wealth are not restricted to a few kinds, so are they not limited to locality. Besides our principal gold field, the largest of which man has any knowledge, we have here in California several others of minor extent, which would in most other countries be looked upon as of vital importance.

In nothing does the progress made in California quartz mining find more forcible illustration than in the low-grade ores we are now able to work with profit. Great advances have, it is true, been made in other departments of the business.

The great improvements in machinery used in hoisting, transporting, and milling are such that vast changes have been wrought in cheapening the expenses incident to mining.

Access to most of our mines is fairly good; railroads skirt the mountains in which the mines are situated, reaching in many instances the most important districts; while good wagon roads traverse nearly all parts of the mineral regions.

We work, at present, placer deposits, which were formerly passed by as worthless. It is even the case that these deposits have been worked over more than once-portions of them several times. While these various agencies have so helped to promote placer operations, they have told with special effect on the more difficult branch of quartz and other vein mining.

Where, at Grass Valley, the mines, in 1851, first began taking out quartz, only the richest portion of the ore was saved; all that failed to show gold with the aid of a glass being thrown on waste piles. Ore yielding less than $40 per ton would pay little more than the cost of mining and extraction.

Gradually the standard of workable ores has been coming down from that time until the present. We are now able to handle with profit gold-bearing quartz which returns a total under $2 per ton, this feat being actually accomplished at the Dalmatia Mine, near Kelsey, El Dorado County, where the cost of mining and milling amounts to only 43 cents per ton.

Nearly all of our mineral domain, excepting that portion which lies. south and east of the Sierra Nevada, is well supplied with wood and water. The western slope of these mountains is covered with magnificent forests of fir, spruce, pine, and cedar, insuring here cheap fuel and lumber; most of the outlying districts are equally well timbered.

Down this slope of the great snowy range course no less than thirtyfour rivers and streams, some of them carrying considerable volumes of water all summer. As these rivers pass through mining regions, making a great descent, their value as a means of generating a propulsive power can hardly be overestimated. Fully utilized, each one of these rivers would furnish power to drive more than ten thousand stamps. By retaining the surplus in reservoirs, for the construction of which there exist many eligible sites in these mountains, the water supply could be made to last the year round, and, owing to the elevation, could be delivered to the mines under almost any amount of pressure-head desired.

Already the work of transmitting the power generated by this fall of water to distant points through the agency of electricity has been entered upon in this State, the experiment made having proved eminently successful. That great benefits will grow out of this new use of the electric current may be expected, there being many mines upon which the introduction of water is not practicable, but to which the power pro

duced by a water-driven wheel might be carried through the medium of an electric conductor.

That a new and more prosperous mining era awaits us is clearly apparent. With so many and such notable advantages for its successful prosecution it ought to see a marked advance at once. Our bullion is already on the increase, even more rapidly than it has been during the past few years.

HYDRAULIC MINING.

The question of hydraulic mining in the enjoined districts of California has, during the past two years, received much attention, and that from parties other than those more directly interested in its determination. The consideration of this question has, in fact, been greatly broadened, its importance having of late begun to impress itself deeply on the public mind, and while journals representing the anti-debris sentiment have abated something of their hostility to the miners, the metropolitan press has opened its columns more freely to a discussion of this issue than ever before.

Finding, after years of vexatious and costly litigation, that a satisfactory adjustment of this question could not be reached in the Courts, either State or Federal, the miners finally concluded to invoke legislative aid. In the furtherance of this purpose a delegation representing their cause was, during the past winter, sent to appear before Congress, in which body the entire subject was ably presented and by it patiently considered.

Assisted by the strong hand of the National Government, we can now see the end of this controversy, which has for so many years waged between the farmers and the miners, to the great detriment of both.

To say nothing of the increased prosperity which a resumption of hydraulic mining will bring with it, a cessation of the bitter feeling incident to this protracted strife will in itself be worth a great deal to California.

DRIFT MINING.

On account of the embargo placed upon hydraulic mining (and after many years of patient waiting), the miners in several places within the hydraulic confines have resorted to drift mining. Though more expensive than hydraulicking, and yielding less profit, this system is doing fairly well.

In some of the ancient river-bed regions hydraulicking would be impossible, on account of the lava cappings which cover the gold gravel deposits; therefore, these must necessarily be exploited by the drifting. system.

RIVER-BED MINING.

The river-bed mining operations are carried on in California on a more extensive scale than in any other country, and the undertakings are more successful. In the northern counties, where this system of mining and river drainage is more prominent, a large number of Chinese are engaged, largely as owners of the properties, and are eminently

prosperous.

On the several forks of the Yuba, Feather, and American Rivers there are a number of American companies and very many Chinese engaged

in mining the beds of these streams. These localities were about exhausted years ago, but have been reënriched from workings situated above. These operations are usually conducted by wingdams, or by diverting the entire stream by means of dams, ditches, or flumes.

VEIN MINING.

Although placer mining is one of California's great industries, and furnishes employment to thousands, vein mining is by far the superior industry in our mineral kingdom at present. It might be asserted that, since the cessation of hydraulic mining in the inhibited sections, fully two thirds of the gold recovery is from the auriferous quartz veins. Vein mining is conducted in a large majority of counties in the State, in some of them it being the principal revenue. As near as can be authentically ascertained there are about four thousand stamps, or the equivalent thereof, in operative quartz mills. It is also estimated that not less than three thousand five hundred of these stamps are constantly dropping upon ores. If the average duty of these stamps, or equivalents, be two tons each every twenty-four hours for three hundred days in the year, the crushing capacity would be 2,100,000 tons per annum. From information collected throughout the State, the average value of the ore crushed is not far from $7 per ton; this would give an annual gold yield of $14,700,000.

New processes are coming more prominently into notice than in the years gone by, but few of them, however, have been pronounced successes. The successful treatment of auriferous sulphides is one cause of the extension of vein mining, all of the gold mines at varied depths containing more or less gold-bearing sulphurets.

ARE THE MINES WORKED OUT?

This is a question frequently asked, and without apparent cause. Although hydraulic mining has been interdicted, and millions of dollars. are thereby lost annually to the State's circulation, vein mining has not depreciated from its former prosperity. Though in some districts the earlier worked mines are often spoken of as being worked out, such statements, in most cases, are void of facts, for since the cheaper methods of mining and reduction have been established, many of the so-termed exhausted properties are being re-operated, and some are already dividend paying. Renewed activity has begun throughout the mining zone of the State; the industry shows a notable profit over last year's output, and, as a whole, mining ventures are satisfactory to the careful investor. In districts remote from railway transportation are valuable mineral deposits, which can be profitably exploited when facilities favorable to conveyance can be secured, and this can be stated of the mineral belt, where existing, from and including San Diego County to the Oregon line. It is true, as with other business ventures, there are omissions of success, but such failures are generally brought about by over-confidence, lack of knowledge, or insufficient investigation.

SILVER MINES.

Although silver does not occur as abundantly as gold in California, this metal has a wide distribution throughout the State. It occurs in paying quantities in San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Inyo, Mono, Alpine, and Shasta Counties, and is found in several other counties, where the mines are not as yet sufficiently developed to prove their value. The industry of silver mining had been steadily on the increase up to the present year, when the extremely low price to which silver fell in the money markets of the world resulted in closing many mines which had previously been worked to their full capacity. Should silver again reach $1 per ounce these mines will again be operated.

GEOLOGICAL SYNOPSIS.

The results of Field Assistant H. W. Fairbanks' geological investigations undoubtedly prove that the Coast Ranges are structurally related to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His examinations show that no break exists between the ranges forming the western boundary of Shasta County and the mountains in the eastern part which belong to the Sierra system, and that the existence of Paleozoic fossils west of the Sacramento River is positive proof of these deductions.

The metamorphic rocks were followed southward through western Tehama, Colusa, Lake, and Napa Counties, and it can be said with certainty that the older rocks are not Cretaceous, but belong to the same series as those in Shasta County. The metalliferous deposits of the latter mentioned county are remarkable for their variety, and almost always connected with the appearance of intrusive dikes and bosses. Near the southern boundary of the county the intrusive rocks disappear, as do also the mineralized belts, and but little mineral of any kind is to be found until the volcanic region about Clear Lake is reached.

The presence of Cretaceous rocks along the coast near San Diego was amply proved by a collection of over sixty species of fossils, many of which are new.

The western portion of the Colorado Desert, from the boundary line to Banner, was explored, and much new and very interesting information gathered.

The discovery of fossils in the metamorphic rocks of the Santa Ana range will prove of great value in solving the difficult geological problems presented in this part of the State. With the exception of a single specimen from the Mojave Desert, these are the only fossils yet known from the older rocks of Southern California.

A trip was made northward through the Coast Ranges, beginning in Los Angeles County, for the particular purpose of ascertaining the relation of the southern coast mountains to the Sierra Nevada.

The geological connection between the southern Sierras, Coast Ranges, and the mountains of Los Angeles County, with their southern extension, has been the source of much discussion among geologists, and great diversity of opinion has existed. It is believed that the work of the Bureau in this section has solved some important problems.

As a result of the work in Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Monterey Counties, it was ascertained that the geological formations

are divisible into two great series: the younger, the Miocene-Tertiary, or oil-bearing series, and the Metamorphic Auriferous Series. This series, similar to the rocks north of San Francisco in every particular, is preCretaceous, and has been intruded with granite, which is believed to be continuous with the southern Sierras. In Santa Barbara County the older series has been almost wholly covered by the Miocene-Tertiary.

A careful geological survey would be of great value in these southern coast counties in defining the areas of Tertiary oil-bearing series, for considerable capital has been uselessly expended in regions where geological investigation would have shown the futility of prospecting.

In thanking the Trustees for the interest they have taken in the Mining Bureau, it is with pleasure I call attention to the munificent gifts of Hon. J. Z. Davis, President of the Board, especially to his valued donation the sculptor's masterpiece, the marble statue, "Rebekah at the Well," costing several thousand dollars.

I also desire to call attention to Mr. A. H. Ricketts' able article, "A Dissertation upon the Origin, Development, and Establishment of American Mining Law," to be found elsewhere in this report.

Placer County has not received the attention which its mining interests merit, for the reason that the assistant appointed to examine that locality was for a time absent, in behalf of the hydraulic cause, at Washington, D. C., and his resignation was received at too late a date for any other appointee to write up the county's mineral resources in time for the date set by law for the completion of this report.