monuments of their folly have discouraged those who otherwise would have invested in quartz mining. Another cause for the stagnation of mining on this lode is the improvident manner in which work has been carried on, resulting in the exhaustion of the surface deposits, which were worked by open cuts at various places down to the water-line, when operations ceased until shafts could be sunk and hoisting-works and pumping-machinery erected, the owners of the ground having committed the common error of failing to keep their ground developed in advance of their milling capacity. Perhaps a third reason may be found in the superior attractiveness of the mines of the neighboring State of Nevada, where fortunes are made (and lost) with greater rapidity in mining operations.

The amount of ore crushed by mills on the Mother lode has been less for this year than for several years past. This is owing to a combination of circumstances not likely to occur again. The Mariposa estate, containing several of the most productive mines, has been involved in a litigation which has temporarily suspended operations. An unexampled drought prevailing over the State has closed many mills for want of water, and others are only running half their stamps. These claims are supplying ore far in excess of their present means of crushing. In addition to this a "strike" took place during the month of April, in Amador County, and the Oneida, Keystone, Amador, and other leading mines were closed for a period of nearly three months, resulting in a loss to the owners of nearly $2,000,000. This latter difficulty has now been adjusted, and the present season promises to give an ample supply of rain.

The prospects for the future are encouraging. At all points where great depth has been attained there has been a steady improvement in the quantity and quality of the rock. At Sutter Creek, the Amador mine has attained a depth of 1,300 feet, disclosing a vein of from 12 to 14 feet in width. The quality of the quartz here has improved with each successive level below a depth of 500 feet. At the Oneida, Keystone, and other deep mines, the same encouraging features are met with, while many claims heretofore partially opened are now erecting mills and powerful hoisting works. The development of the Paloma mine, owned by ex-Senator Gwin, near Mokelumne Hill, and of the Angel's Quartz Mining Company's mine at Angel's Camp, both of which, at lowest levels-400 to 500 feet-have opened rich and extensive zones, is exerting a strong beneficial influence on quartz mining, which is already being felt in the investment of home capital in this heretofore neglected branch of business.

Quartz veins in the granite belt.-In addition to the Mother lode, this region possesses other quartz mines which are yielding large amounts of gold. At an elevation of 4,000 feet, in the Sierras, an extensive series of veins has been opened in the granites, the most noted of which is the Confidence, sixteen miles east of Sonora, Tuolumne County, a mine scarcely known outside of Tuolumne County, yet producing, with forty stamps, from $30,000 to $40,000 monthly. Other claims of like characteristics are being developed to the north and south of the Confidence, but whether they belong to the same system, of which there is a strong probability, remains to be demonstrated. Among these is a recent discovery in the upper part of Calaveras County. The veins here present many striking features of interest. Like many of the most noted veins of California, they occur in fissures which have been opened in the earth's crust by the rending asunder of the rock formation across its stratification. The country rock is slate. This contains nu

merous dikes of traps, porphyritic green-stone, etc., occupying fissures which run transversely across the slate. There are several parallel fissures, nearly vertical, having a course of N. 40° E., with very solid and smooth walls, and from 5 to 12 feet wide. In these occur the quartz veins, the quartz occupying only a portion of the space, (3 to 9 feet,) the balance being filled by an accompanying vein matter differing from the country rock, and not found outside of the fissure walls. The whole of this vein matter is full of base metals, particularly the sulphurets of iron, deposited in a way that indicates a previous state of solution or possibly vapor; for besides being disseminated throughout the body of the rock, the faces of broken pieces, which had no seams visible to the eye, are often found coated with particles of metal, forming flakes which can be removed with a knife-blade. All of this material contains some gold, but the pay rock proper occurs in chutes of a peculiar kind of quartz, which is held by many of the miners to belong to the true chimneys of the precious metals. It is so thoroughly impregnated with the various base metals, especially the sulphurets of iron, lead, and zinc, that not an ounce of it can be found destitute of these. The gold is diffused in fine particles through the ore, as if an element of its composition. The ore of these lodes is of high grade.

Further west, in Calaveras County, we find the quartz mines of Railroad Flat and West Point, and in Amador County a group of promising mines, near Volcano. At these places hundreds of veins exist, yielding high-grade rock, but few of which are developed below the water-line. The future of these districts depends on the development of a few claims, considered as representative mines, on which work is now being prosecuted with the best indications of success. The discovery of pay rock in a mine, such as the Petticoat at Railroad Flat, on which a deep shaft is being, sunk, will have a tendency to open more than fifty claims in the same vicinity.

Gravel mining.-The gold-bearing gravel deposits of the southern mines are not as extensive in area and depth as those of the central mining region, (described in my report of 1871,) neither is the topography of the country so favorable for the opening and draining of ground; but, on the other hand, the gravel will yield a larger amount of gold per cubic yard. This opinion is based on personal observation, and on the carefully prepared tables furnished by Mr. J. Rathgeb, of San Andreas, which will be found in this report.

The modes of occurrence of gravel deposits here are various. They occur, first, in well-defined ancient river channels, under a capping of lava which has filled the rivers of past ages; second, in isolated mounds or hillocks, evidently the remains of such channels, which, being unprotected by a covering of lava, have been broken up by the action of air and water; third, in basins or flats which have received and held the wash of these disintegrating river beds; and, fourth, in low, rolling hills, near the base of the Sierras, and beyond the reach of the lava flow. The richest deposits have been found on the flats on the east side of Table Mountain, at places where bars evidently existed in the ancient river, and the lava flow sought the deep channel, forming an elbow or curve on which the lava crust was very thin, or sometimes entirely denuded.

Table Mountain.-The most remarkable feature in the landscape of the southern counties is the great Table Mountain. This is a flow of basaltic lava covering an ancient river bed several hundred feet higher than the modern river-the Stanislaus-by which it is crossed through deep cañons at two points-Abby's Ferry and Byrne's Ferry. The basaltic

matter has a width of from 1,700 to 2,000 feet, and a thickness of about 150 feet; its elevation at Jamestown is about 500 feet above the surrounding country. Beneath this capping of lava is a stratification of sandstone sixty to one hundred feet in thickness; and underneath this, on the bed-rock of the ancient river, is found the cemented gravel from one to five feet in thickness, and in some localities exceedingly rich in gold. The distinctive tabular appearance of the mountain can be traced from Murphy's, in Calaveras County, where it has an altitude above sea-level of about 3,000 feet, to Knight's Ferry, Stanislaus County, where it is lost in the foot-hills of the Sierras on the eastern border of the San Joaquin Valley, a distance of thirty-six miles. At its upper end it is much broken up, but in Tuolumne County, below Abby's Ferry, conBelow tinuous stretches of many miles occur with a gentle grade. Byrne's Ferry, where it is again cut by the Stanislaus, it is much broken, and is finally lost in the foot-hills.

Prof. J. D. Whitney, in his General Geology of California, (vol. 1,) says of this mountain :

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On approaching Table Mountain and examining the material of which it is composed, and the position which it occupies, it is seen at once that it is a vast lava flow, of which the upper surface remains very nearly at the level and with the form which it originally had at the time of its consolidation, while its edges and the surrounding country have been denuded and washed away, so that the topography of the region is entirely different from what it once was-in fact, it is almost the reverse of it. No one can deny that a stream of melted lava, running for forty miles down the slope of the Sierra, must have sought and found a depression or valley in which to flow, for it is impossible that it should have maintained, for any distance, a position on the crest of a ridge. Nor could the valley of the Stanislaus, now two thousand feet deep, have existed at that time, for this flow of lava is clearly seen to have crossed it at Abby's Ferry. The whole must, therefore, have undergone an entire change since the eruption took place, during which this mass of lava was poured out. The fact that the lava flow of Table Mountain took place in a pre-existing valley is not only capable of being demonstrated on general principles, but is confirmed by what has been shown, by numerous excavations beneath it, to be the character of the formation on which it rests. Professor Whitney estimates the amount of denudation which has taken place during the period since this lava flow took its present position at not less than three or four thousand feet of vertical height. The excessive hardness of the basaltic capping of the mountain has protected it from any appreciable amount of denudation and erosion. This is manifested by the scarcity of vegetation on its summit, where there is no soil of sufficient depth to support more than a few stunted shrubs.

The discovery of the auriferous character of the bed of this ancient river was made accidentally by some placer-miners working in the vicinity of Shaw's Flat, in 1854, at a point near the rim rock of the channel where the lava capping had been denuded. In the excitement which followed almost the entire length of the mountain was located, and hundreds of tunnels run to strike the channel. From the best data at our disposal we estimate the total length of tunnels run in this mountain at forty thousand feet, at a cost of not less than $800,000. The number of feet located was between sixty thousand and eighty thousand, many of these locations being parallel on the supposition that there were two channels. This idea probably originated from the fact that the river frequently changed its channel, as do modern streams. At the present time the wild spirit of speculation, which induced the expenditure of such large sums in running tunnels, has subsided, and mining is only carried on at a few localities, but generally with handsome returns. Some details of present mining operations in this mountain will be found in the description of Hughes's claim, (formerly Maine Boy's tunnel,) and the ground of the Table Mountain Tunnel Company, under the heading of "Tuolumne County."

Gravel deposits in the foot hills.-The La Grange Ditch Company.-Extensive auriferous gravel-beds, apparently of secondary deposition, are found in the low rolling foot-hills of all the southern counties, but generally in localities remote from water, and in consequence their development has been retarded. During the past year thousands of acres of ground of this character have been purchased and located by San Francisco capitalists, and vast projects are under way for bringing water to them by tapping the rivers high up in the mountains. Of this character is the enterprise known as the "La Grange Ditch Company," which is one of many having like objects. This company own between four and five thousand feet frontage on the Tuolumne River, near the town of La Grange, Stanislaus County, formerly known as French Bar, their ground running back from the river a distance varying from one-half mile to one mile. The bed-rock lies at a sufficient height above the Tuolumne River to make a tunnel necessary for opening their ground. The gravel is soft and but little cemented and will wash easily. The banks (or gravelbeds) average about one hundred feet in thickness and prospects largely from top to bottom, several pan tests having shown the extraordinary average of three to five cents to the pan. The company are now building a ditch, taking the water out of the Tuolumne River, at a place known as Indian Bar, seventeen miles above their claims. This ditch is six feet wide on the bottom, eight feet on the top, and four feet deep, with a fall or grade of from six to ten feet per mile, and will carry four or five thousand inches of water, delivering it at a height of over two hundred feet above the level of the Tuolumne River. The ditch was commenced about the middle of July, 1871, and one thousand men have been constantly employed in its construction; eight hundred of these being Chinamen at one dollar per day, the white men of course receiving higher wages. The total cost of this ditch is estimated at $200,000, and it is expected to be complete in time for the company to avail themselves of the rise of the river early in 1872. Mr. Edmund Green, the superintendent, has adopted a novel method of taking the water from the river by which he avoids the risk incidental to a high dam. This is by digging a cut along the side of the river large enough to contain a box flume which will be covered with rock and dirt, leaving the bank of the river in its natural state. But little fluming will be used. Around rocky points a stone wall is commenced far enough down the banks to get a perfectly solid foundation. This is continued up to the top of the ditch and is made four or five feet in thickness, then an inner wall two feet wide and two feet distant from the outer one is built four feet high from the bottom of the ditch; clay is then tamped between these two walls so as to make it water-tight, the water running in the ditch inside both walls. They have in addition a winter ditch with a capacity of three thousand inches of water, taken from Dry Creek, three miles distant from the mines. The company will commence washing early in 1872 with five four-feet flumes, using four eight-inch nozzle improved hydraulic pipes under a pressure of one hundred and fifty feet. Should this enterprise prove a success, of which there is no reasonable doubt, capital will seek investment in like projects, and many thousands of acres of equally valuable ground will be developed in the southern mines.

Other gravel deposits.-Turner's and Kincaid Flat.-Many auriferous gravel deposits of great richness exist in various parts of the southern mines, particularly near the limestone belt, in basins or flats where, from the nature of the surrounding country, drainage is impossible except by the construction of long and expensive tunnels. These gravel-beds, like the detrital matter in the foot-hills, are probably the result of sec

ondary deposition in a recent geological epoch-the effects of the distribution by water of the ancient channels, and the denudation of the surrounding country. This theory is founded on the fact that in these basins the remains of the mastodon and elephant are found in great abundance, while in the old river-beds they are rarely discovered. These basins were worked in early times as deep as was possible by means of shafts, whims, and pumps, but as the bed-rock was approached the water was found to be an insurmountable obstacle, and they were temporarily abandoned. Subsequently, drain-tunnels of great length were run at various places where these basins occur. Two of these enterprises, the first in contemplation, the second nearly completed, will be briefly described here as an illustration of this branch of mining. The Turner's Flat and Table Mountain Mining Company early in 1870 acquired by purchase and location five hundred acres of ground at Turner's Flat, near Jamestown, Tuolumne County, this location giving them also 5,000 feet in length on the Table Mountain channel; the "flat" being on the eastern side of Table Mountain, and their location. running down on the western side of the lava-covered mountain toward the Stanislaus River. They are now making application for a patent to this tract and negotiating for capital to open their ground. Turner's Flat is an extensive deposit of auriferous gravel, which has proved very rich, and is of unknown depth. Between the years 1853 and 1857, when in the possession of former owners, several shafts were sunk in the flat, near the line of the lava, to a depth of eighty feet, when a large quantity of water was encountered, of such volume as to resist the power of the best pumping machinery then in use. About the year 1855 or 1856, an English company acquired large interests on the flat, and endeavored to drain it by running a tunnel from Slate Gulch, a small stream tributary to Wood's Creek, lying far to the east of Table Mountain. This tunnel, if completed, would have been about three miles in length, but after spending $30,000 it was ascertained that an error had been made in the surveys, and the completion of the tunnel on the grade they were running would have brought them to the surface instead of the bottom of the basin, and the work was abandoned. No tunnel except one from Wood's Creek seemed feasible for the drainage of this ground, and this would have been nearly five miles in length with a light grade. This valuable property then remained unoccupied and undeveloped for a period of nearly ten years, when the present company acquired the ground and decided on a new point of attack by opening the bottom of Turner's Flat from the west side of Table Mountain, where the formation is very precipitous, instead of on the eastern side, where it slopes gently to Wood's Creek: This tunnel will enter the west side of Table Mountain about three hundred feet below its summit and about one hundred and fifty feet below the lava line. It is estimated from surveys that its total length will not exceed three thousand feet, and at that distance, with a grade of ten inches to twelve feet, it will tap the gravel deposits of Turner's Flat at a depth of one hundred and twenty feet. A deep gorge, setting back on the western face of Table Mountain, opposite the flat, greatly facilitates the construction of this tunnel. The Turner's Flat gravel deposit is evidently an outbreak from the Table Mountain channel, and had yielded about $1,000,000 before operations were suspended. The gravel on the bottom is said to have paid as high as $5 per bucket. The tunnel will be laid with flume, and the grade will be sufficient to effectually break up the gravel and release the gold.

The Kincaid Flat Mining Company is a San Francisco company, who have been engaged for several years in an enterprise similar to the