nishes the water for washing the gravel, which is not cemented. The cobbles and bowlders constitute one half the gravel. A carload as filled in the mine weighs 3,000 pounds. The gold extracted is worth $19 per ounce. Wood costs delivered at the mine $3 per cord. The motive power used is a single-acting, link-motion engine. Twenty-five men are employed about the works; four men are on a shift underground, working eight hours, for which they receive $3 per day. THE GOLD MOUNTAIN CONSOLIDATED GOLD MINING COMPANY Is situated near the town of La Porte. Their tunnel is running in the bedrock to strike the Gibsonville channel, under Bald Mountain, just north of town, and has attained a length of 4,545 feet; from whence an upraise of 36 feet ascends to a drift run toward the west 375 feet; this is followed by another 36-foot upraise, from which there is a drift of 650 feet in the first direction, but bearing slightly more to the west. The country rock is slate. So far no pay gravel has been tapped. A bore hole put down on line of tunnel shows 307 feet of lava and 127 feet of gravel. The opinion is held by experienced miners that the channel runs on the back of Bald Mountain instead of in front of or underneath the hill. The company will continue to drift ahead to determine the presence and direction of the channel. This tunnel is known as the Claybank tunnel. Where Slate Creek forms the boundary line between Plumas and Sierra Counties, a part of the cañon has been located as a tailings claim. For years, as long as the hydraulic mines were permitted to work, a large number of them emptied their tailings into Slate Creek Cañon, until the accumulation has reached a depth of 60 feet in places, with a width varying from 160 to 1,200 feet. From the fact of the original gravel carrying considerable pipe clay, which readily picks up gold, and carries it a long distance, these tailings should have become quite valuable, and are so considered. THE ALTURAS, Which is the name given to the tailings claim, holds 5 miles of the bed of Slate Creek, with the margin of high-water mark for side lines. It is about 2 miles west of La Porte, between it and St. Louis. The tailings average 20 feet in depth. The high water every season is made use of in concentrating down the material, for which purpose, where available, bedrock cuts are run through projecting points. In working the claim at present pits are dug through the debris to the bedrock, and the bottom gravel shoveled into boxes that are given a 6-inch grade in 12 feet; these boxes are supplied with Hungarian and slat riffles. value The gold obtained sells for $17 60 per ounce. cubic money per yard could not be ascertained, but from the fact that expensive lawsuits are engaged in to decide the title to these claims, it may be assumed that the ground is very valuable. The In the opinion of experienced miners, who have been familiar with the cañon for a great number of years, there must be millions in store awaiting the thorough working of the Slate Creek tailings. All of the country around the headwaters of South Fork of Feather River, Slate and Cañon Creeks is traversed by channels which have yielded large results to the hydraulic and drift miners, much still remaining to be reached through drifting under the lava cap that covers so much of this country. The amount of white quartz gravel found in the old diggings of this section, as also at Cherokee Flat, in Butte County, is astonishing. The greater part of this quartz contains but very little gold, although the amount of gold found with it has been considerable. Perhaps at some future time, when the reduction of quartz can be accomplished in large quantities at a low cost, these masses of quartz bowlders already broken to hand, as seen in the worked-out channel around La Porte, may be made the source of a good revenue. The question might be asked, How, so near to the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where the channels are wide, but comparatively shallow, could there be such an accumulation of quartz in the river beds to the exclusion largely of other rocks? The evidences of glacial action are insufficient by themselves to account for this, more especially as modern investigations have shown the erosive actions of glaciers to be far less than has been hitherto attributed to them. The following observation made in Plumas County might account in part for the material thus accumulated: Through Plumas and Sierra, and partly into Butte, running with the general range of the slates, especially the clay slates having the same dip, are large, continuous bodies of white quartz, containing little or no gold and but few iron sulphurets. Apart from these are other quartz vein systems, especially contact veins, carrying sulphides of the different metals, and in places richly sprinkled with gold. Observations made at places where inroads have been cut along the flank of the slate in the general direction of its course in the cañons of streams, indicate that a gradual crumpling, crushing, and final sliding motion is started in the portion above the cut, and where the area affected is large enough, the force and pressure become sufficient to break away large parts of these included, rib-like quartz veins. The waters of the streams in eroding the cañons start the same movement. on a much more extended scale. The clay slate, as it becomes subjected to the action of the water, would be rapidly and thoroughly disintegrated and carried to the lower reaches of the stream; the harder quartz, on which the action of the water would be very slow, and not nearly as complete, remaining to gradually fill up the channel bed. A second well was bored on the M Street road, about 2,000 feet east from the city limits, and about half a mile north from the first well. The formation is similar, except that the water-bearing sands were coarser and more compact. This is a 12-inch well, and was bored to a depth of 160 feet. From this well 50,000 gallons an hour were pumped; a charge of dynamite was then exploded in the well, after which the pumps were found to work in an unsatisfactory manner. It was first. supposed that a leak in the water pipe admitted air and interfered with the pumping; after investigation it was said to be gas which interfered with the working of the pump. It is próbable that this was carbonic dioxide, which Dr. Southworth, of Sacramento, informed the writer was found in the upper strata of the gas well bored by his company. Carbonic acid gas was also observed by the writer in a shallow well at Carbondale. COAL. Mr. M. D. Gill, who resides about 4 miles northwest of Carbondale, informed the writer that coal had been penetrated to a thickness of about 9 feet in several wells on his ranch. He also sunk a shaft for water 85 feet deep. This shaft penetrated the coal, the head wall of which was soft black clay, and the foot wall hard black clay. This well is frequently pumped dry in summer with a 12-foot windmill pump. The formation penetrated is: Reddish gray sand. Soft black clay Hard, blackish clay. 3 feet. 3 feet. 16 feet. 13 feet. 38 feet. 5 feet. 9 feet. At Sacramento, several improvements have been made in the construction of the furnaces of those using the Ione coal, which have resulted in better satisfaction with it as a fuel. At the Phoenix mill, air chambers, terminating in grated openings behind the fire-bridge, have been built in the sides of the fire-box, the outer openings being on both sides of the fire doors. This allows a fresh supply of air to come in contact with the heated gases arising from the coal, which, by this means, are ignited in the air space beneath the boilers instead of escaping up the smoke stack. Before the use of these air chambers dense, black smoke issued from the sinoke-stack; if these chambers are shut immediately after firing the smoke issues forth as before, but when they are open only a light vapor is seen. It is the opinion of the engineer that the air chambers save about 5 per cent of the fuel. At the Capital Packing Company an extra supply of air is admitted into the fire-box through flues in the sides of the furnace, the mouths of the flues being level with the furnace doors. More air is also admitted through flues in the fire-bridge, which also have openings in the sides of the furnace. This company use shaking bars, which prove a great saving of labor when Ione coal is used. These shaking bars prevent clinker, and the ashes are shaken from them by working a lever at the side of the furnace. THE FOLSOM WATER POWER COMPANY. During 1891-92 the work on which this company and the State are engaged at Folsom was actively prosecuted. The dam head-gates and retaining walls of the first section of the canal on the south side of the river were completed as far as the State power-house; and at the time of this writing the State power-house was practically finished, and its machinery nearly all in place. Work has also progressed on the outer retaining wall below the State power-house, and only about 100 feet more is required to complete it. SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY. · By W. H. STORMS, Assistant in the Field. No portion of California has more diversified mineral wealth than the county of San Bernardino. Although its area is comprised largely of rugged mountains and desert waste, yet this county is a producer of gold, silver, copper, lead, and tin, and contains mines of zinc, iron, and manganese, besides deposits of borax, salt, soda, baryta, gypsum, sulphur, onyx, marble, asbestos, and structural material, granite, and sandstone of great beauty and value. Within its borders are found a wide range of geological formations from Paleozoic (if not Archæan) to Tertiary, and a great variety of rocks of igneous origin. The mines are scattered all over its thousands of square miles of territory, and have already added millions of dollars to the wealth of the State and the world. Many of its mines are of phenomenal richness, and were it not for the expense and extreme difficulty attending transportation in the desert, San Bernardino County would undoubtedly take first place in adding to the mineral wealth of California. The largest and most productive section in the county at present is THE CALICO MINING DISTRICT. No region affords better opportunities for the study of a certain class of ore deposits occurring in eruptive and fragmental rocks than may be found in the Calico District. The mines, condemned at first, came quickly to the front nevertheless, and have for the past twelve years been steady producers of silver bullion. The district is situated 6 miles north of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, the nearest station being Daggett. GENERAL GEOLOGY OF THE REGION. The geology of the Calico Mountains at first sight looks simple enough, but a more thorough investigation quickly convinced me that there were structural problems to be studied of more than passing importance, as they seemed to have a bearing upon the extent of the ore deposits. The most complex region is that immediately about the town of Calico, in the vicinity of the mines. The balance of the mountain area is more simple. In a general way the Calico uplift consists of a core of massive rhyolite, overlying which are heavy deposits of light-colored breccia and tufa. Along the flanks of the range, and in some places extending well up into the mountains, are accumulations of undoubted sedimentary origin, sandstone, sandy shales, and argillaceous rocks, which, with some local exceptions, dip away from the central mass on all sides toward the desert plain. While in the district I made some notes on the general geological features, but not having sufficient time at my 22TM disposal to complete these investigations, I have determined not to present my views until I have had an opportunity to investigate the region more carefully. Subsequent to the uplift of these mountains, erosion has carved deep The central area is now cañons and removed great mountain masses. entirely denuded, whereas it was at one time covered with from 100 to 200 feet of tufa and upward of 1,000 feet of sedimentary strata. Not only have these more recent accumulations been removed, but a large amount of the hard, dense liparite has also been disintegrated and carried away by the violent storms which are characteristic of the desert. Faults are very numerous throughout that portion of the mountains lying along the south side of the range. They extend for at least 10 miles in an easterly and westerly direction. The mines occur along this faulted zone. The rocks of the region are a violet to brown rhyolite, often porphyritic; green, yellow, and white tufa; yellowish and greenish breccia; a greenish gray, fine-grained rock, which has been called hornblende andesite by Mr. Lindgren, and a yellowish or buff to light gray felsitic rock, which may be either rhyolite or an older felsite. It is extremely difficult to distinguish between these rocks, even with the aid of thin sections under the microscope. I think, however, upon structural grounds, that I may call the rock felsite. As this is one of the important questions upon which I have not thoroughly satisfied myself, it will be left until such time as I have opportunity to make the necessary investigation. THE ORE DEPOSITS. The formation of the ore deposits in the Calico District has been a subject of much discussion, and the question has received the closest study and thorough investigation. In my opinion, the ore deposits were formed through the agency of percolating waters carrying mineral solutions, which deposited their contents along fault planes and in certain zones of the country rock, where its brecciated and crushed state offered superior conditions for the deposit of the silver ores and the accompanying baryta. That all of these ore deposits have a common genesis I do not doubt, whether they occur in the liparite, in the tufa, or in the "mud" overhanging country rock, as is the case at the Bismarck, Humbug, Waterloo, and some other mines. The form of the deposits differ somewhat, it is true, for we find the reticulated veins in the King Mine; the segregated deposits in the Odessa and Waterloo; the fissures in the Langtry, in West Calico, and the impregnated deposit in the Humbug. However, all the deposits of the district, of whatever form, I believe are due to a common cause, having been deposited in their various forms from mineral-bearing solutions which derived their contents from the neighboring eruptive rocks (the liparites and tufas), part of the material doubtless arising from great depth, and a portion coming from the adjacent inclosing rocks by what is known as lateral secretion. It is almost an impossibility to find in the Calico region a piece of rock that does not contain more or less silver, from a fraction of an ounce per ton upward. The phenomena of ore deposition was very thoroughly investigated by Messrs. Louis Janin, E.M., John Hays Hammond, E.M., Ross E. Browne, E.M., and Wm. Irelan, Jr., State Mineralogist, at the time of |