The San Francisco call., 1899-06-12


from Fresno County to Nevada Coun-
ty, along the Sierra Nevada foothill
region has been recently brought into
prominence by the copper boom, and now,
after long years of almost total neglect,
1t is the scene of a great deal of pros
| pecting, of small development operations
in many copper claims and of much bond
| ing and buying of prospects and slightly
| developed mines. The biggest new opera
tions of the present in California are near
! Copper City in the great copper belt of
| Shasta County, and a number of copper
| prospects are being exploited in Plumas
and adjoining northeastern counties but
copper prospects, good and good-for- moth
| ing, are more numerous along the Foot
! hill copper belt. Here several mines are
| lately being worked in a small way, the
ore being shipped to Selbys
Herbert Lang has recently made a
study of CALIFORNIA; copper regions, and
! he published an interesting paper on the
! toothill copper belt in the New York
Mining and Metallurgica Journal This
| belt lies west of the Mother Lode and
! lOWer down and consists of series of COM
pleX veins, bearing gold, silver, zinc and
other copper minerals" in various de-
| grees. The copper is generally found be-
low the zone of oxidation. The widths
! or the veins, of course, vary greatly. In
| the Shasta County belt the ore occurs
rather In larger lenses. The deposit is
very wide at Copperopolis. At the Cop
per King mine, recently developed in
! FRESNO County, it is about fifteen feet
! and bears Z per cent of copper. At the
/ Spencevllle mine in Nevada County it is
Iorty 1eet and per cent copper. In the
Satellite at Camp Seco there is thirty
! feet of pay ore
Thousands of locations have at one
time and another been taken upon the
| copper belt and much work done" says
! MT. Lang, A dozen mines of Importance
nave been developed, and there are as
many more which give promise of becom-
| ing such. The heaviest producers in past
times have been those at Copperopolis
and Camp Seco, in Calaveras County, and
/ SpenceVille, in Nevada County, which
have been the scenes of extensive and at
! times lucrative operations. Back in the
/ sixties, when the first copper excitement
ragged in this State, metallurgical pro-
! cesses were introduced for the treatment
| of the ores, and the first Water-jaCket fur
naces that we have certain and accurate
/ records of were built to smelt the ores of
! the copper belt. The remains of several
| OF these old plants are still in existence,
! though of course out of use. On the bank
! of the MOkelumne, at Camp Seco, the GU
riouS traveller may see and examine the
relics OF one OF the first attempts at blast
| furnace smelling III the United States
most remarkable for the scarcity of Stag
and the abundance of 'sows' produced
He describes four stages of the working
/ of the mines in this belt in the past. In
| the initial stage of exploration and de-
velopment, in the sixties, large quantities
! of rich oxides and Suphides were shipped
| to foreign smeterS or reduced in small,
rude and uncertain furnaces About 1870
/ copper fell half in price, and work stop
| ped. Beginning several years later Few
| mines were worked again for few years
/ by the teaching process. Inc ores were
| roasted in heaps for months and then
/ treated by water, which partially leach
/ ed out the Sulphates, which were precipl-
tated on scrap iron, producing copper ce-
ment Operations ceased, leaving great
! heaps of ore which have been leached in
small way for years Ten years ago
/ smelling was tried again at COpperopO-
/ lis and at Camp Seco Copperopois mines
/ We're worked on a large scale. But Op-
erations were stopped in d few months,
and have never been renewed Mr.. Lang
! explains the failure by the lmpertectlOn
/ of methods. The product was not sufft-
! ciently concentrated. The roasting and
smelling produced matte only 40 per cent
/ copper, and shipping rates to the coast
were high He does not note another of
/ the reasons-the high cost of coke and
coal at the smelter. He estimates that
altogether 500 coo tons of ore were mined,
yielding, perhaps, $4,000 tons of metal. In
1898 the Mountain Copper Company of
Shasta County mined $4,000 tons of ore.
Now the fourth period has come, with
| feverish efforts to buy and sell properties,
and a general exploitation of this copper
! belt. Scores of claims are being worked
again, and many worthless properties
/ are being sold If the copper demand
/ long maintains its present relation to
/ supply a number of important producing
mines and Smelters will unqueStiOnably
/ be seen along this belt
/ The annual meeting of the American In
! stitute of Mining Engineers to be held in
! San Francisco will begin it's session on
September 20, according to adVices from
Secretary Rossiter w. Raymond to E.
/ II. Benjamin. secretary of the California
Miners Association Mr.. Benjamin and
/ the appointed committees of the assOcia-
/ tion have well in hand the arrangements
/ that Will make this session probably the
most interesting and profitable one the
institute has ever held. The event will
! of course, be of large Importance to the
! mining industry of the State in many
! ways, and the appeals for financial and
! other cooperation which will be made
! Will deserve unstinted response. The min
! ing resources of the State will receive
large advertisement through the visit of
| so many of the representative mining
men of the United States and through
! what is written of their stay in the city
and their wide tours for observation.
Secretary Benjamin is preparing the
| finest exposition of the mineral resources
duced. 1t will be superbly illustrated,
printed and bound and will describe the
and by counties. Advertising will help
| defray the cost. 1t will be distributed
gratis to members of the institute and to
others will be sold for probably $5.
Secretary Benjamin. with legal advice,
/ has prepared on behalf of the association
! form of location notice, soon to be
]
! hopes will become the recognized form
! for use throughout the State AS each
mining district may now prescribe forms
! of notice not inconsistent with the Fed
! eral law. a uniform style of notice is
very important.
| The Mokelumne River is undoubtedly
one of the gold-bearing streams of the
auriferous region whose beds hold buried
! and submerged unworked gravel which
! it will pay to work by skillfuI dredging
| on some plan. A Mr.. Davis has invented
a machine, d plan and a scheme to get at
! some of its old gravel bearing 'S2 to s.
/ yard and all of these inventions seem
/ new and remarkable developments in the
| mining world TO say the least. He tells
! the Stockton Mail about it, and as likely
| as not it is all and all right. His new
dredger as planned, consists of an ap
| paratus, either in a boat or on plat
! form on land, for subterranean hydraulic
| work A large hole is sunk in the ground
! by it. and through pipes two streams of
water are forced with great velocity.
! One of the streams loosens and tears up
! the ground at the bottom of the hole, and
| the other brings up the sand and debris.
! The gold is not brought to the surface
with the sand, as might be supposed, but
! is washed free from it by means of a de-
| vice at the lower end of the pipes and
collects in a pan there"
The scene of operations is to be near
! Wallace, on the San Joaquin side of the
! IL, JN1l 5c haIf tIo l.