"The auriferous veins of Colorado are represented to be from six inches to nine feet in width. Gov. 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.” From Montana, the yield was estimated as follows:

"The assays of argentiferous galena have exhibited results from $100 to $1,700 per ton."

It is hardly necessary to say that the vast fields of wealth in the newer portions of our country remain to be thoroughly explored.

It is carefully estimated that the production of gold and silver in the world in 1866 amounted to $210,000,000, of which $80,000,000 were from the United States. By comparison with the foregoing, it will be seen that the figures relating to our country are far below the facts.

Copper is an immense source of wealth in the United States. The copper regions of Lake Superior have long been famous the world over. Recent discoveries on the Pacific coast have brought out enormous accessions to this wealth. Some of these deposits were known before California became a State of the Republic. Dr. Trask, however, State geologist from 1851 to 1854, brought forward evidence that valuable copper ore was found in nearly every county. Nothing of importance was done toward the development of these mines until 1860, when Hiram Hughes discovered the famous Napoleon Mine among the Gopher Hills in Calaveras County. Not understanding the character of his discovery, he sent "a lot of the ore to San Francisco, where

it was pronounced thirty per cent copper ore, and worth about a hundred and twenty dollars per ton." ton." The copper excitement then commenced; and it has raged at different times up to the present, fairly equalling, if not exceeding, the excitement from the discovery of gold and silver.

The most important mining districts from which ores have been exported are Copperopolis, Table Mountain, Napoleon, Lancha Plana, Campo Seco, and Copper Hill, in Calaveras County, the Newton in Cosumnes, Hope Valley in Amador County, the Buchanan in Fresno County, the Osos in San Louis Obespo County, the Soledad in Los Angeles County, the Rockland in Oregon, the Pea-vine in Nevada, the Favorita and Sauce in Lower California, and the Williams Fork in Arizona.

Of these, the best developed, and, thus far, the most productive, are the Copperopolis Mines, in Salt-spring Valley,. Calaveras County, about thirty-five miles nearly east from Stockton. "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. There seem to be four other nearly parallel lodes, from a few feet to six miles' distance from the main lode. 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."

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"The Union" contains, in all probability," the largest body of yellow sulphurets of copper ever discovered." The stockholders have never been obliged to pay assessments. In December, 1862, it paid a dividend of $11,000 a share; and, during the year 1863, the dividends amounted to $20,000 per share, clear of all expenses." Since this time, the yield has been prudently withheld from the public. It is alleged, that, "in the winter of 1863, the firm paid Mr. Reed, one of the original locators, $60,000 in cash for nine hundred and seventy-eight 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." The extent of wealth and business in these copper-mines is such as to justify the construction of a railroad to Stockton, thirty-five miles, chiefly for freight.

Doubtless many other mines of this valuable ore are to be developed, adding to the increasing wealth of the Pacific States. The lodes are innumerable, and practically inexhaustible.

OTHER MINERALS AND ORES.

"Cinnabar is

Quicksilver is very abundant in California. the 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 82.21, sulphur 13.8; in which case it is a natural vermilion, and identical with the vermilion of commerce." There are mines of cinnabar at Almaden, near Cordova, in Spain, Idria in Upper Carmithia, in China, Japan, and in Pluanca Vilica in South Peru. One of the richest mines, however, thus far discovered, is at New Almaden, some thirteen miles from San José, Cal. Prof. B. Silliman, jun., states that "a charge of 101,000 pounds, of which 70,000 were composed of this rich ore, 31,000 pounds of 'granza,' or ordinary ore, and 48,000 pounds of adobes, worth four per cent, making a total charge of 105,800 pounds, yielded, on the day of our visit, 460 flasks of mercury, at seventy-six pounds and a half to the flask."

The ore mined and reduced in 185 amounted to 16,000 tons, or 31,948,400 pounds; yieldir, 47,194 flasks, or 3,604,465 pounds, of quicksilver.

During ten months of 1866, the product of quicksilver from this mine was 30,029 flasks.

Large quantities are used in the mines of California; but the extent of the yield may be inferred from the fact that quicksilver was exported from New Almaden to New York,

Great Britain, Mexico, China, Peru, Chili, Central America, Japan, Australia, Panama, and Victoria, V. I., as follows:

Other mines add to this production of wealth:

Guadaloupe, average flasks per month

150

500

300

We must be content with a simple catalogue of the principal mineral species hitherto recognized in California and the adjoining States and Territories:

Coal is found in sufficient quantities on the Pacific slope to be of great importance. It is not of the best quality. The carboniferous formations from which the coals of Pennsylvania and the Mississippi Valley are taken do not exist on the Pacific slope; but coal has been found in all the other great groups of rocks. "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."

Bellingham Bay,