The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-26
 GOLD IN LOWER CALIFORNIA.
Famed Out From the Sand by Blow

Ing.
 No frost ever reaches the latitude of | the Cape region. Gold is everywhere, and quartz mines only await the discov- erer. At Santa Rosaiia, on the gulf coast, there are mines rich in copper. silver and gold, there was also smell | ter owned by French company which | employed 1000 men, every one of whom | has deserted and fled to the new plac- CTS at Sierra Pintada, which is about | 100 miles east. The usual route to the new placers is by steamer from san Diego to Ensenada, and thence by oc- casional schooners Ga line Of steamers will soon be placed upon the route), either to Assumption bay or Bay St,
 Roque From these points on the coast the Sierra Pintada placers are about 20
 miles, over a candy and ascending trail, wateress and obstructed by dense
 growths of chapperal. The mines cover a territory of 25 by 15 miles, Water it is said, can be found at a moderate depth, but not sufficient for mining. Drinking water is brought from the mountains, distant 20 miles, and sells for $2.50 to S5 a gallon The
 gold is almost pure and is worth $20
 an ounce. It is mined by taking pam
 full and blowing away the sand. la
 borious and wasteful process; but,
 notwithstanding, miners are reported
 as making from $10 to $40 a day. Two
 nuggets worth $2000, it is reported, had
 been found by two Mexican miners,
 and S15S0O0 was the amount received
 in one shipment at Ensenada in the
 latter part of May, the first shipment
 in bulk that has been reported, The
 mines, Of course, are on Mexican soil
 and are operated under Mexican laws,
 which are extremely liberal to' the
 miner. About 800 people have, up to
 June 1, left San Diego for the new
 placers. Many of the earlier explorers
 have returned for machinery and pro-
 visions, and have greatly stimulated
 the excitement by their favorable re-
 ports.
 These reporta have even penetrated
 so far as Alaska, and have had the
 effect of counter frritant, as 1t were,
 on some of the forlorn people who
 have been stranded there as victims
 of the Klondike gold fever. The con
 trast is too great between the icy rig
 ors Of Alaska, with it's interminab ble
 winter night and the sunny climate of
 California, where a miner hard pressed for luck can always fall back on the
 bounties of the country side all around
 him. Whereas, gold mining in the
 Klondike, as in some parts of the east ern ridge of the Rocky mountains, simply resolves itself into long drawn struggle of mans endurance against H.. .z15 T
 The present life of a placer miner in California, as in the days of '49, differs but slightly from that of any enter prising pioneer who has pushed for ward into the untrolden wilds of prin1- eval nature, where all is verdure and sunshine. Tn California all a man has to do, after he has staked out his claim, is chop down some of the trees growing thickly all around him and to build his rude log cabin in the clearing thus created. Unlike pioneer life on the plains, no precautions need be taken against sudden cyclones or wash outs, nor need the settler rack his brains with problems of irrigation and other devices rendered imperative in regions where water is scarce and ulItl tulil w ilCic iiic tillitatc i' so temperate and even and the land so fertile, there are so many other induce beyond the finding of gold alone that it has become the usual thing for the man who may have come as a mere gold seeker to remain as a settler, there to surround himself with fam fly and found a homestead. It is thus, in fact, that the state of Califor- mia has been built up from a compara- lively unproductive province of feudal Spanish haciendas into one of the richest and most fertile states of the Union. The first stages of this evolu- | tiOn, it will be remembered, were l achieved in California when the main | part of the state was still under Mexi- can rule. The American immigrants | who then shaped he destiniea of the | state were of the same breed as the | men of to-day who are at present | pouring into the rugged fastnesses of | the Sierra Pintada. Like the outlan ders of the Transvaal and Orange Free Slate, these men of initiative and dar- ng form the real marrow and bone of l ,lle new communities that spring up 'n the contested ground of these dis ant border states. It ia bound to be merely matter of time before they Ire recognized as the ruling spirits of he new countries reclaimed by them rom the semi-barbarous neglect and waste of their former owners
 IT greater discoveries of gold should oliow the astonishing finds already announced from Ensenada, it appears ',ore than likely that this region will find itself storm center of he same contesting passions that have rraycd Boer and Englishman against ne another, fomented. in this case by II the smoldering race prejudices that ave ever stood between those of Teu- onfc and Anglo-Saxon blood and those f Latin extraction or mongrel breed llready such pet names as Yankee 'gs" and Mexican greasers" are andied back and forth between the ival claimants to this fertile land, nd all that is needed is some power ul common motives of dissention to urn these left-handed compliments Str or;o