The Port Gibson herald, and correspondent., 1851-03-07
From the Nashville Republican Banner.
Will not California Become a Slave
Country?

We invite attention TO the interesting sug
gestions of an intelligent correspondent below
and to some extracts from the London Quarterly
Review, which follow:
To Gen. Zillicofer:
Inland you the review upon Siberia and Cali
fornia, in proof Of the views. 1st, That surface
mining being in rapid course of exhaustion
the sole reliance will shortly be upon the vein
stone or quartz I'd. That The results to be ex-
pected from working that are unpromising; mas
much as the almost uniform experience in re-
gard to the vein stone is that its richness dimin.
ishes as yon descend from the surface, TO which,
as the miners say, the gold s.sweats out;" and
Sd. That the hazards in miningit being SO
great individual, or associated free labor will be
unequal to the risks of its developments. 4lh
That this last has been already made manifest
by the now rapid-Tefdr of emigration from that
country. 9th, That, in consequence, California
will, in few years be compelled TO the abandon
ment OF her mines Cher sole dependency or a
repeal of the clause in her constitution probib-
ting slaverY-as the Review makes II manifest
that in no country has mining been successfully
conducted in the rock, for any considerable time
but by capitalists conducting it by the use oi
COMPULSORY labor Hence the continued success
Of the Gar in the Ural; for the obvious reason
that such labor may be continually and regularly
applied to the consummation of far aggre-
gaze result, paying the capitalist aoeH upon the
aggregate; whereas the heavy expense and the
success, per capita, make it too hazardous for
free operatives to risk or engage in without
means, and expecting recompense from the
result of their individual labor merely. Mr.. A
working 100 slaves with twenty-five thousand
dollars in machinery, receiving from 30 Of his
laborers, on an average, S5 per day Throwing
off Sundays,) or SIS, ,250, could afford to receive
from the other 80 not more than 30 cts. per day,
or S7,525. The aggregate result of the labor
Of the hundred hands being S85.775, enables
the capitalist who works them TO realize, after
all expenses. large profit; whereas, the work
being let to individual free labor5not only would
the 80 of the operatives who failed to make ex-
.penses be excluded from the work; but the olhel
80 would likewise, not merely from their inabiI
ity to take The risks, but from their want Of capi
tai 10 buy the expensive machinery indispensable
TO any progress in the work at all.
Does not the above suggest the precipitancs
nf the slave States in making serious issues fol
being excluded from california, inasmneh as il
either be abandonded, or shortly fall into theil
own Idfu>f
gTThe follwing are extracts from the able
Review referred to by our correspondent.
Miners write few histories. but the result q
their experiments in the solid rock has beer
handed down TO as in Spanish proverb, thai he
who mines for gold viii be ruined proserS;
may occasionally regulate the wary, but do no
control the speculative .zest Of man. 1t is, in
deed, quite natural thai he who has filed hi;
pockets with gold from the gravel on the slope.
of bill. and who, tracing the ore up to the pa
rent rock, sees there veinestone richly mpreg
mated with gold at The surface should Try to fol-
low it 6ownwards, just as he wouldfoIlow strings
Of other ores. To moderate this zeal OF tIls
| tyro, we may first advert 10 trial which was
made recently, and uHder every possible favor
ing circumstances Amidst the rich silver mine:
of the central region Of aiexico very fine out
crops of gold veins were found upon the surface
lof the hills Of sporpbyry which penetrate ths
schist II GaudaIupe Y CalTos near Durango at ,