress, the local legislature of any State 
 or Territory may provide rules for working mines involving easements, drain- 
 age, and other necessary means to their complete development ; and those con- 
 ditions shall be fully expressed in the patent. 
 
 SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That whenever any adverse claimants to 
 any mine located and claimed as aforesaid shall appear before the approval of 
 the survey, as provided in the third section of this act, all proceedings shall be 
 stayed until a final settlement and adjudication in the courts of competent juris- 
 diction of the rights of possession to such claim, when a patent may issue as in 
 other cases. 
 
 SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States 
 be, and is hereby, authorized to establish additional land districts, and to appoint 
 the necessary officers under existing laws, wherever he may deem the same 
 necessary for the public convenience in executing the provisions of this act. 
 
 SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the right of way for the construction . 
 of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby granted. 
 
 SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That whenever by priority of possession, 
 rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other pur- 
 poses, have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged 
 by the local customs, laws, and the decisions of courts, the possessors and owners 
 of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same ; and the 
 
CIRCULAR RELATING TO MINING CLAIMS. 357 
 
 right of way for the construction of ditches and canals for the purposes aforesaid 
 is hereby acknowledged and confirmed : Provided, however, That whenever, 
 after the passage of this act, any person or persons shall, in the construction of 
 any ditch or canal, injure or damage the possession, of any settler on the public 
 domain, the party committing such injury or damage shall be liable to the party 
 injured for such injury or damage. 
 
 SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That wherever, prior to the passage of 
 this act, upon the lands heretofore designated as mineral lands, which have been 
 excluded from survey and sale, there have been homesteads made by citizens 
 of the United States, or persons who , have declared their intention to become 
 citizens, which homesteads have been made, improved, and used for agricultural 
 purposes, and upon which there have been no valuable mines of gold, silver, 
 cinnabar, or copper discovered, and which are properly agricultural lands, the 
 said settlers or owners of such homesteads shall have a right of pre-emption 
 thereto, arid shall be entitled to purchase the same at the price of one dollar and 
 twenty-five cents per acre and in quantity not to exceed one hundred and sixty 
 acres ; or said parties may avail themselves of the provisions of the act of 
 Congress approved May twenty, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, entitled " An 
 act to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain," and acts 
 amendatory thereof. 
 
 SEC. 11 And be it further enacted, That upon the survey of the lands afore- 
 said, the Secretary of the Interior may designate and set apart such portions of 
 the said lands as are clearly agricultural lands, which lands shall thereafter be 
 subject to pre-emption and sale as other public lands of the United States, and 
 subject to all the laws and regulations applicable to the same. 
 
 Approved July 26, 1866. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 LETTER FROM SECRETARY OF TREASURY 3 
 
 REPORT OF J. Ross BROWN 
 
 Section 1 . Historical sketch of gold and silver mining on the Pacific slope 33 
 
 1. First mention of gold - 13 
 
 2. Gold found before 1848 13 
 
 3. Marshall's discovery 14 
 
 4. The discovery of gold in print 15 
 
 5. Excitement abroad 15 
 
 6. Pan washing .... 16 
 
 7. The rocker 16 
 
 8. Mining ditches 16 
 
 9. Miners' "rashes" 17 
 
 10. GoldLake and Gold Bluff 18 
 
 11. The "torn" 18 
 
 12. The sluice 1 19 
 
 13. Placer leads traced to quartz 19 
 
 14. A gold-dredging machine 20 
 
 15. Decrease of wages - 20 
 
 16. Growth of the quartz interest 21 
 
 17. Failure in quartz 21 
 
 18. Improvement in quartz mining . 22 
 
 19. The hydraulic process 22 
 
 20. Hill mining - 23 
 
 21. Decline of river mining - 23 
 
 22. " Rushes " to Australia 24 
 
 23. The Kern river excitement 24 
 
 24. Ancient rivers 24 
 
 25. The Tuolumne table mountain 25 
 
 26. The Fraser fever 26 
 
 27. Discovery of the Comstock lode 27 
 
 28. The Washoe excitement 28 
 
 29. The barrel and yard processes 
 
 30. The pan process 29 
 
 31. Growth of the Washoe excitement 30 
 
 32. Virginia City 30 
 
 33. The silver panic 
 
 34. Litigation about the Comstock mines - 32 
 
 35. The many-lode theory 32 
 
 36. Expenses increasing with the depth 32 
 
 37. Some characteristics of Esmeraida, Humboidt, and Reese rivers 
 
 38. Sutro tunnel project 
 
 39. Baron Richthofen's report , 34 
 
 40. Columbia basin and Cariboo mines 36 
 
 Section 2. Geological formation, &c,, of Pacific slope, (Report of Mr. William Ash- 
 burner) 
 
 1. Gold mining interest of California 37 
 
 2. Characteristics of the gold belt 40 
 
 3. Northern mining districts ' 43 
 
 4. Mining in the sierras ; mills, expenses, &c 47 
 
 Section 3. Condition of gold and silver mining on the Pacific coast 49 
 
 1. Decrease of yield 49 
 
 2. The exportation of treasure from California 50 
 
 3. Receipts from northern and southern mines 51 
 
 4. Comparison of receipts and exports , 52 
 
 5. Quartz yield increasing 5^ 
 
 6. Uncertainty in quartz mining 53 
 
 7. Professor Ashburner's statistics : 54 
 
 8. Re"rnond's statistics .- 55 
 
 9. Pulverization of quartz 
 
 1$. Amalgamation of gold 
 
 11. Sulpliurets and concentration 
 
 12. Citloriiiation - 64 
 
INDEX. 559 
 
 Page. 
 
 13. Gold in loose state 64 
 
 14. Placers 64 
 
 15. Cement mining 65 
 
 16 Hydraulic mining 65 
 
 17. River mining - 66 
 
 18. The Hay ward .quartz mine 6 
 
 19. Sierra Buttes mine 6 
 
 20. The Allison mine, &c 7 
 
 21. The Smartsville Blue Gravel Company's mine 68 
 
 22. Profits of mining generally 69 
 
 23. Difficulty of getting good claims 71 
 
 24. Comstock lode the mo^t productive in the world 71 
 
 25 Comstock mining companies '. 72 
 
 26. Quartz mills in Nevada 74 
 
 27. The pan ^ 76 
 
 28. The Wheeler pan 76 
 
 29. The Varney pan 77 
 
 30. Knox'span 77 
 
 31. Hepburn pan 77 
 
 32. The Wheeler and Eandail pan 77 
 
 33. Estimated yield of various mines 77 
 
 34. Assessments levied 78 
 
 35. The Gould arid Currymine 78 
 
 36. TheOphirmine , 60 
 
 37. The Savage mine 61 
 
 38. The Yellow Jacket mine 62 
 
 39. The Crown Point mine 62 
 
 40. The Hale and Norcross mine 82 
 
 41. The Imperial mine 83 
 
 42. The Empire mine 83 
 
 43. Productive mines of Reese river 84 
 
 44. Yield of various silver districts . 84 
 
 45. Improvements in silver mining 84 
 
 Section 4. Resources of Nevada, Oregon, Washington Territory, Utah, Montana, 
 
 and Idaho 85 
 
 1. Historical sketch of Nevada 85 
 
 2. Geography and products of Nevada 63 
 
 3. Mines and mineral resources of Nevada 98 
 
 4. Mining property, &c 120 
 
 5. General view of the mines of Nevada, Washington Territory, Utah, Montana, 
 
 and Idaho 123 
 
 Report of Dr. A, Blatchly 132 
 
 Southeastern Nevada Io2 
 
 Arizona, (extract from Governor McCormick's message, October 8, 1866) 135 
 
 Section 5 138 
 
 1. The copper resources of the Pacific coast 138 
 
 2. Various copper districts 149 
 
 3. The geological formations in which copper is found 157 
 
 4. Reduction of ores 160 
 
 Section 6. Quicksilver mines of California 170 
 
 1 . New Almaden mines 170 
 
 2. Products and exports 174 
 
 Section 7. Borax, sulphur, tin, and coal 178 
 
 1 . Principal places where borax is found 178 
 
 2. Manufacture of borax 178 
 
 3. Discovery of borax in California 179 
 
 4. Product of borax in California 185 
 
 5. Process of working 186 
 
 6 Deposits of sulphur 387 
 
 7 Tin 187 
 
 8. Coal 388 
 
 9. Iron 192 
 
 Section8 Mining region, population, altitude, &,c 193 
 
 1. The mining region and the mining population 193 
 
 2. Main divisions 394 
 
 3 Altitudes 194 
 
 4. Climate 395 
 
 5. Capacity to maintain a large population 198 
 
 6. Number of miners... 199 
 
360 INDEX. 
 
 Page. 
 
 7. Timber 190 
 
 Section 9. Annotated catalogue of the principal mineral species hitherto recognized 
 
 in California, &c 200 
 
 Notes on the geographical distribution and geology, &c 212 
 
 Section 10. Laws and customs of foreign government's in relation to the occupancy 
 
 of mineral lands and the working of mines , 218 
 
 1 . The crown right , 216 
 
 2. Permanent titles to mineral lands in the United States 223 
 
 Section 11 226 
 
 1. Mining laws 226 
 
 2. Need of congressional mining law 229 
 
 3. The customary limitation of size 230 
 
 4. Proposed width of claims 231 
 
 5. Work required to hold claims 232 
 
 6. Proposed change as to work required 234 
 
 7. Law needed for centuries of mining . 234 
 
 8. Congress alone can establish uniformity 235 
 
 9. Miners' regulations Quartz regulations of Nevada county, California 235 
 
 1 0. Quartz regulations of Sierra county, California 236 
 
 11. Quartz regulations of Tuolumne county, California 237 
 
 1 ] ^. Quartz regulations of Sacramento county 237 
 
 12. Placer regul ations of Columbia district, California 238 
 
 13. Placer regulations of North San Juan district 240 
 
 14. Placer regulations of Pilot Hill 1 241 
 
 15. Regulations of New Kanaka camp 241 
 
 16 Regulations of the Copperopolis (copper) district .* 242 
 
 17. Statute of Nevada concerning mining claims 242 
 
 18. Regulations of the Virginia district, Nevada 245 
 
 19. Regulations of Reese river district, Nevada 246 
 
 20. Quartz statute of the State of Oregon 247 
 
 21. Quartz statute, of Idaho - 248 
 
 22. Statute of Arizona 1 249 
 
 23. The mining laws of Mexico 257 
 
 Section 12 264 
 
 1 Books on Californian mines 264 
 
 2. Table of distances 266 
 
 Appendix 1. Address on the history of California * '. 268 
 
 Appendix 2. Address on the acquisition of California by the United States 306 
 
 GOLD MINES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF TREASURY 323 
 
 REPORT OF JAMES W. TAYLOR 324 
 
 The Rocky mountains - 324 
 
 New Mexico 324 
 
 Colorado 326 
 
 Montana 328 
 
 Utah 330 
 
 Dakota >. 330 
 
 Saskatchewan 330 
 
 Vermillion district 331 
 
 Canadian mines - 332 
 
 Nova Scotia 333 
 
 Alleghany gold-field 337 
 
 Virginia 338 
 
 North Carolina 340 
 
 South Carolina > 342 
 
 Georgia 343 
 
 New Hampshire and other localities - 344 
 
 Metallurgical treatment of gold ores 345 
 
 Treasure product of the world 346 
 
 Transportation from the Missouri river to the Rocky mountains 349 
 
 General observations 350 
 
 MINING CLAIMS. 
 
 Circular of Jos. S. Wilson, Commissioner of the General Land Office 351 
 
 Act of Congress approved July 26, 1866.^ 355 
 
r 
 
 RETURN dRCUIATlQN DEPARTMENT 
 
 202 Main Librar 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 
 
 Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELUVV 
 
 [NTERUBR/^RY LOAN 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720 @$ 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY -U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 /-ri 
 
 a 
 
 
 -2- J 
 
 
 
 r f .