, 1862-12-06
THE WASHINGTON STATESMAN.
sATUaDAY MORNING, DEC. 6, 1862
Close Of the Mining Season.

year is about drawing to a close brief re-
view OF what has been developed within
that time may not be inappropriate That
it has been a year of unparalleled prosper
ity to the upper country we have evidences
on every hand to prove Where but short
season ago was a barren waste now sounds
the busy hum of almost every branch of in
dustry, and the country around which was
thought to be utterly useless for any pur-
pose whatever has proven Itself as abound
ing in resources, which ere another decade
will render it ten times more attractive
than its present position is to what it was
thee years ago. To have predicted then
that it would have reached its present ad-
vanccment in the brief period that has
elapsed would have been deemed chimeri-
cal; but knowing its vast goluen resour-
ces, which are as yet but just being devel-
oped, it requires no prophetic vision to pic
ture its future. Where we have hundreds
Of settlers today, we viii have thousands
next year, and tens of thousands in the
years that follow We have no reliable
data by which we can give the amount of
gold that has been taken from the mines
the past season; but the fact that it has
been shipped in amounts f.om $4,000 to
100000 by every steamer that has left
Portland for San Francisco during the past
SIX mOnths-saying nothing of that which
has been kept at home by miners-shows
that the amount has been enormous.
Of the new discoveries that have been
made we have the Powder River, j ohm Day,
Warren and Boise mines; the former pro-
nounced superior in richness and extent to
any previously discovered in this northern
gold feld-having but cne disadvantage,
the scarcity of water, and this disadvantage
will be entirely overcome another season by
the construct of bitches The Warren
and Boise mines are also rich, but whether
as extensive remains for the miners to de-
termine another year. One thing is certain,
these two camps are well supplied with
water fer hydraulic and sluicing purposes.
The only disadvantage miners will have to
contend with in these regions is the short
ness of the seasOn-the mines being stu
ated On the summit, or in basin, of the
highest range west of the Rocky noun
tains: and it will therefore be as late as
rext June before miners there can get to
work advantageously, and as early in the
fall as the first of November will close the
mining season. While these mines COM
prise the new discoveries of the season
from which benefits must arise especially
to the western slope, they do not constitute
the whole. To the east, we have the Bit
ter Root and Deer Lodge mines, near she
summit Of the. Rocky range, which must
dispense their benefits to the people CT
both sides-and 5eyold, on the eastern
side, are the Big Hole, Beaver Head and
Prickly Pear diggings, all discoveries of the
PR sent season, ard, relying on the account
given of them in another column, equaling
in richness those of the western slope
Connecting the new nth the older discOv-
cred dggings, the present season has re-
vealed that we have a chain of gold mines
from seven to ten hundred miles in width
extending from the head waters of the
Missouri to near the Cascade mountains,
and as far as we have any account of pros
pecting or of the country to the north, we
have confrma ion of the doctrine that this
golden vein is without eld
The old diggings Of Orc Fino, Orc Grande,
Elk City and Colvillo have been almost en-
tirely overlooked by the outsider durirg
the season, but they have continued to send
forth into the market steady stream of
gold and are as full of promise for a reason
able reward to the miner in the future as
they were Il year ago. It was predicted
then that a season would work the Orc
Fino mines out, but the miners who have
claims there are as sanguine of full sum
mer's work next year as they we're last
spring, and when thc frosts of another win
ter shall have driven them to lower latituGes
they will still leave a rich mining field be-
hind them. More gold has been taken
from the Colville mines during the past
summer than ever before, and the field of
operations on the Columbia has been ex-
tended from Fort Colville almost to Priest
Rapids We have seen sacks of dust
brought down from there the past season
such as were never seen during the palmi-
est days of the Pen dc reille mines. With
the old and the new, and the mines that
will undoubtedly be developed next season
we predict that larger amount of gold
will be taken from the mines of the upper
conntry than was ever extracted from the
diggings Of California in the same length
Of time.
Military.
Col Steinberger left for Fort Vancou-