sulphurets as to render expensive concentration and chlorination necessary, this method of treating the pyritiferous ores having maintained its popularity against the many new plans that from time to time have claimed recognition.

In so far as the crushing service is concerned, California, if not in advance of all other vein-mining countries, is certainly behind none, nor will pan-amalgamation, much practised here, suffer by comparison with the methods elsewhere adopted.

Hydraulic and Drift Mining.-Hydraulic mining consists in the plan of breaking down and disintegrating the banks of auriferous gravel as they stand in place by means of water discharged against the same in large quantity and under great pressure, this gravel being afterwards carried by the released water into sluices furnished with riffles and other appliances for catching and retaining the gold. In drift-mining that portion of the auriferous gravel that is to be handled is reached and removed through shafts or tunnels, only a thin stratum of the richest material lying next the bot tom being taken out. The gravel removed on being brought to the surface is washed in sluices, as in hydraulic operations.

Owing to the large quantities of detritus or tailings discharged from the hydraulic mines into the creeks and rivers, much damage has been done to the lowlying lands along and adjacent to these streams. Having vainly protested against the continuance of this practice, the owners of the lands so injured or exposed to injury, associating themselves together, procured injunctions to be issued against many of the hydraulic miners, restraining them from further emptying their débris into these outletting streams. After several years of fruitless litigation the hydraulic miners have, by a judicial decree recently rendered, been required to so impound or otherwise take care of the coarser and more hurtful portions of these slums that they shall no onger make their way into the rivers. Recognizing the justice of this decision, the miners have everywhere commenced the construction of capacious dams below their claims for the retention of this stuff, which end they will probably so far accomplish as to prevent further litigation between the parties to this contest. As both the State and the general Government are interested in preserving the free navigation of such waters as have been partially obstructed by this mining débris, it may reasonably be expected that they will do something towards removing existing impediments to the same, if they do not also aid the miners in their efforts to prevent future injury to the farming lands and the further shoaling of the rivers. These retaining dams will be capacious and expensive structures, some of them having capacity to hold many million cubic yards of tailings and costing as much as $200,000 each. Should the cost of their construction be thrown wholly on the miners, it would impose upon them a heavy burden, as dams of this kind will be required at many different localities.

The legislature of California in 1881 appropriated the sum of $500,000 for building impounding dams on Bear River and the Yuba, the streams most obstructed with tailings, and along which the greatest damage has been done to the farming lands; the quantity of which rendered for the present nearly worthless amounting here to as much as 25,000 or 30,000 acres, of the average value of $40 per acre; the damage to the farming lands in like manner caused elsewhere amounting to at least half as much more. With the money so appro

priated a dam was commenced at an eligible point the main Yuba, and carried nearly to completion, when this act of the legislature was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court of the State, causing work on it to be suspended. Left in an incomplete state, a portion of this structure was afterwards swept away by the high water, and, having never been repaired, its efficiency as a débris-impounder remains (1882) untested. In the prosecution of hydraulic mining great quantities of water are required, some of the larger companie using as much as 4000 miner's inches for eight or ten months in the year. While the miner's inch of water is a somewhat uncertain quantity, varying slightly in the different districts, it is generally understood to mean the quantity that will escape through a hole 1 inch square in a 2-inch plank, with the water standing 6 inches above the centre of the orifice, and which amounts to 21,000 gallons in twenty-four hours. Measured by this standard, the water-consumption of such companies amounts to 84,000,000 gallons daily, or something like 20,000,000,000 gallons each working season.

For conveying this water from the supplying lakes and rivers to the mines many ditches have been constructed, some of them large, long, and very costly. Of these artificial water-courses there are at present in the mining regions of California about 500, having an aggregate length of nearly 5000 miles. In length these ditches vary from two or three to seventy-five miles, in carrying capacity from 200 to 4000 inches, and in cost from $500 to $3000 per mile. On an average their length may be set down at eight to ten miles, capacity 1000 inches, cost $2000 per mile, reservoirs, dams, flumes, iron conduits, etc., included, some of these ap pendages having been attended with heavy expenditure. The carrying capacity of a few short ditches in the State exceeds the largest figure above given. The main trunk of the South Yuba Canal Company conveys throughout its entire length 7000 inches of water, this company delivering to the mines supplied by its system of ditches 200,000,000 gallons daily-nearly two-thirds as much water as the city of New York receives through the new Croton aqueduct.

From the foregoing enumeration has been omitted many small ditches tributary to the larger ones, also such as, having served their original purpose of supplying water to diggings since exhausted, have fallen into disuse, with some few that for other reasons have been abandoned; the aggregate cost of these works having amounted to many million dollars.

In the building of these ditches some bold feats of engineering have been displayed, especially in the construction of the trestles for supporting the flumes along them, and in the laying down of iron pipes for the transmission of water across deep gorges, river-valleys, and other depressions, some of these trestles being over 200 feet in height. Instead of trestles for supporting the flumes, these structures have sometimes been suspended midway along the sides of precipitous cliffa over 300 feet high. The Spring Valley Company convey its ditch-water across the west branch of Feather River through an iron pipe in the form of an inverted syphon, which at its point of greatest depression is 900 feet below the ditch-level. Some of the reservoirs built by these hydraulic companies for water-storage are of large size and have cost from $100,000 to $250,000 each.

While hydraulic mining is carried on in the gravel banks that stand over or outlie the "Dead Rivers"

the Pliocene age, drift operations are confined to the deep-lying channels of these ancient streams, so inhumed and obliterated by volcanic flows, mountain uplifts, drift and glacier movements, assisted, possibly, by tidal action, ocean surfs, and other active agents of destruction. In the prosecution of this latter branch of mining recourse is had to shafts and tunnels for opening up and removing the auriferous deposits, which always lie on the bottoms of the buried rivers, and generally from 50 to 200 feet below the surface. Some of these tunnels are of great length, as are also many of those driven to bottom, the hydraulic banks that run for furnishing outlets to the grounds of the North Bloomfield Company being 8000 feet long and costing nearly $500,000. The tunnel of the Bald Mountain Drift Company, at Forest City, is a mile long, including length of deposits removed. The drift tunnels vary in length from 1000 to 2000 feet, and in cost from $10 to $20 per linear foot, their usual dimensions measured transversely being about 4 feet by 7, though many are much larger.

Other Methods of Placer-Mining.-While hydraulic and drift constitute the leading departments of placermining, there are still a number of subordinate branches of the business, each characterized by the mechanisms and modes employed in its prosecution or the kind of diggings in which it is carried on. Thus, we have river-bed mining, conducted by two methods-wing. damming, whereby the water is excluded from a por tion of the river-bed by an embankment carried out from one shore; and fluming, by which plan the whole of the water is diverted from the channel and carried in ditches or flumes along the bank, leaving the river bed opposite entirely bare. After being so laid bare by either of these methods, the gold-bearing gravel found in the bottom of the river is removed and washed in sluices. Though generally profitable, this style of mining is precarious: the river-bed is apt to be spotted, paying largely in some places and very little in others; the season for operations is short, and sometimes abridged by premature freshets, which sweep away the miner's works just when he is about to commence or when he may be in the midst of his harvest. Almost always these works, consisting of dams, wheels, sluices, derricks, etc., are carried away by the winter floods, ne cessitating their replacement the next year; therefore, the fortunes of the river-bed miner are, like his diggings, very uneven. The most of the larger operations of this kind have of late years been confined to the Klamath and other northern rivers, the beds of the streams farther south having in former years been so depleted by this method that they have mostly been given up to the Chinese, who, adopting the cheaper plan of wing-damming, manage to make some portions of them pay.

Dry diggings are of two kinds one, where there is no water for washing or only a scanty supply in the winter; and the other, where the gold is separated from the auriferous earth by winnowing on rawhides or by machines made for the purpose, no water at all being used in these processes. Dry washing, so called, is not much practised in California, though common in Mexico and some other countries where the laborer is content with small, easily-earned wages. Seam diggings consist of small but rich veins of gold-bearing quartz so much decomposed that they can be piped out, aided by the pick, and worked somewhat after the manner of hydraulic ground. This class of deposits is not extensive, and occurs in only a few localities. VOL. II.-4

Silver-Mining. The silver-mines proper or rather, it should be said, the argentiferous ore-producing dis tricts-of California lie for the most part east of the Sierra Nevada, in the counties of Alpine, Inyo, and Mono, where they cover a wide scope of territory. Although the business of mining for this metal has been actively prosecuted in the above localities for a good many years, having been liberally backed with capital and having absorbed much labor, it can in no sense be considered a success, this entire trans-Sierra region abounding with deserted towns, abandoned mines, and dismantled reduction-works. The Cerro Gordo mines, Inyo county, yielding lead-silver ores of the smelting variety, were at one time worked with profit, but of late years they have produced but little; nor are any mines in these counties making a large bullion-produc tion at present, though a number are being worked in a small way, there being also several gold-mines in the Bodie district, Mono co., operated with success. The discovery of promising deposits of silver-bearing ore is reported in both Shasta and San Bernardino counties, but at neither point have sufficient developments been made to establish for these deposits a large and unmistakable value.

Quicksilver, Copper, Lead, and Iron.-These are among the metals somewhat extensively mined in California. The making of quicksilver commenced at New Almaden as early as 1846, and has, with but little interruption, been continued ever since, the average annual output of these mines having been a little over 20,000 flasks; total product, about 750,000 flasks. During the past twenty years deposits of cinnabar have been found at many other points in the State, the most of them being in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, San Luis Obispo, Fresno, and Trinity counties. About eight years ago this branch of mining, by reason of the numerous finds made at that time and the then prevailing high prices of this metal, received a great impetus, many additional furnaces having been erected and ore-deposits opened up; which led to such an over-production that prices, ruling at $1.37 per pound in 1874, dropped to 50 cents in 1877, since which time they have averaged about 38 cents in San Francisco, the sole receiving and distributing point on the coast. Present indications denote a steady market at about that figure, unless a combination should be effected for restricting the output-a policy that producers have been endeavoring to carry out for several years past, and which, if inaugurated, might be expected to advance prices somewhat, at least for the time being.

While the mass of the cinnabar worked in California does not yield over 14 per cent. of metal, that from the New Almaden mines, in Santa Clara county, and the Altoona mine, in Trinity county, yields from 60 to 80 per cent. more. The only mines now making any consider able production in the State are the New Almaden, Napa Consolidated, Great Western, Sulphur Banks, and Reddington, each of which produces from 5000 to 15,000 flasks per annum, there being eight or ten small mines besides which turn out yearly a few hundred flasks each, Six years ago there were as many as seventy furnaces, large and small, employed in the production of quicksilver; now there is not one-half that number; those running at present are, however, mostly of large capacity, roasting from twenty to forty tons of ore each per day. The annual California product of this metal for the past five years has been as follows: 1877, 79,336 flasks; 1878, 63,880 flasks; 1879, 73,684 flasks; 1880, 59,926 flasks; 1881, 58,635 flasks; the product for 1882

being estimated at about 5000 flasks less than that of 1881. Of the quicksilver made, about 65 per cent. is exported to foreign countries, the balance being consumed in the State and the mining-regions adjacent. The largest consumers of California quicksilver are China and Mexico, the former taking an average of 17,000 flasks, and the latter 14,000, annually. This metal is also sent in small quantities to Central and South America, New York, Japan, and Australia. For several years the Comstock mines supplied a market for about 1600 flasks of quicksilver monthly. For the past three years the requirement for these mines has been smalla loss that has, however, been more than made up by increased demands in other quarters, the growth of mining in Arizona and other outlying Territories having been attended with a corresponding consumption of this metal.

While cupriferous ores of fair quality and in considerable abundance are found at many points in California, the attempts made at utilizing these products have proved generally disappointing, whether directed to effecting reduction on the ground or shipment abroad. Though a good stock of ore and a tolerable market have rendered the business for a time self-sustaining, yet by the speedy exhaustion of available deposits and the fall of prices it has suffered early eclipse, the prosperous career of these enterprises having rarely ever extended beyond two or three years, the most of them being much shorter lived. Leading such a precarious existence, copper-mining has dwindled to small proportions compared with what it was twenty years ago, when the Copperopolis mines, being in bonanza, were ship ping heavily to a remunerative market. Since the decadence of these mines, some fifteen years since, California exports have been much reduced. While the practice has been to send away the better-grade ores, the most of them going to England and Baltimore, those of poorer quality have been reduced to matte either at the mines or at works located elsewhere, the largest at Melrose, Alameda co., both smelting and lixiviation being employed in their treatment. Latterly, the most extensive operations in this line have been carried on by the San Francisco Company at Spenceville, Placer co., where it has opened up a large body of medium-grade ore. In reducing this ore it is placed in heaps of a thousand tons or more on layers of wood, which, being fired, ignites the mass, the sulphur in the ore supporting combustion until the entire heap is desulphurized, the process requiring from four to six months. After roasting, the ore is subjected to leaching, the copper being precipitated from the solution by the use of scrap iron. These precipitations, which are then ready for market, assay from 85 to 90 per cent. fine. Some 10,000 tons of ore are reduced at the Spence ville mine annually, producing about 350 tons of precipitates, the most of which find a market at the various refineries. The present annual shipments of copper ores from San Francisco amount to about 2000 tons, the output of the Arizona and Nevada mines, most of that which formerly came to this port for shipment being now sent to Eastern markets by rail.

Lead-mining, as a distinct industry, is not carried on in California, the considerable quantities of this metal heretofore consumed in or shipped from the State being the product of the argentiferous galena brought from Arizona or of the lead-silver bullion made at the Cerro Gordo mines, Inyo co., and the Eureka mines in the State of Nevada, the most of this ore having been smelted and this bullion parted at the Selby Smelting

and Refining Works in San Francisco, the lead being run into pigs and the silver sent to the mint, San Francisco receipts of base bullion for 1881 amounted to 4,344,000 pounds-lead, 12,114,000 pounds; total receipts of the former for past five years, 60,000,000 pounds; of the latter, 28,973,000. The lead goes mostly to New York, prices following those of that market. Shipments to that port for 1880 amounted to 9190 tons, value $1,111,953; for 1881, to 7652 tons, value $1,467,442. The home consumption of lead, some 2000 tons, is mostly in the form of shot, balls, sheet lead, and pipe, of which about enough is made to meet local requirements.

Ferruginous ores of various kinds and good quality abound in California, some eligibly situated as regards accessibility, timber, and water, and others quite the reverse. Not, however, until recently has any attempt been made at manufacturing iron in this State, and this notwithstanding the prices of that metal have always been high, the consumption considerable, and prospective requirements great. The chief obstacle in the way of iron-making here has been lack of a suitable mineral coal for the purpose, none being found in the country. There is in the vicinity of most of these deposits an abundance of timber from which charcoal could be burned, but the making of this has generally been considered too expensive. In the early part of 1881 the California Iron Company, having erected smelting-works at Clipper Gap, Placer co., started its furnaces in April of that year, turning out during the next seven months 4250 tons of iron, which was sold in San Francisco at the rate of $28 per ton, being $2 less than ruling rates for the imported article. The product of these works for 1882 is estimated at 10,000 tons, of a quality that will enable it to compete successfully with the best foreign varieties. Imports of iron at San Francisco, mostly Scotch, have for some years past ranged from 10,000 to 17,000 tons.

Chromic iron has for several years past had a place on the list of California exports, there being immense deposits of this ore in different parts of the State. Many of these cannot, however, be made sources of present revenue, long wagon-transportation shutting them out from market. From those more eligibly situated in this respect, enjoying the advantages of railroad or water carriage, from 8000 to 10,000 tons of chromium have been extracted annually and shipped abroad, the larger portion going to Baltimore, and the balance to Scotland. This ore is of good grade, carrying from 50 to 60 per cent. of chromic acid. The prices received in San Francisco were $17 per ton for 50-per cent. ore, a figure that left the shipper but small margin for profit. With a slight advance in price chrome could be shipped from California in great quantities.

The

Coal, Salt, Sulphur, Borax, and Petroleum.-The only coal-beds yet opened up to any great extent in California are situated on the northerly slope of Mount Diablo, forty miles east from San Francisco, 900 feet above and five miles distant from tide-water. workable veins, two in number, varying from three to five feet in thickness, supply a fair article of bituminous, non-coking coal. It is a good fuel for domestic uses and the generation of steam, but does not answer for making gas or for smelting purposes. These mines have been actively worked for the past twenty years, furnishing large quantities of fuel for the San Francisco market, the delivery at that point in 1881 amounting to 103,055 tons, about 75 per cent. of the average for the preceding ten years. Small quantities of coal of

similar quality are gotten out at two or three other places in California, the value of the entire product of the State amounting to about $1,000,000 per annum. The imports of coal at San Francisco during the year 1881 were as follows: from Seattle, Washington Territory, 147,418 tons; Coos Bay, Oregon, 21,246 tons; British Columbia, 158,629 tons; Australia, 126,296 tons; Great Britain, 281,313 tons; anthracite, 13,697 tons; Cumberland, 24,982 tons, with a few small lots from Sitka and other places-total receipts for the year amounting to 899,680 tons, being 15 per cent. greater than in any previous year. The receipts and consumption for 1882 promise to be as large as in 1881. Wholesale prices of coal in San Francisco varied during the year 1881 as follows: Australian, $6.25 to $11 per ton; California, $4.50 to $5.50; anthracite, $12 to $18 Seattle, $7 to $10.

Common salt is one of those commodities for which Nature has made ample provision and placed within easy reach, but which Californians still continue to import largely from other countries. Besides the many natural salines found within or just over the boundaries of the State, California, through her long dry seasons, possesses great advantages for producing this article cheaply by means of solar evaporation, which to some extent is employed for that purpose. Between domestic uses, meat-packing, ore-reduction, the curing of fish, hides, etc., California consumes much salt-between 35,000 and 45,000 tons annually. To meet these requirements she imports large quantities from Live pool; also some from Carmen Island, Lower California The balance is made at home, the principal part of it at the works located on the easterly shore of San Francisco Bay, being produced from sea-water evaporated by solar heat. At that point exist many large lagoons, some of which have at little expense been converted into extensive reservoirs. These being filled in the winter, the water, exposed to the warm and desiccating atmosphere, has all escaped by the month of June, leaving a heavy stratum of impure salt behind. This is a cheap article, selling for $5 or $6 per ton, being used for hide-salting and other coarse curing. When a better article is to be made, the brine, when at 25°, is run off into wooden vats, and the process of evaporation there completed, the result being a salt almost chemically pure. This product, being shovelled into heaps and left long exposed to the air, becomes further purified and whitened, when it is ready for grinding. Salt is made by a similar process at Santa Monica, San Diego, and other points on the southern coast, the quantity turned out from the artificial salines amounting to 25,000 tons per year. The price of salt in San Francisco varies from $5 to $6 per ton for the lower grades, and from $15 to $20 per ton for the better qualities. There are six mills in San Francisco engaged in grind ing salt for culinary purposes.

Sulphur is plentiful, there being heavy deposits of this mineral in Lake and Colusa counties, where it has been utilized to some extent, works having been put up there fifteen years ago, and several hundred tons of refined sulphur turned out annually by simple distillation. Latterly, these works have produced but little, being unable to compete with importations, the foreign article, brought mostly from Sicily, being sold at about $45 per ton in San Francisco-a figure that scarcely allows the local producer any profit. Five years ago the Humboldt mines in Nevada came in as a further competing source of supply. Most of the deposits of this mineral on the Pacific coast are rich, containing from 40 to 60

per cent. of sulphur. At the beds in Lake county solfataric action is still going on, depositing sulphur from the vapors and steam issuing from the extensively fissured volcanic rocks.

While borax, the biborate of soda, is found at several places in California, only in the locality known as the Slate Range Marsh, San Bernardino co., does it occur in such quantity and under such conditions as to render it of much commercial value. The Riddell Company, operating at this place, has erected there reductionworks with a monthly capacity of 1200 tons. The annual receipts of manufactured borax at San Francisco averaged for 1880 and 1881 a little over 2000 tons, of which about one-half came from salines in the State of Nevada. Nearly the entire product of the coast is exported, two-thirds going to New York, and the remainder to England.

Although petroleum is a widely-diffused product in California, occurring in most of the coast counties, workable deposits have been found only at a few points, mostly in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Notwithstanding much tunnelling and boring have been done, no flowing wells, like those of Pennsylva nia, have been developed, the oil obtained from the wells bored being, with few exceptions, raised by pumping. The deepest borings reached have been about 1600 feet; the largest flow obtained, 75 barrels per day-from five to fifteen barrels per day being about the average quantity. Refineries have been erected near the wells, where a good illuminating and a superior lubricating oil is made. Pipe-lines have been constructed to aid in transportation.

Among minor metalliferous and mineral resources of the State are the following, some of which have already been made the objects of mining enterprise, and must ultimately become sources of considerable wealth to the country: Antimony, in heavy deposits at San Emedio, Kern co., and the Stayton mine, San Benito co.-ore carrying from 30 to 50 per cent. of metal. Extensive works were put up at the former place in 1876, but failed of success by reason of too expensive transportation to market, cost of getting in supplies, etc., the mine being situated in a mountainous district and a long way from the railroad. Asphaltum, in immense beds on the ocean-beach near Mount Hoar, Ventura co., whence several thousand tons are an nually shipped at little cost to San Francisco, where it is used for roofing, laying down sidewalks, paving streets, etc. Smaller deposits exist elsewhere in the State. Gypsum, over a large area near the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, Los Angeles co.; value of the deposit not yet proven. This mineral occurs elsewhere in the State, also abundantly in Arizona near the above railroad and not far from the California line. Possessing the property of neutralizing the alkalies, this mineral must eventually come into large requisition in California, where there is so much land impregnated with this salt. Asbestos and isinglass, tolerably abundant and of kinds likely to make them useful in the arts. Kaolin and other clays suitable for making fine pottery, fire-brick, etc. Stanniferous ore in situ; also stream tin reported; but not enough of any kind to make these fields important except as encouragements to more careful search after larger deposits of this valuable metal. Mountains of marble of cloudless white or wonderfully variegated hues, the beds so deep and the rock so firm that immense blocks can be readily broken out. Mineral paints and other pigments, representing nearly all the fundamental colors and of well-established