The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-19 00:00:00

auxiliary to that interest is understooc L abroad, an
increased confidence in them as sourc es of perma-
nent and profitable investment can aot fail to be
the result. The fact that we have, in California
,done spent more than thirty millioets of dollars in
the erection of quartz mills .0. t tile: opening of
mines, and almost an equal aunt la iii construction
o`, water ditches, flumes, roads, &c., d .!signed chiefly
to promote their effectual deve:erpra, .;nt, cannot fail
to be accepted as evidence of cear fa *all in their vast
and enduring richness. We have eelow in this Sta`e
420 quartz and cement mills care:ling about 3,500
tamps, the whole erccte I at are aggregate cost of
more than six millions of doll ars. About three-
tif .hs of these are propelled by s' .eam and the balance
by water, a smell number bting driven by both
steam and water. Besides %hese mills there are
something over 400 arastras, the most of them being
connected with the mills for an talgamating purposes.
These quartz mills carry from five to sixty stamps
each, the number in most of them ranging from
ten to thirty. The c est of their construction varies
from $lO,OOO to $120,000 each, the average being
about $15,000. With the exception of those in
Alpine, Mono, Inyo, and San Bernardino counties,
they all work for gold alone. In the two counties
first named only the silver saving process is adopted,
while in the other two the ores are worked both for
gold and silver.
How rapidly the business of quartz milling has
increased in California is shown by the fact that
there were but 140 mills in the State ten years ago,
the whole of which carried but 1,500 stamps, and
were built at a cost of less than. $2,000,000. Be-
sides the above there are in the other Pacific States
and Territories 285 quartz mills, supplied.with over
2,000 stamps, and erected at an aggregate expense
of nearly $8,000,000, the building of which is
largely due to Californian enterprise and capital.
The linear extent of the main water ditches in Cali-
fornia reaches 5,500 miles, with nearly 1,000 miles
of branches for distributing the water at points
more or less remote from the line of the principal
ditches. The total cost of these works, including
flumes, branches, and reservoirs, approximates
$16,000,000. Some of them are of large capacity,
and extend a distance of nearly five hundred miles.
The most expensive, that of the South Yuba Canal
Company, cost $1,500,000—the cost of many others
reaching froth two to six hundred thousand dollars.
The principal object of these ditches is to supply the
placer mines with water, though they also furnish
a good deal for irrigating purposes as well as
for the propulsion of machinery. If to these sums
we add others of minor itnportance, such as those
spent in the construction of hydraulics, roads,
bridges, &c., we shall have another heavy item of
expenditure incurred for purposes subsiduary to the
business of mining in its several branches, leaving
out of account the still larger amounts spent. in the
purchase of mining properties in their various stages
of development, or on behalf of labour and current
expenses attending their working, the whole aggre-
gating some hundred millions of dollars.
It is true, that these investments have not always
proved either safe or profitable. Much money has
been lost through inexperience and errors of judg-
ment, not only in the business of mining itself, but
also in the prosecution of enterprises designed to
aid and encourage it ; yet these losses have hardly
been greater than those attending many other pur-
suits carried on in a new country and under circum-
stances eminently precarious and trying; while it
may safely be affirmed that the business of mining
for the precious metals on this coast is attended at
the present time with as much certainty and as fair
a chance for profit as merchandising, farming, ma-
nufacturing, or any other of the leading industries
of the country—a conclusion warranted by the ac-
coue's that reach us from nearly all parts of the
Pacific slope of the Continent. We have now
data to justify the belief that the bullion product
for the current year will be larger than usual,
while it is well known that the cases of failure
caused by injudicious investments are constantly
diminishing. While some mills have been idle and
some mines have remained unworked in different
parts of the country, caused in some instances by
mistakes of the kind mentioned, and in others by a
lack of means or the want of a suitable process for
the treatment of the ores, the cases so common a
few years ago of parties expending immense sums
in the purchase of worthless mines, erecting often
costly mills in addition for the purpose of working
ores that did not exist, are now no longer heard of.
On the contrary, while very liberal investments
continue to be made, no mining property can now
find sale until it has been at least partially proved,
nor are mills apt to be erected until there is an
assurance that the ore supply promises to be ample.
With these precautions quartz milling and mining
is assuming a new and more hopeful phase, nor is
there any likelihood that the former reckless style
of procedure will ever again obtain in the conduct of
this business. With these reforms achieved and
the economies gained, as before related, the pursuit
of mining is largely assuming the elements most
attractive to capital—security and profit—placing
its success on this coast beyond contingency.
With cheapened cost of production the percen-
tage of loss in the working of ores is con-
stantly being diminished. This is especially
true of operations in California, where the mills
working auriferous quartz are able, as a general
thing, to save within 25 per cent, of the gold it con-
tains as shown by fire assay ; those adopting the
chlorination process in the treatment of sulphurets
saving 90 per cent., while some newly invented
modes claim to be able to work at less expense and
much more closely.
In the State of Nevada, where they have to deal
mostly with silver bearing ores, the results obtained
are widely different, the mills about Virginia City,
working the Comstock ores, mostly reduced with-
out roasting, saving only about 65 per cent. of the
metal, while those at Austin, Twiu River, and in the
Cortez .District, where roasting is practised, save
from 80 to 90 per cent. The saving at Belmont
is still less than about Virginia, the ores there
being worked by a cheap and expeditious process,
whereby 40 per cent. of the silver is left in the
tailings, which are carefully preserved for future
treatment. It having been found that much of
the ore in certain localities, as in the Humboldt
and Esmeralda sections of country, can be success-
fully reduced only by smelting, works for this pur-
pose have been erected there, and are now being
operated with excellent results. Taken as a whole
the business of mining in that State is likely to
prove more prosperous the present year than ever
before—the product of bullion approximating
$20,000,000, a gain of more than 20 per cent. on
the yield of any former year ; while the favourable
situation of things there warrants the belief that tho
product will be increased in a corresponding ratio for
several years to come.
In Arizona operations in quartz continue to be
delayed by the difficulty encountered in finding a
suitable process for reducing the sulphureted ores
and the persistent hostilities of the Indians, these
causes having also to some extent interfered with the
' progress of both this and placer mining in Utah,
Idaho, and Montana. The Lemhi mines, discovered
over a year since in Idaho Territory, and to which
there was a considerable emigration in the early
part of the present summer, though quite ex-
' tensive, have failed to pay more than very
moderate wages, while those found about the
' same time in the southern part of Utah have been
but little prospected on account of the Indians who
have refused to allow the whites to enter the
country. The placer mines discovered during the
past summer on the upper waters of the Humboldt,
in the north-eastern part of Nevada, have also
proved to be of but limited extent and richness,
though several small parties have made .fair wages
there at surface digging, and the region abounds
with what appear to be valuable quartz veins.
Very recently an extensive range pf placers have