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

EVENING, DECEMBER 19, 1867.

oinz GOSNELL and . CO.'S CHERRY
Qy TOOTH PASTE is greatly superior to any tooth powder;
gives the teeth a pearl whiteness, protects the enamel from de-
cay, and imparts a pleasant fragranCe to the hrath. Price Is.
6d.—lted Bull Wharf, P, Upper Thames-street, London:

GROPEAN ASSURANCE SOCIETY.-
Empowered by Special Act of Parliament.

Life A3suran ce—Ami ies--Guarante e

Policies payable during Life—lndisputable—Not liable to
Forfeiture.
Chairman— General Sir FREDERIC SMITH,

The ROYAL, NAVAL, MILITARY, and EAST INDIA LIFE DE-
PARTMENT, gifording, Peculiar Advantages to Officers and others
in the Navy and Army, is under the especial Patronage of
Her Most Gracious MA3 ESTY the QUEEN.
New Premium Income in 1833, 1059, 1860 .06,000
. 1801. 1862, 1063 £117,000
l 4 " 1861, 186.5, 1866 £171,000
The EUROPEAN is specially authorised by the Imperial Par-
liament to Guarantee the Fidelity of Government Officials.
Full particulars of the popular principles of this Society will be
found in the Prospectus, which will be forwarded to applicants
post free.

Chief -0111ces, 316, Regent--straet, and 17, Waterloo place,
PaII-mall.

HEM RY LAKE, General Manager.

A.D. 1720.

ROY AL EXCHANGE ASSURANCE
. COAPOR A TION.
(Established by Charter of his Majesty George the First),
For SEA, FIRE, LIFE, and ANNUITIES.
Offices—ROYAL EXCHANGE, London.
Branch Office-29, Pall Mall, SW.
.
. OCTAVIUS WIGRAM, Esq Governor.,
JAMES STEWART HODGSON, Esq Sub-Governor.
CHARLES JOHN MANNING, Esq Deputy-Governor.
Robert. Barclay, Esq.

THE EAST INDIA IRRIGATION AND
CANAL COMPANY."

NOTICE IN HEREBY GIVEN, That the Transfer
Books of this Company will be CLOSED from the 6th to
the 11th day of JANUARY, 1868, both days inclusive,
for the purpose of making up the Interest Accounts to the
31st inst.

Interest Warrants will, on or about the 11th day of
January, 1868, be forwarded to those Shareholders whose
names shall appear Registered in the Books of the Com-
pany on tLe 3 lst inst.

Deeds of Transfer will not be registered while the books
are closed.

JOHN WESTWOOD ,
Secretary t' the Company.
8 and 9, Queen-street-place, London, E. 0.,
19th December, 1867.

WINTER COUGHS, COLDS, ASTHMA,
AND INFLUENZN
Are Speedily Cured by the Use of
SPENCER'S PULMONIC ELIXIR.
May be had of any Chemist.

QTOOPING HABITS, ROUND SHOULDERS,
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seding the use of braces and stays. Price from 10s. 6d. each.
.-66, Bersters-street, Oxford-street, W. Illustrated circulars for-
warded.

BREE6h-LOADERS. •-•-•
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Direct-action, central-fire Breech-loaders, the perfection of this
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loading. and durability.
Cartridges, loading instruments, belts, pouches, and every use-
tul novelty. _ _

E• AI• REILLY AND CO.,
IEW OXFOIID-STREET ; ALSO NEAR, REGENT-MOM

PAINLESS DENTISTRY.
ESSRS. GABRIEL, DEyrisTs (Established
.
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London IS, Halley-street, Cavendish-square,
~
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hoxo just published a NEW PAMPHLET explaining their Pain-
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for four stamps.

MINING REVIEW.

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL SUMMARY.

The Report of the Commissioner for the Col-
lection of Mining Statistics on the Pacific Coast
being compiled with such a strict regard to ex-
actness, and by parties every way competent
and veracious, when it shall appear, will have
strong claims to be received as au authority
upon the various topics of which it treats. That
it will, despite these precautions against exaggera-
tion, exhibit for our Pacific possessions an immensity
of mineral wealth need hardly be stated. Indeed
the representations made of these and our other
material resources are such as cannot fail to astonish
the world by reason of their ready availability and
vastness. The nations of the Eastern Continent,
accustomed to pursue the business of mining
in fields of comparatively narrow limits, will
be amazed when they come to learn through
an authoritative channel the richness and
extent of the mineral regions lying west of the
Rocky Mountains. Here, instead of a few small
districts, as with them, they will perceive that our
metalliferous ranges stretch over States and Terri-
tories, either of them larger than almost any king-
dom in Europe, our lodes being at the same time
heavier and the ores much richer than theirs. Here,
they will readily come to understand, are fields of
profitable industry broad enough to absorb the
cheap capital and give employment to all the sur-
plus labour of the Old World. Fields of industry,
too, already explored and opened up to the enter-
prise of all peoples, native and foreign alike—our
system making no distinction in this respect between
our own and alien citizens. Here the miner from
abroad can take up and hold claims, work and sell
the same or buy others, without divesting himself
of his nationality—enjoying, if he choose, all the
advantages without assuming any of the burdens
of citizenship. Here the labourer can com-
mand steady work at wages more than double
those he has been accustomed to receive ;
or, if he prefer, become his own employer,
with abundant chance of success. Here the
capitalist receives every encouragement and protec-
tion, his investments enjoying immunity from
annoying espionage and excessive taxation, and
being safe against the fluctuations to which most
other Governments are exposed. here there is no
danger of his being oppressed by arbitrary laws or
molested by official interference, as in many other
mining countries. With us he is not liable, as in
Mexico and South America, to be plundered by the
Government on the one hand and guerillas on the
other, nor subjected to a vexatious surveillance or
the payment of royalties and other exactions. All
these and many other advantages peculiar to our
mining policy will be made apparent, attaining to
wide notoriety through the pages of this report, an
immense edition of which, it is understood, will be
issued with a view to its broad and liberal distri-
bution. That great and lasting benefits will
through its agency accrue, not only to the mining
region, but to the country, and even the world at
large, cannot be doubted. When the extent to
which our own people have put their labour and,
means in mining properties, and in improvements

auxiliary to that interest is understood abro.rd, an
increased confidence in them as sources of perma-
nent and profitable investment cannot f ail to be
the result. Tie fact that we have in California
.done spent snore than thirty millions of dollars in
the erection of quartz mills and the opening of
mines, and almost an equal sum in the construction
of water ditches, flames, roads, &c., designed chi,fly
to promote their effectual development, cannot fail
to be accepted as evidence of our faith in their vast
and enduring richness. We have now in this Stree
420 quartz and cement mills carrying about 3,500
stamps, the whole erected at an aggregate cost of
more than six millions of dollars. About three-
fifths of these are propelled by steam and the balance
by water, a small number being driven by both
steam and water. Besides these mills there are
something over 400 arastras, the most of them being
connected with the mills for amalgamating purposes.
These quartz mills carry from five to sixty stamps
each, the number in most of them ranging from.
ten to thirty. The cost 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 millsin 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 from 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 importance, 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; hile 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-
counts 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 nrocess 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 Stat.e.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 Go per cent. of the
metal, while those at Austin, Twin 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 the
product will be increased in a corresponding ratio for
several years to come.
In Arizona operations in quartz continue to be
delayed by tile difficulty encountered in finding a
suitable process for relucing the suiphureted 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 of placers have