ton. One of the lodes, the Green Discovery, is 18 inches to 2 feet wile at the outcrop. These claims have been eagerly taken up, and owners are very sanguine over the expected results of next year's operations. The snow prevents active working in the winter.

There are hill, gulch, and placer mines all the way up Burnt River from Express Ranch. Coarse gold, worth $18 per ounce, is found on the steep, high points from 20 to 50 feet above the river, and the whole country is full of quartz lodes, which have furnished the gold of the alluvial deposits, but which are as yet, except in a very few locali ties, unknown and unheeded.

In August, 1869, a rich placer field was discovered, (reported to yield "$2 per shovelful of dirt,") on a small stream entering Snake River, a few miles below the mouth of Burnt River, fifty miles southeast of Baker City. During the excessively dry season, 30 or 40 men have "made wages" on the bars of the Snake itself, where there is ordinarily too much water to permit bar-mining.

Union district contains nothing of importance except the somewhat celebrated gold mine of Colonel Ruckel. This is situated eight miles east of Baker City, on the eastern slope of a range of hills, overlooking a large interior basin, across which for many miles may be seen the gleaming, white, dusty line of the old emigrant road. The hills are usually covered with bunch-grass; but this, at the time of my visit, had been devastated by creeping fires, giving to the whole landscape an inexpressibly desolate appearance. The little gulch which crosses the vein or veins of this mine, and debouches into the plain below, is possessed, however, of a good spring, and presents, even in a dry season, some touches of greenness. I believe the quartz lodes were discovered by teamsters, tracing up the float-quartz found in the gulch, which was successfully worked as a placer for some years. There are a few other locations, but nothing developed.

The workings are on two veins, or two parts of the same vein, called respectively the Union and the Rocky Fellow, the principal mine, shown in the diagram, being on the Rocky Fellow. The course of the latter, which appears to be the main lode, is northwest and southeast, along the east face of the mountain; and its dip generally northeast, but varying from 450 to 80°. The Union workings on the northwest show that vein to course some 20° nearer east and west; and this course would inevitably bring the two together. I think the vein exposed in the principal mine includes both branches united into one vein. The workings have not been connected so as to show the point of junction. This vein varies in width from six inches to twelve feet, averaging three feet. The outcrop is perhaps 600 feet or more above the great valley, and a little more than 300 feet above the point in the foot-hills, where the company's house is situated, near the spring. The ore is quartz, carrying free gold, with a very small proportion of sulphurets of iron and copper. Much of the quartz has a milky appearance, and shows green spots and stains, (not copper,) like that of the mother lode in Mariposa, California. The best quartz is banded, and full of dark spots and seams. It is said to be pretty hard to crush, but to have yielded for months more than $20 per ton. The position of the mine facilitates opening by cross-tunnels, two of which have been run; the first or upper one 292 feet vertically above the house, cutting the lode at 105 feet from its mouth; and the lower one, 122 feet above the house, cutting the lode at 424 feet, and 190 feet vertically below the outcrop. The ground laid open by these tunnels and the drifts shown in the diagram has been nearly exhausted. To the southeast the vein grows harder and poorer,

The portions stoped out are shaded. At A, the vein was good, and measured three to four feet; at B, there was a rich chimney in a 12-foot vein; at C, a horse set in; at D, the quartz is poor. T T are cross-tunnels, driven from the hillside.

ing new ground is therefore in depth, and a shaft has been sunk for a new level below that of the long tunnel. The timbering throughout the

works is good, and the tunnels and shafts give excellent ventilation and perfect drainage. The new workings below the tunnel level are not much troubled with water, as there seems to be for the small quantity of water in the hills a subterranean outlet to the spring at the base. On the Union vein a shaft has been sunk 90 feet, and much quartz extracted from drifts and stopes said to have yielded in the aggregate $30,000. No machinery has been required in the main workings hitherto, except the cars which transport on to the mouth of the long tunnel, where it is dumped into wagons and hauled to the 12-stamp mill at Baker City. Under these favorable conditions, the cost of extraction being only $4 per ton, and the cost of hauling $4, the mine has yielded large profits; but outside operations are said to have embarrassed the proprietor, and the property is now, I am told, involved in litigation. Only a few men were at the spot when I visited it, and the mill was standing idle. This mine has every appearance of extraordinary value; but it has been pushed hard for immediate revenues, and the result is, that new ground must be opened before the former flourishing production can be renewed. Its well-defined, persistent, and productive character, and the fact that it is the only development of the kind, to my know ledge, in a county which, I am convinced, will hereafter take a high rank in quartz-mining, led me to give it a careful examination. I trust it will soon be worked again with vigor and success.

SECTION IV.-IDAHO.

CHAPTER XXXV.

GENERAL REMARKS.

The boundaries of this Territory have been changed so often that a description of the present lines may not be amiss.

Idaho adjoins on the north the British possessions; its western boundary is formed in its northern part by a line running along longitude 400 west, which separates it from Washington Territory, to a point near latitude 46° north; from here it follows the course of the Snake River to the neighborhood of latitude 43° 45', when it follows again the line along longitude 40° west, to the intersection of the northern line of the State of Nevada in latitude 420 north. Its southern boundary line follows that latitude eastward to about longitude 34° west, where it meets the western boundary line of Wyoming. From this point northward the eastern line separates the Territory from Wyoming to near latitude 44° west, and from here on it takes a northwesterly course along the summit of the Bitter Root and Rocky Mountains to a point in about latitude 47° 40' north and longitude 39° west, and then runs along longitude 39° to where it crosses the national boundary line on the north. The Territory adjoins on the east Wyoming, a small part of Dakota, and Montana. Its area is at present 86,294 square miles. The Territory is drained by the tributaries of the Columbia River, the principal ones of which are Clark's Fork in the north and the Suake River with its affluents, the Clear Water, Salmon River, Payette, Boise, and many smaller ones in the south. It is copiously watered and very mountainous. The principal quartz mines are situated in the southwestern part of Idaho, in Owyhee, Idaho, Boise, and Alturas Counties, the former taking the lead. Placer diggings, more or less extensive and important, are found in almost all parts of the Territory; the best known and most prosperous ones are those of the Boise basin, those along the head-waters of the Salmon River, the Clear Water, and the Kootenay diggings.

Idaho, like most of the Pacific mining districts which depend mainly apon placers for their production of gold, has suffered severely from the extraordinary lack of water during the present season. Indeed, it may almost be said that there has been no season this year at all, so early did the streams upon which the miners rely fail to supply water sufficient for the ditches and sluices. There has been a little bar mining rendered possible by the low water in the Snake, Boise, and other rivers; but I have heard of nothing remarkable in the way of profits from this source. Probably it has merely paid small wages to a few men who were willing to adopt this method of occupying the time until either fall rains or spring thaws should enable them to return to their more remunerative claims. This state of things is always favorable to new discoveries. The active and enterprising pioneers in the mining regions, when they are forced to leave their regular employment, generally start out on prospecting tours. It is actual economy to take a horse, a pair of blankets, and a few supplies, and travel in the mountains for a few weeks, rather

than remain in Boise or Idaho City, paying board and earning nothing. When work slacks and trade is dull, the knowing ones begin to prophesy new discoveries, and this will no doubt continue to be the case as long as any considerable portion of our inland basin and Pacific slope remains unexplored.

Another circumstance, favorable to such discoveries, is the termination, in 1868, of a long and vexatious Indian war in Idaho and Eastern Oregon. The bitterly hostile bands of outcast Shoshones and other tribes which infested the Owyhee, Powder River, and Snake Valleys, rendered it dangerous for small parties to traverse those regions, and almost impossible for them to stay long in any one locality and pursue the peaceful work of discovering and testing metalliferous deposits. The vigorous and persevering policy of General Crook, who is perhaps the best Indian fighter in the United States Army, brought the war to an end, and broke, I think forever, the power of the savage enemy. I regret to see that some depredations have recently occurred in Idaho; but in view of the overwhelming defeats and losses sustained by the Indians during the Crook campaign I cannot believe that any serious trouble will again arise in that quarter. At all events, a large area of territory has been open to exploration during the past summer, and pros pectors have doubtless made good use of the opportunity. Many of the reports brought in by prospectors, under such circumstances, are no doubt colored by the sanguine temperaments of the parties. Only hopeful men can bear the fatigues and hardships of such expeditions. Their glowing stories fall upon the ears of many who have for the time nothing to do, and to whom a journey of a few hundred miles in the wilderness is but a trifling labor, if not actually a pleasure. The merchants, also, whose goods are lying on their shelves, unsold, by reason of the cessa tion of active mining operations, look with favor upon anything which will create "a little excitement," and revive business. They can at least send off and dispose of a few wagon loads of otherwise unsalable merchandise, before the real value of the new Eldorado has been determined. Making allowance for all these sources of exaggeration and error, however, I think some of the reported discoveries of the present year in Idaho will prove important. The diggings on Loon Creek have attracted much attention, and will probably produce, this year, considerable gold. And finally, it must be borne in mind that all these alluring, but comparatively short-lived, surface operations are but preliminary to the discovery and exploitation of quartz veins, in which Idaho is, I am persuaded, by no means deficient.

Mr. W. A. Atlee, agent of Wells, Fargo & Co. at Boise City, estimates the product of the Territory in gold dust and bullion as follows:

The same gentleman estimates the product for 1869 at $8,000,000-a decrease of $2,000,000. My estimate for Idaho in 1868 was only