cipally shallow, and continued profitable development on a large scale is unknown.

New England.-Gold has been found in Vermont and New Hampshire, and alluvial deposits of limited extent have been exploited along the Green Mountains. But the production has been comparatively insignificant.

Virginia.—Alluvial gold has been reported as found in Virginia in Montgomery and Floyd counties, along Brush Creek. In Goochland County the hydraulic process was tried in 1877.

North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.— The Appalachian gold fields extend through the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Gold was first discovered in 1799, and in 1829 the discovery of placers caused a great excitement. Two principal belts are known in North Carolina, one extending through Guilford, Davidson, Rowan, Cabarrus, and Mecklenburg counties; another through McDowell, Burke, and Rutherford counties; the latter has been traced into northern Georgia, where it forms the gold region in the vicinity of DahloThe latter is the more western and more elevated, and contains richer placers.

nega.

The formation of these gold deposits has been attributed rather to the action of atmospheric influence than to deposition by large streams. The best placers were exhausted at the time of the discovery of gold in California, and more recent attempts to work them on a large scale and by the hydraulic process have not met with

success.

Idaho.-Gold was first discovered in paying quantities near Pearce City, Idaho, in 1860. The Territory of Idaho, then a part of Washington Territory, was organized in 1862. The principal placers were those in the Boise basin, which first attracted the attention of miners in 1862, and on the Snake and Salmon Rivers. In 1865 the production of gold in the Territory amounted to $8,023,680, but the yield gradually decreased from that

year, and the placers produced in 1880 only $879,644. The Boise basin has been nearly exhausted, and the lower Snake River bars, which are quite limited in extent, are practically deserted. Above Fort Hall work is still going on. Salmon River was abandoned to Chinese labor in 1870.

Montana.-Gold was found on Gold Creek, in Deer Lodge County, Montana, in 1852, but the developments did not attract much attention until 1862, when a rush of immigration took place. The yield of the district up to 1870 is estimated at $24,000,000. Extensive works are still being carried on in this county. In Lewis and Clarke County the gulches and foothills are known to be auriferous to a great extent; they have yielded and are still yielding large amounts of the precious metal. Alder Gulch, in Madison County, was discovered in June, 1863, and in three years is said to have produced $30,000,000 (Raymond's "Report," 1870). Work is prosecuted still in this county and also in Meagher County.

Montana has contained some of the richest deposits known. Most of these have been worked as shallow placers, and in many of the locations much trouble has been experienced in obtaining water.

New Mexico.-Gold-placers are known to exist in New Mexico along the Rio Grande, from the Colorado line to the placers some forty miles south of Santa Fé, and also in the southwestern part of the Territory in the counties of Doña Ana and Grant. The latter have not been opened up to any great extent, although reports of exceedingly rich placers have long been current. The deposits along the Rio Grande have been described by Raymond ("Mineral Resources, 1874") and Prof. Silliman ("The Rio Grande Gold-Gravels"), who are authorities for the following statements.

The auriferous gravels extend southerly from the Colorado line along the Rio Grande valley some one hundred ind fifty miles, over a width of about forty miles, between

the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on the east and the Continental Divide on the west. The southern portion, say seventy-five miles in lineal (northerly and southerly) extent, has been extensively denuded. The more northerly area has been eroded more or less, and contains accumulations of gravel, varying from fifty to six hundred feet in depth. Overflows of volcanic rocks cover and protect or interstratify the gravels in very many instances. The gravel consists chiefly of quartz and quartzite, and, to a much less extent, of syenite, porphyry, granite, gneiss, and slate débris, and evidently has been carried to its present location from only a short distance, probably from the Archæan rocks of the Sangre de Cristo and other southerly ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The gold is said to be diffused through the alluvions with great uniformity.

South of Santa Fé large Mexican grants contain extensive deposits of gravel, where gold was discovered in 1842, and whence in succeeding years large amounts of the precious metal are said to have been extracted. American companies have been recently formed to work all these deposits along the Rio Grande, but thus far the obstacles to success seem to have been very great.

Other States and Territories.-In various other States and Territories, as Colorado and Dakota, placermining has been carried on by small companies on a limited scale.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PLACER-MINING IN

CALIFORNIA.

FROM the auriferous deposits of the State of California. $1,100,000,000 have been extracted during the last thirtyfive years.*

The magnitude of the mining operations required to produce this enormous yield is but little known to the general public. The continuous flow of gold bullion has, however, made the State famous and attracted the attention of political economists everywhere.

First Mention of California.-The first mention of the name "California" occurs in connection with a supposed great island where gold and precious stones were found in abundance, described in a romance called "Las Sergus de Esplandian," published in Spain A.D. 1510. The followers of Cortez had chimerical ideas of some hidden El Dorado, and, strange to say, they applied the name California to that unknown country north of Mexico with which they associated the notion of a region of fabulous wealth.

Discovery of Lower California. -The first expedition sent out by Cortez, in 1534, discovered what is now called Lower California. According to Father Venegas, this expedition, numbering some seven hundred souls, was fitted out at the port of Tehuantepec in the year 1537, and sailed north to the head of the gulf of California, but never reached the line which marks the southern boundary of the State of California.

Contemporaneously with the departure of this party "four persons, named Alvarez Nuñez, Cabeza de Vaca,

Up to 1883. See Appendix A.

Castillo, and Dormentes, with a negro named Estevancio," arrived at Culiacan, on the gulf of California, from the peninsula of Florida. These were the sole survivors of the three hundred Spaniards who in 1527 landed with Pamfilo Narvaez on the coast of Florida with the intention of conquering that country. Nuñez subsequently conducted the expedition which discovered the Rio de la Plata and effected the first conquest of Paraguay.

Early Explorations-In 1542 Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese, to survey the west coast of California. He explored the coast, naming the numerous headlands, the most northerly of which, in lat. 40° N., he called Cape Mendocino. Thence he proceeded further north to lat. 44°, which he reached March 10, 1543.

entered the Pacific and According to Hakluyt's

In 1578 Sir Francis Drake sailed north as high as lat. 48°. account of the voyage, Drake spent five weeks in June and July, 1579, in a bay near lat. 38° N.

First Mention of Gold.-The narrative says: "Our General called this country New Albion. . There is no part of the earth here to be taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantitie of gold and silver." It is difficult to reconcile this statement with the facts as known at present, since in lat. 38° N. neither gold nor silver exists in "reasonable quantitie" near the ocean. This is, however, remarkable as the first mention of gold in California proper.

In 1602 the Count de Monte Rey, Viceroy of New Spain, by order of the king, sent Sebastian Viscayno on an exploring expedition. He sailed from Acapulco, May 5, 1602, with two vessels and a tender, with Admiral Gomez in command. The expedition, composed of a large number of men, was fully equipped for one year's voyage. Three barefooted Carmelites accompanied the party, and the several departments were entrusted to distinguished officers, volunteers from Brittany.