The San Francisco call., 1910-08-07
Western Placer Mining

Placer mining, which went into
eclipse in California and on the PACT
fe coast generally With witt ea the apparent
gravels, is still yielding considerable
returns to the hydraulic plant and the
dredge, which have largely replaced
the pan and the rocker of early days.
In many western camps, Chinese, Mex
leans and others are still "gophering
out" and panning small amounts OF
gold.
Trinity river, California, for in
stance, on which placer mining has
been done for SO years, is reported by
the United States geological survey to
year, mostly from gravels of a grade
so low that the early miners passed
them them scornfully by. Ages ago gla-
away the surface of a great granite
mass that is scanned with gold veins,
and depositing its fragments in the
wash" Frost and weather decomposed
this wash, reducing its particles and
freeing the gold they carried. Then
came water, working and reworking,
carrying away the lighter parts and
concentrating the heavier gold at the
bottom, where the miner gathers it.
In the Randsburg district. farther
south, at the borders of the Mohave
desert, where there were neither gla-
ciers nor frost, the gold remains chiefly
in the rocks where it was first deposit
ed by heated solutions of vapors that
earth Here the stamp mill has been
set up instead OF the dredge and the
hydraulic nozzle and has pounded out
$4,000, 900 or s10,000,000 in gold The
mines of this district produced $685.
$50 in 1908. The placers are few and
poor. and for lack of water are worked
by dry ocesses-fanning and the
like, yielding slender returns to a few
men.
Still farther southeast. near Greater
vile, Ariz. lies another old camp that
nfw,e Cnr1 4fa A Co. -aI- Z o q
the placers at this camp were being
worked with water carried four miles
on burro back and were rich enough
to pay for it. In 1909 a few Mexicans
were panning in a gulch. and an AM
erican was operating a dry washer
To the north, in Oregon, in the
glacier gravels were deposited in the
valleys of an ancient river system,
where they were cut and carved by a
new river system imposed upon the
first one. So short time has elapsed
since the gravels were ground down
by the glaciers that the streams have
not had time to concentrate Them
greatly. but they have been mined
since 1853 and are still being worked
by dredging.-Santa Rosa Press
Democrat.
First National Copper
virtually the Balaklala copper COM
pany of Coram, cleared s167,O11 the
first six months of this year. according
to a financial report in Boston trade
journal. In that period 6,746,242
pounds of copper was produced, to-
gether with 341.134 ounces of silver
and 1910 ounces of gold. The copper
was sold around 121s cents a pound
and cost 90 cents a pound to produce
it during the first three months of the
year, and / cents a pound in the sec
ond quarter. The mine, as is well
known, contains about the largest
body of low grade copper ore in the
world.
Sovereign Ledge
Some work has been done on the
ledge recently discovered on the
Sovereign ground in Ladies canyon.
and the more the vein is explored the
better it looks. At last reports a hole
had been put down some seven or
eight feet, which exposed a strong
ledge five feet wide. The ore while
not high grade assays $11 per ton in
gold, "a ounces in lead and "a ounces
in silver This showing practically on
the surface is most encoura girg.-
Downieville Messenger.
Rowland Flat
That there is a great interest in
Sierra county mines is shown by the
glowing reports of the mining activi-
ties in that section by G.. w. Cox. a
prominent resident of Berkeley, who is
heavily interested in Sierra county
mining and irrigation ventures.