The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-16 00:00:00

GOLD MINING 1N CALIFORNL4.

Colonel Buel, a gentleman well known in the
mining States and Territories, will shortly arrive in
Europe with every specimen of ore, and full in-
formation to open offices in the large cities, where
complete intelligence of the most celebrated districts
will be collected. He is deeply interested in the
mines of Nevada, and was deputed to furnish infor-
mation at the Paris Exhibition of the nature of the
mineral wealth of that country. The letter from
Austin, Nevada, to the Wall-street Journal, which
we publish, gives late intelligence of the progress of
mining in that district of the State. No better proof
could be afforded of the deplorable natare of the
financial collapse which has lately crushed enter-
prise in Great Britain than the apathy with which
such unusual opportunities for investment as those
now opened in the mining districts of the Pacific
States have been received. We believe a more
splendid prospect of realising large returns on small
expenditures has never before been offered than
that now opening in these mines. On the first dis-
covery of auriferous soil in California and Australia
men acted on strong impulse, but in blind ignorance.
Many profited largely and many fell victims to their
own want of prudence. Since then gold and silver
mining in these new countries has been reduced to a
science, and where the metals actually exist in paying
quantities thereturn is as sure as that from deposits of
coal or salt. Among the mines offered to the British
public is one termed the Lincoln Gold Company in
Placer County, five miles from the town of Lincoln,
which stands at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, about
thirty miles from Sacramento. The county is one
of extraordinary wealth, second indeed to none in
California. The gold is there obtained from a de-
composed slate, caused, as Mr. Attwood says, by
eruptive rocks, of which small dykes are found tra.
versing the deposits, and are rich in gold, besides
containing copper, iron pyrites, and zinc blende, and
associated with the copper ore are small quantities
of native silver. A writer in the San Francisco
Mining and Scientific Press, on the formation, dis-
tribution, and age of igneous rocks, says :

"The earlier stratified rocks seem to have derived their
distinctive character flora the igneous rocks erupted during
the period of their formation. Thus, during the eruptive
era of granite, gneiss was deposited ; during the orruption
of feldspathic granite, clay slates and sandy shales formed,
and during the eruptive era of the magnesian rocks, altered
serpentine, greenstone, and hornblende slates were de-
posited. Tho vast deposits of quartz gravel hundreds
of feet in thickness at the base of the Sierra Ne-
vada, and covering scores of square miles, and also
those vast deposts flanking the summit, and ex-
tending from the Feather to the Merced rivers, a dis-
tance of two hundred miles, and the vast deposits of dis-
integrated quartz stained with the oxides of metals, which
are now cemented into solid rock, may be satisfactorily
accounted for on the hypOthesis that metalliferous quartz,
similar in composition with that found is veins, was once
erupted in vast quantities. A.nd if it be really the truth
that ores were erupted in such enormous quantities, as
these immense deposits would seem to indicate, it follows
that placers are more widely distributed, and the ores of
the useful metals enter more largely into the stratified
rocks than has hitherto boon supposed. As we further
pursue this subject, we shall learn that such deposits of
the ores of silver, lead, mercury, copper, and iron do exist."

The discoveries each day as the miners tunnel
through the lodes in rich districts show that it is
almost impossible to exaggerate the wealth of some
of these localities. The latest news from Placer
County tells of such a find :•

"Auburn Stars and Stripes, September 25th :—M‘Gonigle
and Co., in running a tunnel, run across a singular black
formation, which, at the time, was rejected. Oa close in-
spection specimens of this rejected black stuff exhibited,
to use a miner's expression, 'slathers' of geld. Investi-
gations that followed showed that the black stuff consti-
tuted a regular and well-defined lodge of gold-bearing sili-
cate, which has been traced, up to the present time, a dis-
tance of 600 feet, and which, at the point where they are
now working, is fully seven feet in thickness. The course
of this ledge or streak, from the point of discovery as far
as traced, is about N. 65 dog. W. It is as easily worked
as the softest slate, and after exposure to the air for a short
time is as easily pulverised as dry eay. Large portions
of it are richly studded with gold, and a considerable por-
tion will yield $1 por pound ! Several tons have already
been taken out, and it is reported that it grows richer as
they go down."

The Lincoln Gold Company works material of
this soft nature ; and should it increase to anything
like the wealth-of gold developed in the mine above
reported, the yield will many times exceed the cal-
culations on which the reports are grounded. The
coat of working such material is 4s. per ton, and
the returns of the actual working were nearly £2
per ton of ore treated. Placer County is a fine
agricultural district, with a good climate, plenty of
wood and water, and abundance of that best of
Asiatic labour, the Chinese. Lincoln is a town 11
miles from Junction, which is 18 miles from Sacra-
mento. The California Central and Yuba Rail-
ways are complete to Marysville, from which line
this mine is five miles distant. It possesses, there-
fore, admirable facilities for carriage, having a good
road to the station at the town of Lincoln. Sacra-
mento is now connected by steam with San Fran-
cisco, distant 125 miles ; but the railway is nearly
complete from the State capital to Valejo, when
Lincoln may be reached from San Francisco in six
hours.

Bartlett and Chapman, in their " Investment
Circular and Financial Record," say—

"We have every confidence is these statements, and,
believing that the company will give gratifying and rich
returns to the proprietary, wo recommend our friends to
make early application for shares. The risk is certainly
small and known, and the returns will probably be very
good, because the calculations are based on a lower yield
than we think will be realised, but the operations will
certainly prove very remunerative. It is not our practice
to recommend remote speculations, and the present is the
first case in which we have advised our friends to take
an interest in gold mining ; but the conditions which we
have described place this enterprise on perfectly safe
ground."

The reports of the English engineer, Mr. T.
Arthur Phillips, and Mr. M. Attwood are favour-
able in the highest degree. The latter observes :

" I have not examined any mine in California of which
I think more highly than that of the Harpeuding ; and I
feel greater confidence in recommending its purchase than
I did even in the case of the Eureka Mine, at Grass
Valley, which was purchased on my recommendation, and
has since yielded a net profit of £70,000 per annum."
The terms on which this mine is offered to the
public by the vendors are stated in the prospectus,
to which we refer our readers.

_ ~

NEW YORK MARKETS.

(From the Correspondent of the Anglo-American 7 ivies.)
NEW YORK, Nov. 1.

There is no change to report in the Money Market,
which remains easy at 6 per cent. for choice names, with
exceptions at 5 and 7 per cent. ; but second-class paper is
difficult to dispose of. The failure of the Royal Bank of
Liverpool, which was first notified as having liabilities of
£1,500,000, is now reported at £1,650,000, with assets con-
siderably below that sum, and consequently with little
chance of resuscitation. The Commercial Bank of Canada
has stopped with a paid-up capital of $4,000,000. They
had blocked up their capital in railroads, particularly to
the Detroit and Milwaukee, and the Great 'Western of
Canada. Buchanan, Harris, and Co. owed a heavy balance
to the bank, and their suspension had an injurious effect.
Mr. King, of the Bank of Montreal, has been blamed for
Lis action in the matter. The Montreal papers of the 30th
ult. contain a statement signed by William Workman,
President of the City Bank, Montreal ; J. G. Worts, J. P.,
Bank cf Toronto ; and J. Woodside, cashier, Royal
Canadian Bank, strongly commenting on the course taken
by the Bank of Montreal. The respectable New York
shipping house of Robert L. Taylor has suspended, with
liabilities said to amount to $1,000,000. The Washington
Marine Insurance Company was ordered into liquidation,
Oct. 26, with liabilities of $838,048, and assets $97,660!
This concern was established in 1859, and it is now stated
that it was never on a secure foundation, and would
last year have collapsed, as it lost over 25 per cent.
of its capital, had not the stockholders volunteered
a loan of $157,000. Southwick, Sheble, and Company,
wool merchants, Philadelphia; Charles P. Bayard, a
stockbroker, of the same city ; Fishouse, in Commerce-
street, Boston ; a provisioner, named Michaels, of Chicago,
who has bolted to Canada, leaving debts for $70,000,
have all failed. Tho proprietors of the Commercial Bank
of Canada decided to resume business, if possible, by
amalgamating with some other banking institution, apply-
ing to the Legislature for the necessary powers. Messrs.

Quigley Brothers, who suspended last January, have settled
with their creditors, and been reinstated as mem hers of the
New York Stock Exchange. The affairs of the Pacific
Mail have excited much attention, and the stockholders
are generally desirous both of investigating the manage-
ment and changing the officials. Between those
who desire to effezt this and the officials of the com-
pany a fight is proceeding. The opposition sent
out a circular soliciting proxies, speaking pretty clearly
of the management, as the following extract shows :
" A largo number of influential stockholders believe that
the present management of the affairs of the company is
very injudicious and extravagant, and that the welfare of
the company and of the stockholders, demands a change
of directors." They allude to the commission of 5 per
cent. in gold on all freights earned by the company to
Wells, Fargo, and Co.— to the brokerage of 5 per cent. to
the firm chartering their coal vessels to the Pacific
coast—to the salary of $25,000 in gold to the President,
and several other items. A Marine Insurance Company,
to be styled the Great Republic, of which B. C. Morris
is proposed as President, is being successfully organised.
Within a few.months the Columbian, Neptune, Harmony,
Washington, and Anchor Marine Insurance Companies
have been dissolved, and the vacancies leave an opening
for the new one. Gold has been falling, but to-day it is
firmer, fluctuating between 1401 to 141. The Government
has commenced the large coin disbursements due as inte-
rest on the three first series of 5-20's. As on the end of
the year $18,000,000 interest will also fall due, added to
which $7,000,000 of the Mexican war loan has to be paid,
the coin disbursements within two months will reach
$50,000,000. Commissioner Rollins has decided that the
deposit tickets used in gold operations are not subject to
a stamp-tax as checks or contracts. This decision is im-
portant to those who deal in gold. Silver is at 41 to 51
cents below gold ; Mexican dollars 1021 to 103 in gold.
Government stocks are firm, but there is no great amount
of business transacted. State stocks are also firm,
and Tennessee in special demand ; but railway stocks
are dull. Mining stocks are also dull, and little business
doing. The fall has been continuous, and has now reached
a point that ought to bring in buyers. The most active
and rising stocks are those of the petroleum companies,;
which seem to be taken as sound and healthy investments
and the following for the railroad and miscellaneous stocks;:
New York Central 1121, Erie72l, Hudson 1251, Reading
971, Michigan, Southern, and Northern Indiana 781, Illinois
Central 1231, Cleveland and Pittsburg 811, North-west
471, North-Western Preferred 651, Canton 441, Rock Island
961, Cleveland and Toledo 1041, Fort Wayne 971, Pacific
Mail 1451, Quicksilver 181, Western Union Telegraph 331,
Mariposa Preferred 15, Ohio and Mississippi Certificates
25, Boston Water Power —, Cumberland 25.