Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1851-01-04

The COLLABORATING QUARTZ.
FROM coLToss "THREE TEARS IN CALIFORNIA"
The Surface Gold in CALIFORNIA will in few
years be measurably exhausted; the occasional
discovery of new deposites cannot long postpone
such result; nor will it be delayed for any great
number OF years, by any more scientific and thorough
method of securing the California will prove no
exception in these respects other sections Of the gsbe where
surface gold has been found The great question is Will
her mountains be exhausted with her streams and valleys
Will her rock gold give out with her auval deposes The
godbearng quartz is the heeanchor at which the whole
argosy rides this parts your golden craft goes fragments
When an old Sonoranan told me in the mines that the
quartz oeaed out the gold, all the young around
laughed at the old mans stupidity and must say the per-
spr part of the business rather staggered my credu,
which has compass where there are no laws guide
one. But the old digger nearer the truth than many
who have elcitous which express their heo
RES Though the gold may from the quartz
dps from rock, yet there, and often beads from the
surface like tear that has lost its way among the dmpes Of
adys cheek In other instances shows itself only in fine
veins; and in others still wholly concealed from the naked
eye, and even eludes the optical instruments but when
duced to powder with the quartz flies the embrace Of quick
silver and takes virgin shape, massive and rich. The spe
cmens which have been subjected to experiment. have
gathered at different points, in the foo, range Of
the Sierra Nevada and deemed only fair average the
yield that may be derived from the quartz.
The gold rocks Of Georgia and Virginia yield,
age less than half the pound and yet the profits
sufficient justify deep mining What then must be the
profits Of working rock which lies the surface and
which yields dollar to the pound The result stag
gers creduity; and seek refuge from the weakness of
faith in the reasonable persuasion that the specimens
tested richer than the average of the veins and quaries
which remain And yet the poorest specimen, which the
casual blow of the sedge has knocked from the sunt peak
has seemingly gold in its shadow, than the rock
housled from its mine in Virginia beneath forty fathoms Of
darkness The only real defence for ncreduy lies in
the presumption that the goldbeang quartz like the
face depostes has its confined localities And yet Mr..
Wright member of Congress from California, who has
aversed the slopes of the Sierra, sangune in the opinion
that the gold bearing quartz occupies broad continuous vein
through the entire extent of the foot range: and in this
opinion the Hon. T. Butler King in his lucid report coin
cides Still such wide departure in nature from all her
known laws, caprcious impulses, in the distribution Of
gold leaps beyond my belief In other part Of her wide
domain has she deposited in the quartz rock proportion Of
gold more than sufficient barely compensate the hardy
miner and it is difficult to believe that with all her asc
ton for California she has been prodigal Of her gifts 1t
|
love of the patriarch his favorite child #
When simple swain q necromancer break cocoa
nut shell and let fly half dozen canary birds, he remarked
there was doubt the young birds Matched in the
coanut but what puzzled him to know how the old bird
could get lay the eggs But deeper puzzle with
is that each and every this California tree should
have nest Of canaries in it. And yet with all these dog
ged doubts and dismal dsuasves were going to invest in
California speculation, my inkings would turn strongly to
quartz and s,ampers. ",
But would send out no machinery which should have
piece in it weighing seventy eighty pounds other
be taken through the goge and over the activities to
the lofty sleeps where the quartz exists. The machinery
which be readily taken to the mines in Virginia would
cost fortune in its transportation to the proper localities in
California. The heaviest capitalist would find himself
swamped before he got work. Every piece must be taken
over elevations where hardly draw himself up,
and where his life is often suspended the strength of the
bres which Irvine the bush to the assures of the rock
should be light to render its removal any and
more productive locality practicable, without involving ruin
GUS expense. machine welding the force Of man,
and stamping the spot will be productive than
forty horse power working distance All the transport
aon must be done by hand for animal subss among
the sleeps the quartz prevail Watch the eagle he
scars to his high cliff with whing snake in his beak, and
then seize your light machinery and pursue his track But
chained to heavy engine, you would make about much
back of mastodon or whale. wi. 81. II"