Wages of second-class miners: None employed.
Wages of surface laborers: None employed.

Cost of lumber: Forty dollars per thousand, (whip-sawed.)

Cost of mining timber, $40 per thousand, (whip-sawed.)

Cost of common powder: San Francisco prices, freight added.
Cost of giant powder: San Francisco prices, freight added.

Cost of quicksilver: San Francisco prices, freight added.

Cost of freight from Sonora: Two and three cents per pound, (ten miles packing.) Cost of fuel: Can be had for the price of chopping, $1 75 per cord.

Cost of ten-stamp mill, California pattern, including freight, erection, &c.: $10,000. Minimum mining and milling cost per ton of ore: Twelve dollars.

Mine from which this is reported: Tuolumne Mountain Gold and Silver Mining Company.

Character of rock at that mine: Gray and blue quartz, free gold, and gold sulphur

ets.

Depth of mine: One hundred and ninety feet.

Maximum mining and milling cost per ton: Fourteen dollars.

Number of stamps in mill: Ten.

Character of process employed: Wet, common battery.

Average yield of ore: Thirty dollars per ton.

Remarks.-There is a tunnel in this mine of four hundred feet in length, striking the ledge at the depth of about two hundred feet. The ten-stamp mill, the stamps being light, crushes only from four to five tons per day. Facilities of communication are slight, and enhance expenses considerably.

CHAPTER V.

CALAVERAS COUNTY.

Although this county has no great results to boast of in either quartz or placer mining, there has nevertheless much activity prevailed during the year. The Mattison has had its shaft deepened to three hundred feet, and shows a more solid ledge at that depth, the slaty matter having given room to quartz. A Hogan & Water furnace has been erected at this mine for the roasting of sulphurets. The shaft of the Union mine is now one hundred and fifty feet deep, and the vein is here fifteen to twenty feet thick, and all pay-rock. The Bovee, Stickles, Lightner, Utica, Dr. Hill's, and Angel's, all on the same ledge with the Union, have not been producing during the year, although most of them were thought of very highly at one time.

Barney & Co., the Hilaria Company, Lewis Brothers, Mr. Gashwiler, Sheldon, Folsom & Co., and the Petticoat Company, have worked in a small way during the year, and some of them have made satisfactory returns. The Lewis Brothers have crushed forty tons of ore from their so-called "little vein," which are reported as giving quite astonishing results. About one-half of the ore was first-class, the balance secondclass rock, and the former is reported as having yielded $214 per ton, while even the second-class is said to have gone as high as $46 per ton. If so, this ore has probably been well sorted; but even at that such a result will undoubtedly lead to renewed energy and activity in the mines of the neighborhood.

From the placer mines of the county I have no satisfactory reports. In the neighborhood of Calaveras Town gravel-mining has been carried on in a small way by Chinese and others, and about $5,000 worth of dust was sold per week in town during part of the spring. The old Union shaft has been cleared of water and much gravel of high grade was taken out; it was also ascertained that a great portion of that for merly worked will pay for re-washing. On the whole the claims worked have paid only moderately, and big strikes have been of rare occurrence. The discovery of extensive iron ore deposits, five miles from Calaveras, is reported.

Estimate of costs of mining and reducing ores in Lower Calaveritas mining district, Calaveras County, California, reported by J. Rathgeb, July 1, 1869.

Population of district: About twenty-five, all included.

Wages of first-class white miners: Fifty dollars and board per month.

Wages of second-class white miners: Thirty-five dollars and board per month.

Wages of surface white laborers: Thirty dollars and board per month.

Cost of lumber: Twenty-five dollars per thousand feet, delivered.

Cost of mining timber: Twenty-five dollars per thousand feet, delivered.
Cost of common powder: Not used.

Cost of giant powder: Not used.

Cost of quicksilver: Sixty-five cents per pound.

Cost of freight from Stockton to San Andreas: Fifty to seventy-five cents per hundred pounds.

Cost of ten-stamp water mill, California pattern, including freight, erection, &c.: Four thousand dollars.

Minimum mining cost per ton of ore: Two dollars.

Mine from which this is reported: Union mine.

Character of rock at that mine: Gold-bearing quartz, opal, brittle, no sulphurets Depth of mine: One hundred and fifty feet.

Maximum mining cost per ton: Two dollars and fifty cents.

Mine from which this is reported: Union mine.

Character of rock, &c.: Gold-bearing quartz.

Minimum reduction cost: Fifty cents per ton.

Name of mill, and number of stamps: Union Mill; ten stamps, free water. Character of process employed: Wet stamp crushing, amalgamating in battery. Maximum milling cost: Fifty cents per ton.

Average mining cost per ton: Two dollars and fifty cents.

Average milling cost per ton: Fifty cents.

Average pulp-assay of ore: Irregular, gold coarse in places.

Average yield of ore: Fifteen dollars per ton.

Remarks.-The quartz lode varies in width; five feet is about an average.

List of mills in San Andreas and Lower Calaveritas mining district, Calaveras County, on July 1, 1869, reported by John Rathgeb.

Name of mill Union Mill; owners, Union Gold Mining Company; location, Lower Calaveritas; kind of power, water; horse power of engine, -; number of stamps,

ten; weight of stamp, five hundred pounds; number of drops per minute, sixty; height of drop, eight to ten inches; diameter of die, six inches; diameter of shoe, seven inches; cost of mill, $4,000; crushing capacity per day, eight to ten tons; size of screen, one by four feet; height of screen above die, three to five inches; cost of treatment, per ton, thirty-seven and a half cents for wages, and twelve and a half cents for wear and tear, &c.

Report on West Point mining district, by Ira H. Reed.

Population of district, five hundred.

Number of quartz mills, five, viz: One battery mill of eight stamps, known as the Saca Tierra mill; one of five stamps, known as Sterling mill; one arrastra mill with two arrastras, known as the Carlton mill; one ditto, known as Schmidt's mill; and one ditto, known as the Morris mill.

These mills are all run at present on custom rock, with the exception of the Saca Tierra, which, with the mine, was lately sold to Gawne and Frank, who are now running the mill on rock from the mine.

The Sterling mill is not doing much, nor has it been doing much the past year.

Schmidt's mill, with two arrastras, has crushed 260 tons up to date during the past year, averaging $50 per ton.

Carlton's mill has, probably, crushed 100 tons for the same time, averaging $30 per ton. Cannot say correctly what the Morris mill has done for the past year, but, perhaps, has not crushed over 50 tons of $20 ore.

These arrastra mills seem to have the preference among miners here as saving more gold than the batteries, though they run at higher cost and employ a slower process. Arrastras are twelve feet in diameter, and driven by spur wheels on each end of the water-wheel shaft. They grind two charges of four cargoes each (a cargo being 300 pounds) per twenty-four hours, a primitive battery of two or three stamps being used to crush or break the rock small enough for the arrastras before charging them. After the arrastras have run about four hours quicksilver is added to the pulp.

Much of our rock goes out of the district, viz., to Harris's mill, (a five-stamp battery,) in Sandy Gulch, to be crushed. Probably 200 tons, averaging $25 per ton, have been crushed there during the past year from here.

All our mills are driven by water-power, and have overshot wheels. The charge for grinding rock is $5 per ton in a battery mill, and $6 66 in an arrastra. Cost of hauling averages about $1 50 per ton.

The country rock is granite, and blasting ground is found sometimes from the sur face and sometimes commencing as low as 150 feet in depth. Generally the cost of extracting the ore from hard ground is so much that claims will not pay. The ledges are small and irregular, pay chimneys or bunches ocaur in groups, and when down to hard ground the gold is of poorer quality, and more difficult to amalgamate. A general theory exists that by going down in some of these localities, where many paying bunches have been met, that a main mother ledge will be found; but as yet no effort has been made to prove the correctness of this theory, about 160 feet being the greatest depth reached. Cost of labor, $3 per day, (first-class ;) second-class, (Chinese,) $1 50 per day. Cost of lumber, $25 per thousand.

CHAPTER VI.

AMADOR COUNTY.

This county, though the smallest in the State, has kept up its reputa tion as one of the most successful quartz mining counties. Not alone have the mines, already well known by their almost unexampled yield of gold during the past, maintained their production, but also comparatively new, or at least almost unknown, mines, have contributed to swell the aggregate product of the year. Among the latter may be named the Summit mine, on Sutter Creek; the Lincoln mine, one and a half mile north of the celebrated Hayward; and the Towbridge mine, in the edge of Jackson. The Lincoln mine has erected new and complete hoisting works, and the Summit mine has struck very rich ores in their lowest (four hundred feet) level. The new chlorination works on Sutter Creek are in successful operation.

The Hayward or Amador mine (claim 1,850 feet long) has struck very rich ores and opened up large reserves in the lowest levels during the latter part of 1868; it is now 1,350 feet deep. In some of the upper levels important discoveries of valuable ore have also been made. The Badger shaft has been sunk over four hundred feet since last year, so that it is now one hundred and fifty feet deeper than the lowest level in the mine a year ago. It has passed through a new and very rich body of ore. The following statements of receipts, disbursements, cost of mining and milling, &c., for the year 1869, are taken from the report of the company:

The total assets are stated at $160,494 72. The ore to produce the above amount of bullion aggregated 32,510 tons, yielding, therefore, $20 19 per ton. Cost of mining 32,510 tons, $4 861; milling, $1 971; total, $6 833 per ton.

From the Keystone I have not been able to obtain full returns. Its approximate yield, however, throughout the year, has been about $25,000 gross and $15,000 net per month.

* Estimated.