MONO, KERN, LOS ANGELES, AND TULARE COUNTIES.

Of these counties a few brief notes only can be given, mainly from the reports to the Census Bureau. The ores of Mono County are eminently silver ores, but contain some gold. Five mines, employing twenty-two men, were reported working June 1, and the total yield for the preceding year was $95,000, of which $83,500 was silver. The wages paid were $83 per month.

From Kern County three quartz mines were reported working.

The Delphi Mining Company has a shaft 280 feet deep, and a tunnel 450 feet long, and employed eighteen men during one month, paying out $1,500 for wages. The product was 260 ounces of gold, worth $3,500. La Esperanza is worked by a tunnel 200 feet long. It was worked with fifteen men during seven months, at a cost of $8,400 for wages and $3,180 for materials. The product was 900 ounces, worth $12,600. The Kern River Mining Company works its mine by a shaft 170 feet deep, and a tunnel 260 feet long. During the entire year twenty-nine men were employed, and $27,000 was expended for wages, while the materials used amounted to $3,200. The total product of this company was $35,000.

From Los Angeles County a single quartz mine is reported working dur ing the entire year. This is the mine of the Eureka Mining Company, at Solidad. Thirty to forty men were employed at different times, and $18,000 expended for wages. At the mine is a shaft 125 feet deep and a tunnel 150 feet long. The total product was $50,000.

All the figures in regard to product above introduced, as well as the following, refer to the year ending June 1, 1870.

In Tulare County the 10-stamp mill of Birdseye & Co. on White River is reported to have been in operation during five months. Five men were employed at a cost of $1,500 in wages, and $700 were spent for materials. The product was 250 ounces of gold, worth $4,000. I am not informed in regard to the mine from which the ore crushed by the mill was taken.

The total population of these counties is as follows:

Mono
Kern...

Los Angeles...
Tulare

Total. Chinese.

The principal quartz-mining enterprise in this county continues to be that of the Mariposa Company, upon the grant of the same name. The history of this famous estate has been marked with many vicissitudes, brilliant successes having alternated in its management with disappointment and loss. The conditions now surrounding the enterprise are in many respects more favorable than ever before, as I can testify from personal observation at the time of my last visit, November, 1870. The rate of wages is more reasonable; Chinese miners are employed, even underground, to a considerable extent, with satisfactory results, and without violent opposition from their white colleagues. The machinery of reduction is complete and efficient. At the Ophir or Benton mills, where sixty-five stamps were running, and thirty more in process erection,* * there is an excellent water-power secured by a dam which

of

*The whole number running at these mills in March, 1871, was eighty. A new waterwheel will be required before the other fifteen are started.

may be trusted (in spite of sundry former catastrophes) not to wash away again; the mills themselves have been remodeled, raised, furnished with California high-mortar batteries, and arranged to work both cheaply and effectively. The Benton mills used to have the reputation of crushing more cheaply and losing more gold than any others in the State. In their present form the desirable characteristic appears to have been retained and the other removed. All the product of the Josephine and Linda (formerly Pine Tree) mines is worked at these mills with a profit, as the statement below, taken from the books, will show.

Another great improvement is visible in the general economy of administration, and in the absence of the turbulent and lawless class of inhabitants which once gave Mariposa an unenviable fame. The "roughs" have shot one another, emigrated, or been hanged; and the departure of these worthies, coupled with the termination of legal conflicts, has greatly assisted the management of affairs with undisturbed attention to the permanent welfare of the estate.

The three mills at the river, called as a whole the Ophir (formerly Benton) mills, have the following strength: Lily, (upper mill,) 16 stamps, at 650 pounds; Ada, (middle mill,) 25 stamps, at 550 pounds; Bessie, (lower mill,) 24 stamps, at 500 pounds. The Ada is considered the best mill. All the batteries are run at 65 to 70 drops per minute, and the total crushing capacity of the 65 stamps is about 60 tons daily.

The ore is supplied from the Pine Tree and Josephine mines. The average of five semi-monthly cleanings-up on Pine Tree ore, during August, September, and October, 1870, was $10 50-or, leaving out the second clean-up of September, when a lot of poor ore was treated, the average was $11 35 per ton. No account is taken of tailings or sulphurets in this statement. A similar examination of the books as to Josephine ore showed an average yield of $8 06 per ton. The amount

of rock crushed from May 1 to October 1, 1870, was as follows:

About one pound of quicksilver is employed to ten tons of rock, and 35 to 40 per cent. of the quicksilver is saved in amalgam, worth $8

per ounce.

That the foregoing yield is sufficient to leave a small margin of profit appears from the following estimates of expense at the Josephine and Linda mines:

.

The greater cheapness of mining in the Josephine is due to its im mense stopes, and the manner in which it is opened by drifts from the face of the mountain. The Linda, however, furnished during the months referred to a better grade of quartz, principally, I believe, from the socalled "Garden" shoot, which has been opened in that mine at greater depths with excellent results. The average thickness of the vein in the Linda being about 5 feet, and in the Josephine 10 feet, the work of opening new ground is but trifling, since every foot of drifting exposes for extraction a large amount of quartz. I measured the reserves of ore in these two mines, including only what could be extracted without dead⚫ work in sinking or drifting, and found in the Josephine 15,810 tons, and in the Linda 14,016 tons. At the same time, the quality of ore in both mines was improving, and the yield at the mills in November was higher than the averages above reported. By the enlargement of milling facil ities, and the treatment of a greater amount of ore, the milling cost at the river could be reduced to $1 75, and the general expenses to 50 cents per ton of rock,, thus securing $1 per ton of additional profit.

The Mariposa mine contained, likewise, immense reserves of low-grade quartz. The mill at Mariposa has been reduced to 25 stamps, and the operations of these for August, September, and part of October, 1870, showed an average yield of $9 98 per ton. This scarcely paid expenses, as the mill is run by steam; and the mine has since been temporarily closed. When reopened, it will be worked by Chinese labor exclusively, as it has been, in part, the case for a long time past.

The old Princeton mine, in which the population of Mariposa County still place much affectionate faith, produced from a single large body or chimney of ore between four and five million dollars. This chimney was worked to a depth of some 600 feet, and it was officially reported to be exhausted just before the first grand collapse of the Mariposa Company. A complete sectional map of the workings came into my possession several years ago, bearing valuable memoranda as to the yield of the quartz from each stope; and this, with other evidence, led me to doubt whether the old Princeton chimney was really exhausted, and to suspect that the company had been too easily discouraged. Subsequently to the first abandonment, however, a creditor took the mine and gutted it, filling up the deep shafts with refuse, to save hoisting, taking out pillars and timbers, and leaving the workings in such a condition that no one would like to undertake the job of reopening them. Whether that chimney is or is not exhausted will, therefore, not be soon discovered. Many explorations were made, without success, to find some equally promising body of ore on the continuation of the vein. It seems to part near the mine into two branches, in going eastward; and these are said to reunite toward Agua Fria, a mile away, inclosing be tween them a large area. On the northerly branch operations were unsuccessful, though this was generally supposed to be the main vein. The southerly vein makes a violent bend on the top of the first hill east of the mine, and trending northeast crosses a ravine, a smaller hill, and another ravine, beyond which the outcrop is hidden in the chapparal. On the top of the smaller hill are the two shafts of the New Princeton, the discovery of which was the most significant event of the year for the estate. The connection between these and the old mine is distinctly established by innumerable exposures of the vein outcrop.

There is not much to be said of these shafts, but what there is is highly important. The western one is a prospecting shaft, 60 feet deep at the time of my visit; the other, 200 feet east, is a large working shaft, then about 30 feet deep, and showing a vein of 5 feet, the foot

wall half of which is certainly very rich rock. I made several pannings, indicating, I am confident, as much as $30 per ton of free gold; but of course I cannot feel sure that the samples were a fair average, though they were not the best that I saw, or could have taken out from the vein myself. More important, in my opinion, is the general structure of the vein and the appearance of the quartz, which is identical with that of old Princeton in its prime. Taken in connection with the known character of the Princeton vein, upon which it undoubtedly is, the indications it presents are such as to warrant even the sanguine expectations of the old residents of the neighborhood. The old Princeton mill is to be refitted and started early in 1871, with 25 stamps, on the ore from this mine.

This discovery shows how much might be accomplished by judicious prospecting on the estate. The number of quartz veins not yet tested very great, and the richness of the placers at many points indicates the existence of valuable lodes in the neighborhood. The Guadaloupe region, not worked at all by the company, contains numerous rich (though narrow) lodes. Some of them are worked on royalty, but there is no capital invested there. I understand that one of these lodes, the Buckeye, which has paid well hitherto to operations under a lease, will be worked this year by the company.

In further illustration of the reduction of wages, the following comparative statement of the average daily wages paid during three different periods, kindly furnished by Mr. J. G. Rice, the assistant superintendent, is presented.

The item of wages being at least two-thirds the whole cost of mining and reduction, it is evident that a general average reduction of some 25 per cent. in that item is no insignificant matter, in the treatment of low-grade ores especially, and in the execution of "dead-work” and new constructions.

Thanks are due to Mr. Thomas Goodsell, the company's superintend ent, for much courtesy and valuable assistance.

The following data, however, are not from the company or its officers: The total production of bullion for the fiscal year 1869-270, from the Josephine, Linda, and Mariposa, was about $170,000. I judge that the production for the calendar year 1870 was about $200,000. This is a satisfactory increase of 100 per cent. on the product of the previous year, and a similar steady improvement may be looked for in 1871. The process of building up a large business upon the basis of low-grade ores is a slow one, but the result is much more permanent than the brief though brilliant prosperity of "rich" mines.

In the latter class may be ranked the Oaks and Reese, to which allusion has been made in former reports. This mine was on a very narrow and hard vein, and was abandoned last year by the company in spite of the extraordinary richness of occasional lots of ore. It is reported that the miners, going back to the work after the company's operations had been suspended, soon struck upon another pocket of free gold, and made a handsome profit by the operation. The story is highly probable, though I do not vouch for its truth. It is quite common for skillful miners, when they foresee the suspension of operations, to conceal the occurrences of rich side-shoots, or pockets, &c., with a view to save thera until permission can subsequently be obtained to work the mine on a favorable lease, or to pay back-arrears of wages. Accordingly, when the workmen who have been employed in a mine undertake to carry it on after the owners have stopped, the first thing heard of is frequently a fortunate discovery of rich ore. But this was known to some one beforehand, or the speculation would not have been undertaken. I am not aware that miners, working in this way by themselves, for a long period, and opening new ground, have better luck than other people.

The Washington mine, about two miles north of Hornitos, is reported as steadily successful. The shipments of bullion in the autumn of 1870 were about $12,000 per month, and had previously been $15,000. For the year ending June 1, 1870, the product is given at only $50,000. I presume this is due to the fact that the mill and chlorination works were not running at full capacity-the latter not at all-during a large part of the year. The mill has now 30 stamps running. The ore is heavily charged with sulphurets, which are successfully treated in the chlorination-works erected for the company by Mr. Deetkin, of Grass Valley.

The Quartz Mountain mill, of 20 stamps, was idle in June. In November it was working ore from the Flint Peabody mine, two miles south of Hornitos.

The Mount Gaines Company, five miles east of Hornitos, was producing at the same period about $2,000 monthly. The 20-stamp mill works both custom ores and those of the company's mine, in which rich sulphurets are said to have been discovered.

I am indebted to Mr. Thomas Goodsell and to Mr. John R. Hite, the owner, for the following notes on the Hite mine, which is located near the geographical center of Mariposa County, on the summit of the elevated ridge between and quite near the intersection of Merced River with the South Fork of the Merced. The course of the vein is nearly east and west, and the dip about 80° north. It is irregular in width, varying from 3 to 11 feet, and richest where widest. The average yield of the wider portions is $27 per ton; of the narrow, $13 per ton. There are two shafts, down 300 feet. The first level is 200 feet below the surface, with a drain-adit crossing the strata coming in from the south or South Fork side. Above this level the ground is mainly stoped out. Both the east and west shafts are down 100 feet below it, and drifting is going on to connect the shafts, the east drift being in 300 feet from the shaft, and the west drift 30 feet, leaving a distance to connect of 260 feet, as the shafts are 600 feet apart. A new tunnel is driving from the side of South Fork to strike the vein 850 feet below the surface. It is now in 850 feet, and will be 1,250 feet long when completed. It approaches the vein at right angles. The vein is intermixed with thin layers of black soft slate, like the country rock. There are three oreshoots in the ground already opened, of which the most westerly is the poorest. The vein is continuous for a long distance, running nearly par allel with the Merced River.