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Under the stimulus of this new interest, Angels Camp has during the past few years not only advanced in population, but has exhibited other marked evidences of improvement, many cottages having been erected by the miners, who find employment in the service of the quartz companies, and much planting of trees and vines having been practiced, to the beautifying and enrichment of the place. These remarks, while they apply with peculiar force to Angels, might be employed with more or less truth in speaking of Murphy's Camp, and several other towns in the county, including most of those already alluded to.

Carson Hill, justly styled by Professor Whitney, because of its early fame, the classic mining ground of California, lies five miles southwest of Angels Camp, looking down from its lofty eminence upon the dark waters of the Stanislaus, flowing more than a thousand feet below. From no space of equal dimensions, perhaps, in the State has more gold been taken out than from the Morgan ground, the discovery claim on this hill; the sum extracted, with simple appliances and at small expense, between the time of its discovery, in 1850, and the year 1858, having approximated $2,000,000; the amount taken from the Madam Martinez claim, near by, and under nearly similar circumstances, having been over $1,000,000 during a period of less than three years. The total amount of bullion obtained from this hill is estimated at over $4,000,000, though the working of most of the claims, of which there are a number besides the above, have been greatly interfered with by injudicious management and vexatious litigation.

At Frankfort, formerly Cat Camp, in the vicinity of Camanche, an old mining town of about four hundred inhabitants, situated twentytwo miles southwest of the county seat, there were discovered in the summer of 1867 a great extent of surface placers, which it was believed from careful prospecting would pay fair wages. A branch ditch having been completed in December of that year, carrying water into this district, a population of several hundred previously attracted to it were washing with good average results during the following winter and spring, with a prospect of having remunerative work before them for a number of years.

Copperopolis, the business center of the rich and extensive copper mines in this county, is situated twenty-eight miles southwest of Mokelumne Hill. Its present population is about eight hundred, somewhat less than it was a few years since, when operations were much more. active than they have been of late. The town, having suffered severely from fire nearly two years ago, has not since been fully rebuilt, though

there is little doubt but it will not only regain its former full proportions, but much enlarge the same, as well as experience a restoration of its former business activity, when the prices of copper ores shall have recovered from their present extreme depression.

Telegraph City, situated on the Stockton road, six miles west of Copperopolis, and on the more westerly and least important of the two cupriferous belts extending north and south across the county, contains about two hundred inhabitants; its population and business having experienced a material falling off during the past two years, from the same causes that have operated to the detriment of its more advanced neighbor.

Of the cupriferous deposits on these twin ranges, separated by Salt Spring valley, it may suffice in this place to say, the average of ores obtained have been of very fair grade, ranging at first, as sent to market, from fifteen to twenty-five per cent., and latterly from twelve to fifteen per cent. of metal. While none of these veins can be said to have been sufficiently proven to establish their permanency beyond contingency, it is well settled that many of them, though rich in metal, are mere lenticular masses of no great magnitude, and consequently of but little value. That others, however, will be found more persistent, hardly admits of a question, shafts having been sunk on a number of them to the depth of several hundred feet, without serious displacements or contractions in the vein matter being encountered. At one time, during the heat of the excitement that sprang up soon after the discovery of these mines, they were sold freely at rates varying from $500 to $2,000 per linear foot. At present, owing to their unproductive condition, the best of them are without any certain value in the mining share market, a state of things that it is believed, cannot be of long continu

ance.

A few years since a bed of opals was discovered in Stockton Hill, an eminence near the county seat, from which a French company, claiming and working the same, have since extracted a large number of these stones, some of them said to be of considerable value. It does not appear that the precious opal has yet been found here, though experts and geologists are of the opinion that these gems will be met with when the stratum is more fully explored.

One of the greatest curiosities in California, and, indeed, of its kind in the world, consists of the Big Tree grove, situated on the divide between the middle fork of the Stanislaus and the Calaveras river, about twenty miles east of Mokelumne Hill, and at an elevation of four thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine feet above the level of the sea.

The number of these trees, a species of redwood bearing the botanical name of the Sequoia Gigantea, is ninety-two, ten of which are at least thirty feet in diameter; eighty-two having a diameter varying from fifteen to thirty feet. Their height, as they now stand, ranges from one hundred and fifty to three hundred and twenty-seven feet, the tops of many of the more aged having been broken off by the tempests or snow. The original height of some is believed to have been over four hunhundred and fifty feet, and their diameter at least forty feet. Through the prostrate trunk of one of these trees, which has been hollowed out by fire, a man can ride on horseback for a distance of seventy-five feet. Some years ago one of the largest of the number then standing was cut down, with a view to secure transverse sections of the trunk for exhibition. It was ninety-two feet in circumference and three hundred feet high, and it required the constant labor of five men for twenty-two days to fell it—the work being accomplished by means of boring with long augers. At the same time, another tree of nearly equal dimensions, was stripped of its bark for a distance of one hundred and sixteen feet from the ground, a lofty staging having been erected about it for the purpose. The bark was taken off in longitudinal sections, which being afterwards replaced in their proper order, reproduced the exterior of this giant of the forest-having much the appearance that it presented while growing. Such was the wonderful vitality of this tree that many of the branches still continued green for seven or eight years after this extensive mutilation.

By carefully counting the concentric rings, denoting the annual growth of these trees, their age is found to vary from one thousand two hundred to two thousand five hundred years. In some places these trees are separated by spaces of several rods, while in others they stand quite close together, some being united at the roots, and having grown almost into one, which, when they first sprouted, were twenty or thirty foet asunder.

The Sequoia Gigantea has two sets of leaves-the one small and shaped something like those of the spruce or hemlock, and the other shorter and of triangular form, the cones being scarcely larger than a hen's egg. The bark is very much like that of the cedar family, and is generally from six to eighteen inches thick, according to the age of the tree. The wood in nearly every particular, except odor, resembles red cedar.

The Calaveras grove, though really one of the most remarkable, and, from its accessibility, by far the most frequented, is not the only one in this State, there being three groups of Big Trees in Mariposa,

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