The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-25 00:00:00

JILVING INTELLIGENCE.

GOLD MINING AS A BUSINESS.

Looking at it as a speculation, it is the fancy of
the press generally to have a fling at gold mining.

In every circle we hear men telling of successfu:

adventures in what they mis-name mining. If you
inquire closely you will find all losses by speculation
in Washoe stock are set down as losses in mining.
Money paid for claims supposed to cover good min-
ing ground, and money spent in finding out that
there was no such ore as represented, is called
mining. Money put into opening out ores that
assay well, but which, after putting up expensive
works, are found so full of base meta that our pre-
sent milling will not work them, is classed as losses
by mining. Tempted by under estimates, men go
into such compani,.s awl find they cannot pay the
assessments; so they lose what they have paid by
forfeiture Soon after this a numerous crowd croak
against what it understands as "mining." Of all
the class of regular newspaper writers there is
scarcely one that does not take a fling at mining, and
scarce one really knows anything about actual min-
ing. Hearing much talk from the loungers about,
they get an idea that mining is all loss and no gain.
Seldom, if ever, these writers hear anything from
men really engaged in mining. Legitimate miners
are at their work, and are not encountered in the sa-
loons nor in the clusters at our street corners. When
we consider that 60 millions of dollars are produced
annually from our mines we cannot resist the
conclusion that mining is a steady and profitable
business, and that a great many persons are en-
gaged in it successfully; so many, indeed, that if
they would take the same pains to chronicle their
success and their monthly profits, as others do to
circulate their vague and unsubstantiated denuncia-
tions against what they understood as mining,
people would get a just conception of the wealth of
our Pacific States. They who best know the value
of good mines, well worked, are silently realising.
They do not talk nor write. Like the dog with a
rich bone, they do not even like people to be look-
ing inquiringly, and counting the income return.
Unfortunately, one mto who has a loss to tell of,
like one whose head gets a crack in a crowd,
makes outcry more than one hundred men
whose heads have not been hurt. San Fran-
cisco owes everything to the gold mines of
California. People come here for gold. They are
kept here for gold. All other industries are an out-
growth from our gold mines. Take them away,
and the whole State as well as the city would retro-
grade. The production of the precious metal is the
talisman which started this coast into life, and will
stimulate its growth as year after year rolls round.
We are not of those who complain that capital
in San Francisco does not give aid to mining. It
has done its reasonable share, despite of the efforts
of the press to discourAge it. What gold mining
asks, and it asks no more, is fair and honest repre-
sentation. There are gold-bearing quartz mines
enough to assure us that gold mining will endure
and be a permanent dependence of California.
Every business has its risks. Taking the actual
results of gold mining, pursued as a regular busi-
ness, we are confident that it will be found to have
less risks, in proportion to the profits, than any other
business, wherever it has been conducted with
equal prudence and economy. It is free from the
risks of close competition, over importations, dull
markets, dead seasons, changing fashions rem-
nants, bad debts, and the worry of a hundred de-
tail annoyances, repeated daily, from multitudi-
nous dealings. It is not one season you make and
another you lose. If you have a good mine in regu-
lar work, and keep your dead work a year ahead, it
is the most steadfast and trustworthy of all invest-
ments for revenue. No advertising, no higgling, no
white lies, no adulterations, no customers to please,
and all seems alike.

There may be exceptions to some of these rules ;
but they are more rare than in any other business.
Gold mining has some other admitted advantages
over all other industries that need to be considered.
When once under system it does not exact con-
tinuous personal presence, but gives you reasonable
recreation. Besides, the duller times, and the harder
the money panic in other pursuits, the more
eager is the demand for the production of your
gold mine. If statistics speak truly, in all
mercantile business men fail in staggering propor-
tions. But the rarest thing one hears is the failure
of a gold miner, whose mine is once opened and in
regular work. The chief risk is not in working a
gold mine, but in finding one that is workable, to
begin with. here you need circumspection and good
judgment.

A mere mining claim has no value. Listen to no
large talk ; you must have proof of the fact that
the ore has been well and largely tested. As a
general rule you are safest when you get on the well-
known mineral belts that have mines and mills
strewn along their well-known course. Then you
want to be convinced that the particular part of the
belt you examine has a sufficient proportion of pay
chutes. All quartz, on whatever mineral belt, is not
pay quartz. Every line of quartz consists of alter-
nations of pay and barren chutes, or sections. Take
no account of certified analyses of small pieces
of quartz. They should go for nothing. The vein
may furnish rich specimens, and yet be generally
not rich enough to pay. Prefer veins, as a gene-
ral rule, that supply an assured plenty of rock of
lower grade, so it be safe for satisfactory results,
to veins that are so small as to make supplies un-
certain, even when the yield of gold promises more
to the ton. Ten-dollar rock, and plenty of it, is
more desirable than twenty-dollar rock with scant,
uncertain supply. Rock that mills easily by pre-
sent mill process is greatly to be preferred. Though
other ores show more gold, and doubtless a time
come will when they will be more valued, they do
not answer your purpose at present. Of two places,
one accessible and another difficult of access and
shut out from the world, prefer the former, unless
there be much counterbalancing disadvantages. Be
sure that your capital is competent to your under-
taking. As a rule, three or four should unitelo
make sure on this point. There is no paying mine
that cannot extend its workings in time so as to
satisfy the increased capital parties desired to in-
vest.

For centuries the mines of Mexico, of Peru, and
Chili, have been worked to proverbial profit, under
difficulties that are not in California. In Europe
lean gold and silver ores, in very deep workings,
are still the most envied investments. So would
be our gold mines of California if their undoubted
superiority were understood abroad. But California,
with the best chances to offer, is perhaps the only
mineral country in the world where the press decries
its mines, and unwittingly sends abroad advice not
to come and invest in this our best and most attrac-
tive property.
Gentlemen of the press, we pray you to inform
yourselves, and we know you will alter your ver-
dict. Instead of listening to men about town,
speak among the veritable miners who are produc-
ing sixty millions of gold and silver annually, and
be assured that you will find quite a different pic-
ture to present to capital abroad and at home.
There is not a day that you may not chronicle a
mine that is paying what no other industry does.
However, in the time of our inexperience, some
in.ly have been misguided (and let us freely admit
it), gold mining has now become a science, and a
safe industry to those who use ordinary discrimi•
nation. Moreover, whatever our mines have paid,
it has bean from only one-half of the gold which
tire assay proves to be in our ores. Now, by a new
prouss of filler pulverisation, our miners are be-
ginning (as shown by ample proofs at Mariposa)
to add to their profits the gre,ater part of the other half
of the gold hitherto lost, and at no appreciable ad-
ditional cost of reduction. IVe need not say that
this improved process is about to double the value
of our gold mines generally, and to bring into use
many mines not now available on account of the
impracticability of getting more of the contained
gold from the ore by present modes of reduction.—
Alta California.

LARGE PRODUCT OF SILVER.—Few persons in
this community, we believe, have anything like a
correct idea of the amount of bullion that is being
produced by one twenty-stamp mill alone. We
stepped into the Manhattan Mill yesterday, and
were shown the bullion product of the previous