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institutions reflecting credit on the benevolence, enterprise and enlightenment of the inhabitants.

Besides these two leading places, there are many other thrifty and growing towns in the county, the more prominent of which are the following: San Juan, situated ten miles north of Nevada, is the principal village in a series of mining camps and hamlets scattered at intervals of two or three miles along the ridge that slopes north to the middle Yuba. The name was first given to a hill at this point in which rich diggings were developed as early as 1853. The surface placers in the vicinity have been very prolific, and some of the most remunerative tunnel and hydraulic claims in the county are still being worked in the neighborhood. The town now contains about one thousand inhabitants, and is not only a prosperous and active, but also a cheerful and handsome place, much care having been bestowed by the inhabitants upon the culture of vines, fruit trees and flowers, every residence, almost, being adorned with many varieties of the latter, and the environs of the town being planted with vineyards, gardens and orchards. The facilities afforded for irrigation by the numerous water ditches have done much to promote improvements of this kind-the inhabitants having early availed themselves of this aid for planting and adorning their grounds. North San Juan, as this village is generally termed, to distinguish it from places bearing the same name elsewhere in the State, has a good local government and thoroughly organized fire department, who operate with hose attached to the hydrants of the water works belonging to the town. There are a number of schools and churches, and several benevolent orders in San Juan, which is also the headquarters of some half dozen stage lines, radiating to surrounding localities, and the center of a large local trade. Mining, throughout this district, is prosecuted on a scale of great magnitude. The annual yield of gold of Bridgeport township, in which San Juan is situated, for the past ten years has exceeded $1,300,000. Sebastopol, a hamlet one mile east of San Juan, is composed of the residences of those owning the American and Gold Bluff mines, on Junction Bluff and Manzanita Hills; Sweetland, a short distance south, being another village, containing, with its environs, a population of two or three hundred. Birchville, four miles east of San Juan, is another pleasant little town embowered amidst trees and beautiful with vines and flowers. The inhabitants are principally engaged in mining-large quantities of gold having, for many years, been gathered in the district, through a system of bed-rock tunnelling. Five companies, operating here, took out, in the year 1866, an aggregate of $581,000, of which $327,500 were net proceeds. Not

one half the rich ground here has yet been exhausted. French Corral, with a population of about four hundred, is another flourishing mining town lying a few miles below San Juan, on the Middle Yuba. Tunnel and hydraulic mining has been carried on extensively and profitably here for more than twelve years, there being, besides the hill diggings worked by hydraulics, a broad stratum of blue cement underlying the gravel, and found to be very rich in gold. Cherokee, though a much larger place than French Corral, is surrounded by a similar character of mines. The auriferous flat near the town, worked out in the early day, proved extremely rich.

Rough and Ready, Little York, You Bet, Red Dog, and Eureka, rank among the active and progressive mining towns of this county, the former having been among the very earliest settled places in it. In the spring of 1851 Rough and Ready was a village more than twice the size of Grass Valley, the surface claims near by, covering a broad scope, having paid largely. There is still a good deal of mining being prosecuted in the vicinity; and the town, though not keeping pace with some of its neighbors, contains in its orchards, vineyards, and cultivated gardens, many evidences of thrift and comfort. Little York, lying on the ridge between Steep Hollow and Bear river, being almost hidden from sight by fruit and shade trees, presents a very attractive appearance. The early diggings here were good, and the large bodies of cement on which several mills are now running, with the high banks of auriferous earth, give assurance that mining will be largely and profitably carried on here for many years to come. For a California mountain town, Little York has been singularly fortunate in an entire exemption from fire-no sweeping conflagration ever having occurred to lay it in ruins. Red Dog, lying a little to the north, has, on the contrary, been a severe sufferer in this respect, having been several times completely devastated by fire. The place and vicinity contains about three hundred inhabitants. There are four mills within a short distance of the town, crushing the blue cement that is here found in a heavy body-there being several others, at no great distance off, also running on this material. The town of You Bet, lying midway between Little York and Red Dog, contains a population, during the active mining season, of about one thousand, and is sustained principally by hydraulic and cement mining-being situated on the "Blue Lead" channel. Five cement mills are worked steadily and successfully in the vicinity of the town. Eureka, which is situated on the divide between the South and Middle Yuba, being surrounded by shallow placers, was a favorite mining ground in the earlier day, the diggings

being easily worked, but soon exhausted. Lately the district has attracted much attention by its many promising veins of quartz, for working which five or six mills have been put up within the past year. The most of these mills are running steadily, and are understood to be meeting with a fair degree of success. Much work is being expended in the development of the mines, and the prospect is that Eureka will in a short time become one of the most active camps in the eastern part of the county. In the Meadow Lake district, lying upon the summit of the Sierra, in the eastern part of the county, a great number of gold bearing lodes were discovered in 1864, and much excitement ensuing, a population of more than one thousand was drawn into the district soon after. Five quartz mills have since been erected, but much difficulty having been experienced in treating the ores, owing to a want of suitable processes for saving the gold, the most of these mills have remained idle since their erection. When this want shall be supplied, this will, no doubt, become a very prosperous district, as the ledges, which are large and numerous, are known to carry a large percentage of gold, while the facilities for reduction, owing to an abundance of wood and water, are of the very first order.

The present population of Nevada county numbers about eighteen thousand, the assessed value of the real and personal property therein being nearly $6,000,000, exclusive of mines. As stated, the business of mining for gold constitutes the leading pursuit in Nevada, the mines here consisting of both placer and quartz, the former conducted mostly by deep tunneling and hydraulic washing. Vein mining was entered upon in this county at a very early day; about the first persistent trials made in the State having been at Grass Valley, where this branch of the business was initiated as early as the spring of 1851; and where it has since been prosecuted with better average results extending through a series of years than at any other point perhaps in the world. At first mistakes were made, and difficulties encountered here as well as elsewhere; but, through persevering efforts and good management, these have been so far overcome that latterly a high degree of success has rewarded the labors of many companies operating in that neighborhood. Glancing at a few prominent facts connected with the history of these, a more detailed notice of the whole will be found in our chapter on "Mines and Mining." Viewed as a whole, the lodes in this district are not distinguished so much for their heavy body of vein matter as the high grade and tractable character of the ores they carry; hence the facility with which the latter have been managed and the very liberal and often extremely large returns that have attended their working.

The yield of bullion from the Eureka mine, for the year ending September 30, 1866, amounted to $521, 431.41; mining and milling expenses, and cost of construction for same period being $192, 648.44, leaving a profit divided among the owners of $328,782.97-nearly all extracted by a twenty-stamp mill belonging to the company. The whole amount of ore crushed was 11,375 tons, the average yield being $45.83 per ton. The total product of bullion from this mine for the year ending September 30, 1867, was $585,316.10, net profits $348, 102.37, the average yield of the ore, including sulphurets, having been within a fraction of $48 per ton. The North Star mine for the six months, ending January 1st, 1868, turned out $110,545.84, of which $20,000 were divided as net profits, and $30,000 expended on improvements, the balance having been absorbed by current expenses of working the mill and mine. These results were not so favorable as had previously been obtained, the company claiming to have cleared from this mine during the five years ending with June, 1867, the sum of $375,000. From the Empire mine there were raised during the fourteen years, ending June 30th, 1867, a total of 37,840 tons of ore, which yielded an average of $35.20 per ton. During the following six months 3,500 tons of ore were extracted from this mine, turning out a total of $100,000-$27,000 of which were disbursed to the owners as net gains. Among many other productive and promising mines in the vicinity of Nevada, the Banner, situated about two and a half miles southeast of the town, stands conspicuous, having for several years past been worked with energy and success. The company own a twenty-stamp mill, which is kept in steady operation on the ores raised from the mine-2,768 tons of which, reduced during the four months ending with January 1st, 1868, yielded $65,512.72, the average yield having been at the rate of $23.74 per ton. There were raised from the mine, between January 1st, 1865 and January 1st, 1868, 10,222 tons of ore, which gave a bullion product of $207,949.66, making an average yield of $20.34 to the ton, of all the ore taken from the mine since it was first opened. A shaft has been sunk on the ledge to a depth of four hundred and twenty feet, at which point it varies from one to four feet in thickness, the average thickness being about three feet. Within the past fourteen years the total production of the placer and quartz mines in Grass Valley district has amounted to about $24,000,000—the most prolific vein in the neighborhood, that running through Massachusetts and Gold hills, having yielded over $6,000,000. While the most extensive worked and best paying quartz mines in the county are those in the vicinity of Grass Valley, there are a great number in other localities from which excellent returns are being obtained.

There are at the present time sixty-five quartz and twenty-one cement mills in this county-the entire number carrying six hundred and eighty-five stamps, and costing in the aggregate $1,350,000. Some of these mills are large and perfect in all their appointments, no expense requisite to their efficiency having been spared.

Besides the precious metals, many copper bearing veins have been found in different parts of this county, the largest number being located in Rough and Ready township, where a great deal of labor was applied towards opening these lodes in the spring of 1863. The ores, however, generally proving of too low a grade to warrant thorough development, all work was within the following two years suspended, to be resumed, most likely, when labor shall be cheaper, and the prices of copper ore advanced beyond present figures. These ores ranged from five to twelve per cent. of metal, and one lot sent to Swansea netted a profit of thirty-five dollars per ton to the shippers.

There are over fifty water ditches in this county, many of which having been consolidated since their construction with other works of the kind, have lost their original names. These improvements have an aggregate linear extent of eight hundred and fifty miles, and cost about $4,250,000. The first of these enterprises was projected as early as 1850, the more recent having been consummated only within the past few years. Some of these works, not less on account of their cost and the grand scale on which they have been designed, than of the vast utilitarian ends accomplished through their completion, deserve to be ranked among the great public improvements of the day.

At the present time, the two leading works of this kind in the county are the Eureka Lake and Yuba Canal Consolidated, and the ditch of the South Yuba Canal company, both among the most costly, extensive and profitable works of the kind in the State. The last named of these ditches, taking water from the South Yuba, and from several lakes, as feeders, carries it to the mining camps about Dutch Flat and Gold Run, in Placer county, and down the ridge between the South Yuba and Bear river, as far as Grass Valley, supplying on its route, the intermediate country. The ditches of this company are remarkable for the permanent manner in which they have been constructed, and for the fact that the property still belongs to its original planners and builders-the most of these works having, through the inability of the first projectors to carry them on, passed, at an early stage in their progress, into the hands of other parties. The main trunk of this company's system of ditches, though but sixteen miles long, cost, with its tunnels and flumes, not far from $600,000. One of these tunnels, sixty

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