Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining

Chief Quartz-Mills.—The most productive quartz-mill in the state is the Benton mill, on Fremont's Ranch, in Mariposa county. It is also the largest, having forty-eight stamps. There are four mills on the estate, with ninety-one stamps in all, and their average yield per month is sixty thousand dollars. A railroad four miles long, conveys the quartz from the lode to the mills. The Allison quartz mine in Nevada county, produces forty thousand dollars per month. The Sierra Buttes quartz-mill, twelve miles from Downieville, yields about fifteen thousand dollars per month. These last mills run night and day, and crush and amalgamate ten thousand tons of rock a year, or twenty-eight tons per day. Forty men are employed, twenty-five to quarry the rock, five in the mill to attend to the stamps and amalgamation, one to do carpentry, one for blacksmithing, and eight for getting out timber, transporting quartz, and so forth. The cost of quarrying, crushing and amalgamating a ton of rock, is six dollars. The wages of the men are from fifty to seventy dollars per month with boarding. The average wages is sixty dollars. About ten miles eastward of Sonora, in Tuolumne county, are some rich veins of auriferous quartz, the most prominent of which are the Soulsby and Blakeslee lodes. The Soulsby mill produced forty thousand dollars in three weeks, when it commenced work in 1858, but it has not been so profitable of late.

Silver Mining.—Silver mining has not yet been established fairly as a business in California. The silver ores of Washoe were discovered in 1859, and mining has been fairly commenced there, but the mines of Esmeralda and Coso, within the limits of this state, were not found until the summer of 1860, and up to the present time no mills have been established there.

Silver mining differs much from gold mining. Gold is always found as a metal, never as an ore, and the separation from the accompanying vein-stone with which it is mixed mechanically, is much more simple and easy than the reduction of the argentiferous ores in which the silver is chemically combined with base substances, for which it has a strong affinity. Chemical knowledge and chemical processes are more necessary in mining for silver than for gold; and while all auriferous quartz is of the same kind, and may be treated in the same manner, there are many different kinds of silver ores, each of which requires a peculiar treatment. The reduction of silver ore costs on an average, from three to five times as much as the reduction of auriferous quartz.

The silver ore of Esmeralda and Coso is a sulphuret of silver, nearly all the veins having the same material, though the amount of it scattered through the vein-stone differs greatly in different lodes. In some veins there is much free gold, that is, little specks of metallic gold which can be separated from the other material in the same manner that gold is separated from auriferous quartz. The methods of reducing silver ore are so numerous and complex, and vary so much in different districts and under different circumstances, that it is impossible to know now what process will be used in Esmeralda and Coso, the resources of which places have been so little studied. Besides it is said that new processes for reducing silver ore have been invented, far superior to all the old methods; and these processes are kept secret. It is therefore unnecessary that I should go into a long description of the various processes practised elsewhere. Silver ore after pulverization is smelted by mixing with it fifty per cent. of lead in metal or ore, and ten per cent. of iron, and exposing the whole to a heat sufficient to melt the silver which runs off. The metal thus obtained is not pure but contains much lead, which is driven off by heat while the silver is kept in a molten condition for a period of four or six hours. The cost of smelting in California at present, is about one hundred and twenty-five dollars per ton. In most of the other methods of reducing silver ore, the ore is roasted to drive off the sulphur. In the barrel amalgamation, which has been used at Washoe, and will probably be used at Esmeralda also, half a ton of ore, after being pulverized and roasted, three hundred pounds of water, and one hundred pounds of wrought iron, in little fragments, are put into a barrel, which revolves on a perpendicular axis. At the end of two hours the mass has taken the consistence of thick cream, when five hundred pounds of quicksilver are put in, and after the barrel has revolved four hours more, the amalgamation is complete. More water is now poured in; the barrel revolves very slowly to let the amalgam all settle to the bottom, the mud runs off through a cock four inches above the bottom, and the mercury and amalgam are then drawn off through a little hole in the bottom of the barrel.

Quicksilver Mining.—The ore from which quicksilver is obtained is a sulphuret. The sulphur is driven off by heat, and the metal, which rises in fumes from the ore, is collected by condensation. The miners are Cornishmen and Mexicans. The ore is in large masses underground, not in a connected vein of regular thickness; and after one mass is exhausted, much labor is often vainly spent in search of another. There are, however, usually little seams of ore running from one large deposit to another, and it is the business of the mining captains to observe these veins closely, and trace them up when a "fault" occurs. There are no scientific rules for finding the ore; and the business of searching for the large deposits is never intrusted to educated mining engineers, but always to mining captains, who have themselves been laborers, and have learned by experience where to seek. The New Almaden mine produces two hundred and twenty thousand pounds of metal in a month. The hacienda, or reducing establishment of the mining company, has fourteen brick furnaces, each fifty feet long, twelve feet high, and twelve feet wide. At one end of each furnace is the fire chamber, which may be nine cubic feet inside; next to that is the ore chamber of about the same size; and beyond that is the condensing chamber, in which there are a number of partitions alternately running up from the bottom and down from the top, with a space for the fumes to pass, their course being up and down, and up and down again, and so on, for a distance of thirty feet to the chimney, which is forty feet high. In the bottom of the condensing chamber is water. The walls between the fire chamber and the ore chamber, and between the latter and the condensing chamber, are built with open spaces, so that the heat, smoke and fumes can pass through. The ore is placed in the ore chamber in such a manner as to leave many open spaces. The heat drives off the sulphur and mercury of the ore in fumes, which in passing through the condensing chambers, deposit the mercury, and the smoke and sulphur escape through the chimney. In the Enriqueta and Guadalupe mines the quicksilver is condensed in a close iron retort, and the sulphur is absorbed by quicklime.

Copper ore is dug from several mines in California, but it is all exported to be smelted elsewhere.

Platinum.—Platinum, iridium and osmium, three white metals of about the same specific gravity with gold, are found with the latter metal in the placers in the basin of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers. Their particles are usually fine scales, very rarely reaching a quarter of an ounce in weight, and the largest piece of either ever found was less than an ounce and a half. They cannot be separated from the gold by washing, but they do not unite with quicksilver, and therefore they are separated from the more precious metal by amalgamation. They have no regular market in the state; miners never make them the chief object of search, and they have not been studied, so it is not known to what extent they might be obtained.

Del Norte and Klamath.—Del Norte county in the north-western corner of the state, is about forty miles long from east to west by thirty from north to south. The mining population in it is small. Most of the mining is done along the banks of the Klamath River, which runs about twenty miles through the south-eastern portion of the county. There are some miners on the head-waters of Althouse Creek, which runs northward into Oregon. The county assessor, in his report for 1860, does not mention the existence of any quartz-mill or mining-ditch in the county. The mining districts are very mountainous and difficult of access. They obtain most of their supplies from Crescent City. The mining is chiefly in shallow placers, in deep and narrow ravines, and on bars of the Klamath River.

Klamath county lies immediately south of Del Norte, and is about the same size. It is almost exclusively a mining county, and has a population of about eighteen hundred. The diggings are placers in the bars and banks of the Klamath River and its tributaries, the Trinity and Salmon Rivers, and many small creeks. The principal mining places are Orleans Bar, Gullion's Bar, Negro Flat, Cecilville, Weitspeck and Red Cap. The whole county is very rugged and mountainous, and much of it is covered with heavy timber. The diggings are so difficult of access, and are so protected by mountains against ditches, that they will last for many years. There is probably no part of the state where the single miner, without capital, has a better chance to dig gold with a profit. Nearly the whole beach of the county is auriferous.

Siskiyou.—Siskiyou county lies east of Del Norte and Klamath, is forty miles wide from north to south, one hundred miles long from east to west, and reaches to the eastern boundary of the state. It has a population of 7,629, the large majority of whom are engaged in mining. The mining district is all in the western end of the county, along the banks of the Klamath River and its tributaries, the Scott and Shasta Rivers. The Klamath runs through a deep canon; the Scott and Shasta Rivers, have pleasant open valleys, but the diggings along their banks are chiefly among the canons near the Klamath. Hydraulic and tunnel claims are rare. There are six quartz-mills in the county, and fifteen mining ditches, of which last the principal is the Yreka canal, forty miles long, bringing water from the head of Shasta River to the town of Yreka. In 1859, there were four quartz-mills in the county, one of which was at Mugginsville, one in Scott's valley and two in Quartz valley. I have no information about the situation of the two built since that time. The principal mining towns are Yreka, Scott's Bar, Hawkinsville, Johnson's Bar, Deadwood and Cottonwood.

Trinity and Shasta.—South of the western part of Siskiyou and the eastern part of Klamath, lies Trinity county, ninety miles long from north to south, and about twenty miles wide on an average. The northern part of the county is the basin of the Trinity River, and is auriferous. From the county assessor's report for 1860, it is to be inferred that there is not a quartz-mill or a mining-ditch in the state. The county is very mountainous, and most of the mining is done in rugged canons along the Trinity River. The chief mining towns are Weaverville, Cox's Bar, Big Bar, Arkansas Flat, Mooney's Flat and Trinity Centre.

South of Siskiyou and east of Trinity lies Shasta county, which is on an average forty miles wide from north to south and one hundred miles long, reaching to the eastern border of the state. There is a rich auriferous district about twenty miles square, in the vicinity of the town of Shasta, in the south-western part of the county. The diggings are mostly in the basins of Clear Creek, Cottonwood Creek, Rock Creek and Salt Creek, all of which enter into the Sacramento. There are four quartz-mills in the county, one at French Gulch, one at Middle Creek, one at Muletown, and one at Old Diggings. The county has twenty-seven mining ditches, with a joint length of one hundred and forty-one miles, an average of five miles each. The chief mining towns are Shasta, Horsetown, French Gulch, Muletown, Briggsville, Whiskey and Middletown.

Plumas and Sierra.—South of the eastern part of Shasta county lies Plumas, which is about seventy miles square. About one third of the county, in the south-western part of it, comprising that portion drained by the head waters of Feather River, is auriferous. It lies high above the level of the sea, and the work of mining is interrupted during a considerable portion of the winter, by cold, snow and ice. Hydraulic and tunnel claims in deep hills, furnish a large portion of the gold yield of the county. There are five quartz-mills, one at Elizabethtown, one at Eureka Lake, and three at Jamison Creek. The principal mining towns are Quincy, Jamison City, Indian Bar, Nelson's Point and Poorman's Creek.

South of Plumas is Sierra county, which is fifty miles long from east to west, and twenty miles wide from north to south. The North Fork of the Yuba River runs through its centre, and the Middle Fork is its southern boundary. Though small, it is one of the richest mining counties of the state, and in proportion to the extent of its mining ground, is much richer than any other county. All its territory is four thousand feet above the sea level, at the lowest. Most of the mining is done in hydraulic and tunnel claims in deep hills. Near the centre of the county is a mountain called the Downieville Butte, or the Yuba Butte, eight thousand eight hundred and forty-six feet high, on the sides of which are found some rich quartz leads. In 1859 there were eleven quartz-mills in Sierra county, of which seven are at the Butte, two at Downieville, one at the Mountain House, and one at Sierra City. The principal mining towns are Downieville, Monte Cristo, Pine Grove, St. Louis, La Porte, Poker Flat, Eureka City, Forest City, Alleghany Town, and Cox's Bar. One of the most remarkable features of the placers of the state, is the blue lead, which was first discovered in Sierra county, and has been more thoroughly examined there than elsewhere. The "blue lead" is a stratum of blue clay very rich in gold. It is found deep under other strata. The general opinion is, that the blue lead occupies the bed of a large antediluvian river, which ran parallel with the Sacramento and about sixty miles eastward of it. It has been traced twenty miles or more, passing near Monte Cristo, Alleghany Town, Forest City, Chip's Flat and Zion Hill. Mr. C. S. Capp wrote thus to the San Francisco Bulletin:

"This is not one of the many petty leads, an inch or two in breadth and thickness, which, after being traced a few hundred feet, end as suddenly and mysteriously as they commence; but it is evidently the bed of some ancient river. It is often hundreds of feet in width, and extends for miles and miles, a thousand feet below the summits of high mountains, and entirely through them. Now it crops out where the deep channels of some of the rivers and ravines of the present day have cut it asunder; and then, hidden beneath the rocks and strata above it, it only emerges again miles and miles away. Wherever its continuity has been destroyed, the river or gulch which has washed a portion of it away, was found to be immensely rich for some distance below, and the materials of which the lead is composed are found with the gold in the bed of the stream. It is evidently the bed of some ancient stream, because it is walled in by steep banks of hard bed-rock, precisely like the banks of rivers and ravines in which water now runs, and because it is composed of clay which is evidently a sedimentary deposit, and of pebbles of black and white quartz, which could only be rounded and polished as they are by the long continued action of swiftly running water. The bed-rock in the bottom of this lead is worn into long smooth channels, and also has its roughness and crevices like other river beds. The lighter and poorer qualities of gold are found nearest to its edges, while the heavier and finer portions have found their way to the deeper places near the centre. Trees and pieces of wood, more or less petrified and changed in their nature, which once floated in its waters, are also every where encountered throughout this stratum.

"The clay and fine gravel in which these pebbles and boulders are found to be tightly packed, is of a light-blue color, which gives the name to the lead. Much of this clay is remarkably fine and free from coarse particles, and is smooth and unctuous to the touch. It is said to be strongly impregnated with arsenic, as was shown by chemical analysis, and contains large quantities of iron and sulphur in solution, for pyrites and sulphurets of iron are deposited in shining metallic crystals in every vacant crevice. Fine gold is found among this clay, and the heavier particles beneath it, upon the bed-rock. This stratum varies in thickness from eighteen inches to eight or ten feet, while the whole lead varies in width from a hundred and fifty to five hundred feet.

"The same lead has been found at Sebastopol, four miles above Monte Christo, and also higher up among the mountains. It appears at Monte Christo, which is four miles above the high-lying Downieville, and over three thousand feet above it, and at Chapparal Hill on the side of a deep ravine; then at the City of Six, which is also on very high land, about four miles from Downieville, across the North Yuba. It is next found at Forest City, on both sides of a creek, and is there traced directly through the mountain to Alleghany Town and Smith's Flat, on the opposite side. There it is again cut in twain by a deep ravine. It crops out on the other side at Chip's Flat, where it has been followed by tunnels passing completely through the mountain to Centreville and Minnesota on the other side. Here it is obliterated by the Middle Fork of the Yuba, but it is believed to be again found at Snow Point, on the opposite side of the river, and again at Zion Hill, several miles beyond. There is no reason for doubting that after thus reaching over twenty miles, it still extends further. Hundreds of tunnels have been run in search of it. Where the line it follows was adhered to, they have always found it, and have been well rewarded for their labor. Millions of dollars have been taken from this lead, and its richness, even in portions longest worked, is yet undiminished. These tunnels have cost from $20,000 to $100,000 each, and interest in the claims they enter sell readily at from $1,000 to $20,000, in proportion to the amount of ground within them remaining untouched, and the facilities which exist for working it. Many of these claims will yet afford from five to ten or more years' profitable labor to their owners, before the lead itself within them is exhausted. As in some of them quartz veins and poorer paying gravel have been found, many of them may be valuable to work from the top down as hydraulic claims."

This idea that the blue lead occupies the bed of an antediluvian river is however not universally accepted. Mr. B. P. Avery, who has written numerous newspaper articles upon the mineral deposits, asserts that the "blue lead," as it is called, is not a "lead" but an extensive stratum which is many miles wide, and is found all the way from the foot hills to the summit of the Sierra Nevada. In reply to this, it is said that while a bluish stratum of clay similar to that of the blue lead is found over a wide district, that it is evidently different in origin from the blue lead itself, which is confined to a narrow bed, and marked by the signs found in all the other ancient river beds of the state.

The Sierra Butte Quartz Mining Company has some of the best auriferous quartz lodes in the state. One lode called the Cliff Ledge, is twenty-five feet wide; and another called the Aërial Ledge, is about three feet wide. In the Cliff Ledge, the paying rock averages about six feet in thickness next the foot wall. The average yield is eighteen dollars per ton. The quartz is bluish white in color, and very hard when first taken from the lode, but on exposure to the air it slowly crumbles into sand.

Yuba and Butte.—West of Sierra county, and drained by the same streams, is Yuba, which reaches to the Sacramento River, lying half in the mountains and half in the plains, the mining district being in the former half. The principal mining towns are Camptonville, Timbuctoo, Foster's Bar, Texas Bar and Long's Bar. In 1859 there were nine quartz-mills in the county, three at Brown's valley, and one each at Camptonville, Dobbin's Ranch, Dry Creek, Honcut, Indiana Creek and Robbin's Creek. The assessor in 1860 reported only two quartz-mills in the county. There are twenty-two ditches in the county, with an aggregate length of nine hundred and fifty-two miles, an average of forty-three miles each. The most important ditch, called "Bovyer's," supplies Timbuctoo with five thousand inches of water in the winter, less in the summer. The diggings at Timbuctoo are in a deep hill, which is washed away by the hydraulic process.

West of Yuba and Plumas counties lies Butte, which is drained by the Feather River. The principal mining towns are Oroville, Bidwell's Bar, Forbestown, Natchez and Whiterock. In 1859 there were seventeen quartz-mills in the county, of which four were at Oregon Gulch, at Columbiaville and Hansonville, three each, two at Yankee Hill, and at Evansville, Gold Run, Long Bar, Nesbitt's Flat and Spring Valley, one each. The assessor reports for 1860, twenty-nine quartz-mills, worth fifty thousand dollars, and crushing in the aggregate one hundred and sixty-two and a half tons per day. There are sixty-four mining-ditches, with an aggregate length of five hundred and eighty-three miles. The bars and beds of Feather River were once very rich, and some of the most extensive enterprises of river mining in the state have been undertaken within the limits of Butte county. The greatest flume ever built in California was that of the Cape Claim Company, near Oroville, in 1857. It was three quarters of a mile long and twenty feet wide, and furnished employment for two hundred and fifty men from May till November. The expenditures during that period were $176,985, and the receipts $251,426, showing a clear profit of $74,441. The next year, after the water had fallen, the company commenced its labors again; spent $160,000 and received $115,000, and thus lost $45,000. North of Oroville is a "table-mountain" with a top of basalt, covering a rich deposit of auriferous clay.

Nevada and Placer.—South of Yuba and Butte is Nevada, the richest mining county of the state. Within its limits the tom, sluice, under-current sluice, and crinoline hose were invented, and the ditch and hydraulic power were first applied to placer-mining; and quartz-mining was first undertaken extensively. In 1859 there were thirty-two quartz-mills in the county, and twenty-eight mining-ditches, with an aggregate length of three hundred and ninety-four miles. No part of the mineral region of the state is better supplied with water than Nevada county. The richest quartz district is in the vicinity of Nevada City, which has fifteen mills, and Grass Valley, five miles distant, has seventeen. The great Allison mine, which has the richest lode in the state, is in Grass Valley.

The quartz mines here are much troubled with water, and during the winter of 1860-61, many of the mills were compelled to stop for weeks until the shafts could be drained by steam engines, after having been filled by a long and heavy rain. The annual gold yield of Grass Valley has been estimated at four millions of dollars. North San Juan has the finest hydraulic claims, and Sweetland the largest tail-sluices. The Eureka Lake Ditch Company has more ditching and water than any other company in the state. Their main ditch is seventy-five miles long, and there are one hundred and ninety miles of branches, making a total of two hundred and sixty-five miles, which have cost nine hundred thousand dollars. The daily sale of water is six thousand inches, with a weekly income of six thousand dollars. The principal mining towns are Nevada, Grass Valley, North San Juan, Rough and Ready, Orleans Flat, Moore's Flat and Humbug City.

INDEX.