good ore above the level of the surrounding country, wh pany to extract it without the use of expensive hoisting and The lode runs through a hill several hundred feet in le hundred feet high, cropping out on the very summit of broken, through its entire length, at an average width of proprietors, who are mostly Frenchmen, have sunk shaft ends of the base of this hill to the depth of nearly two discovering any material difference in its appearance, the being that, while the lode dips to the east at an angle of 4 below the surface, at the base of the hill, at one hundred fo angle of 680; but, as it increases nearly a foot in thickne the dip changes, it is evident that the change has not been tion. A great deal of very rich ore has been taken out it containing sufficient gold to pay for working it for that

It may be proper in this connection to state that the cop county by the furnaces described above contain a very la Some of it, assayed by Kellogg & Hueston, of San Fra contain as high as $450 to the ton. Much of this copper to the ton; none of it less than $20.

There is a small smelting furnace on this mine, but it is past year but little work of any kind has been done on the of disagreements among the owners, one portion of whom of "freeze out" upon the others.

There are several other good copper mines in this distric them do not appear to have either the means or disposition capitalists from abroad are afraid to invest very extensiv this county till they have been better examined.

San Luis Obispo county mines.-The Osos mines in Sa were discovered in the spring of 1864. They are situat west of the Old Mission of San Luis Obispo, on the Osos end of a wide belt of cupriferous ores that is traceable miles to the north, among the range of mountains which 1 of San Luis Obispo and the Old Mission of Santa Margueri on which there are a great number of mines, presents very culiarities as are mentioned in the description of the Hamil posa county. The disturbance of the lode by subterranea it up to such an extent as to render it unprofitable to mine as is the case with Hunter's valley, in Mariposa, appear affected by these disturbing causes. A shaft one hundred a been sunk on the Osos lode, which was from four feet to tw hundred tons of ore, averaging eighteen per cent., have be mine direct to Boston and Swansea, and there are several ready for shipment. Ex-congressman Phelps is extensivel mines.

Los Angeles county mines.-The Solidad district, in Lo located about thirty miles due north from Los Angeles. T existence of copper in this locality was published by M nearly twenty years ago, as it was somewhere in the placer mining for gold was carried on as far back as 1840. ber of Congress for California, saw these early gold miners ably saw the croppings of the copper lode, which are quite spicuous for a long distance. In 1854 a Frenchman name the mines in what is now known as the Solidad district, b tracted no attention till the excitement about copper, whic covery of the mines at Salt Springs valley, in 1861 and 1 tivity in prospecting raged in this locality, and a great ar

done during the following two years. At present, and for more than a year past, none of the claims have been worked. Among the few important mines in this district are the La Solidad, Copper Hill, and Occidental. On the first named, at the depth of one hundred feet, the lode was found to be about şeven feet wide. This is the deepest shaft in the district.

The geological formations and ores in this district are precisely the same as those already described in San Luis Obispo and Mariposa counties, and the same disturbing causes have broken up the lodes, which range in the same direction within a few degrees.

Plumas county mines.-The copper mines in Genessee valley, Plumas county, are the highest on this coast, the valley in which they are located being a small basin of a few miles in circumference, embosomed high up among some of the loftiest peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, which are clustered together in the northeast of this county. This portion of Upper Plumas contains some of the most magnificent scenery to be found on the coast. Immense granite ridges are seen rising bare and bleak two and sometimes three thousand feet above the densely wooded ridges at their base, while below, cañons thousands of feet deep form courses for the waters, which look like silver threads as they go meandering through the black gorges that lead them to unite with the waters of the Feather river, thousands of feet still further below. Nature appears to have performed some of her mightiest labors in this locality. Subterranean fires have piled up the molten rocks thousands of feet high, for the highest peaks are composed of lava, while the floods of water have worn the frightful cañons which furnish the bed for the present insignificant streams. Amid the very centre of so much ruggedness, caused by nature's greatest forces, Genessee valley forms a beautiful contrast, with its grassy fields and the curling smoke of its Emelting furnaces and other evidences of the power of man. The belt of copper ores already referred to passes through this valley in a course ranging north twentyfive degrees west. As may well be imagined, in such a country, the lode has been extensively dislocated; but by examining the unshifted bodies of the containing slates, which may be traced for many miles, as well as the form and composition of the lodes, it is proved that this is part of that great belt. The chief copper mines, the Cosmopolitan, are located about five miles from the village of Taylorville, and three-fourths of a mile from a ranch which was originally located in the valley by a Mr. Gifford. They were discovered in the beginning of 1862. The inaccessibility of the place and the broken character of the country preclude the possibility of this ever becoming a very important copper mining locality. Nevertheless, parties interested in these mines have erected smelting works which have cost upwards of $30,000, and made several tons of good regulus by a process invented by a farmer named J. C. Chapman, who never had any knowledge or experience in copper smelting till the discovery of these mines. As long as the parties interested in this enterprise could obtain plenty of oxides, carbonates, and silicates of the metal, which were quite abundant and very rich at the commencement of their operations, they obtained regulus sufficient to pay expenses; but as soon as they reached the sulphurets in the lode the works had to stop, as they were not adapted to operate on this class of ores. At the present time they are not in operation. These works were put up by Bolinger, Blood & Co.

At a depth of sixty feet the lode on the Cosmopolitan mine was found to be about fourteen feet wide, containing about ten per cent. of metal. It lies between the granite and limestone on this claim. The metamorphic slates and serpentine, which accompany the copper all through this State, are here a few hundred feet to the south.

Del Norte county mines.-The Alta district, in Del Norte county, is situated on what is known as the "low divide," an extensive plateau on the summit of a lofty range of mountains which divide the valley of the Illinois river from the

Pacific ocean. These mountains run through the northern and the south of Oregon, for more than one hundred miles, a branch of the Sierra Nevadas at nearly right angles.

Altaville, the centre of this district, is about fifteen n Crescent City, Del Norte county. There are a great num district; many of them have been extensively worked, and sand tons of good ore has been shipped from them since thei Among those which have shipped ore are the Alta, Union, Chrysopolis, Comstock, Diamond, Express, Pearl, Copper a number of others. The Alta was the first mine worked in the only one worked at present.

The mines in this district are not connected with the grea quently alluded to in this report. This runs several mile the Siskiyou mountains connect the counties of Yreka, in C. phine, in Oregon. The ores in the Alta district are quite di appearance, and character from those found in the mine: The deposits are separate and distinct; of probably the sam they are similar in other respects to those found around Diablo, and in the coast range further south. The first fo shipped by the Alta company averaged forty-five per cent., an cisco for $7,000 cash, the cost of their extraction and deli $2,000. They were red oxides, chiefly, of which there was three feet wide and fifty feet long, near the surface, but this v as there is no well-defined lode on the ground. In fact it i there is a consecutive body of ore of fifty feet in length in The croppings of what are supposed to be lodes-nearly a d seen ranging nearly north and south for many miles, but the these croppings is so irregular in position, owing to the disto tine in which they are contained, that it is almost imposs direction the average of them do lie.

The Alta Company have sunk a shaft on their mine to t four hundred feet without finding a regularly defined lode bunches of ore, chiefly yellow sulphurets of a very low gra from a mere film to ten feet thick, but not sufficiently conn mine profitable to work under the existing state of the co mine is exceedingly well situated for obtaining its ore cheap it should be found, as drifts could be run into the hill at a paratively little cost.

The Rockland district is located about fifteen miles east above described, and about thirty miles from Crescent City, California. The mines in this district are located on the which may easily be traced in the vicinity for nearly twenty tion of N. 28° W., the general trend of this belt, by which from where first noticed, north of Los Angeles, to about tw of this district, which is a few miles within the limits of t There are several other districts within this State in whic mines have been located on this belt; but time will not adn being made to them. The Queen of Bronze, near Waldo the most valuable copper mine in Oregon, is located on this miles west from this point. Extensive smelting works ha this latter mine, and thousands of tons of ore have been e mines, which, as has been already stated, have been discove

There are some peculiarly interesting features connect mines of this district, which have a tendency to throw cons the subject of the action of volcanic forces on metallic o vicinity an enormous volcanic dyke, nearly one hundred fe

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the copper belt at an obtuse angle, within a hundred feet, and it is within this point of proximity that the large masses of metallic copper mentioned above were discovered. Another point in the same connection may be here mentioned. The age of the rocks containing the copper, throughout the whole extent of the great belt, has been tolerably well ascertained to be between the triassic and tertiary eras, and as this volcanic force, which has caused the conversion of the ores into metals from one end of it to the other, must have been exerted subsequently, the opportunity here afforded to examine the largest and most clearly defined dyke on the coast is very important.

Mount Diablo district. The principal copper mines in the Mount Diablo district are located about the northern base, and up the side of a spur of Mount Diablo, called Mount Zion, and along the north side of Mitchell's cañon, near the town of Clayton, Contra Costa county. The first discovery of these mines was made in 1860, and considerable work was done on several of them for about two years, in efforts to discover the lode, but without success, as there is no lode in the mountain. The copper found here is not connected with the great cupriferous belt, but exists in detached bunches and masses, as is the case in the Alta district, in Del Norte county, described above. The croppings of the patches of ore here run north and south, as they do at Del Norte. Some metallic copper has been found on the north side of Mitchell's cañon, but in every case, after reaching a few feet below the surface, the ore, when found in bodies sufficiently large to take out, has been found of a very low grade; ten tons of selected ore shipped by the Keokuk company did not yield more than eight per cent. It is doubtful whether the mines in this district will ever pay to work.

Peavine district.-The Peavine district was discovered in 1864. It is located a few miles east of the Henness pass, in Washoe county, Nevada, one portion of it being within three miles of the line of the Central Pacific railroad. The district embraces an era of ten miles square, in which there are a great number of claims of considerable importance. The ores in all these mines are entirely distinct from those found in California, as well as the containing rocks. They are usually much contaminated with quartz, but they contain a large per cent. of gold and silver. The completion of the Central Pacific railroad to within a few miles of the district has given considerable impetus to prospecting, and a great number of companies are preparing to take out ore, the railroad company having informed those interested that it would carry ores to Sacramento, from any point in the Henness pass, for $9 per ton. The ores of most of these mines being silicates, carbonates, and oxides, are very easily concentrated, a fact which the owners of the Bay State mine appear to be aware of, as they are putting up a small furnace, on Haskell's plan, to operate on all the ores they can purchase, as well as what they can obtain from their own mine. No ores of any consequence have been shipped from this district, in consequence of the distance to a market; but in 1864 a Doctor Landszwert made a number of large bars of fine copper from them, which were exhibited at the State fair, at Carson City, in that year. These bars contained $150 per ton in gold, and about $250 per ton in silver, according to the doctor's assay.

Lower California mines-Of the copper mines in Lower California but little of an authentic character is known. The Sancè mine, as described by Mr. W. Thompson, an old Cornish miner, who was superintendent of it for three or four years, is located near Loretto, a place in the province of Comondu, about thirty miles from the coast, where there is a good harbor. The lode is described as being from eight to ten feet wide, enclosed between walls of slate and granite. It has been extensively explored by shafts and levels, and about five hundred tons of ore have been shipped to Europe, where it sold for about five hundred dollars per ton. This ore, specimens of which have been brought to San Francisco, is of a very peculiar character, being a sort of talcose gangue,

RESOURCES OF STATES AND TERRIT

containing flattened scales of metal of various sizes, from
and breadth, to small specks like fine gold dust. Many o
this copper are covered with an incrustation of metallic
lar combination of these two metals found on this coast, the
of metallic copper and silver is quite common at the Lake S
This mine has not been worked for nearly two years.

Arizona mines.-The mines in Arizona, from which or San Francisco, are located on both banks of Williams's river, where, there is but little doubt, will. very soon be portant copper mining districts on this coast. The existen ore now in course of development at this point was we years before the discovery of the mines in California. from some of the mines about Mineral Hill was sent to Bost and examined by Doctor Jackson, the distinguished min who pronounced them of extraordinary richness. But among which the want of means for transporting the or vented any advantage being gained by the discovery till 1 of the Planet mine shipped about one hundred tons of the cisco, where it sold for a price that left a profit of upwards and above all expenses for its extraction and transportatio from the mine to the river, about twenty miles, having been A good road has been cut to connect the mines with the riv There are nearly fifty good mines in this district on both The Planet is the most important on the south, and the north. The greatest activity has prevailed among these m year, and about 1,500 tons of ore have been shipped from th the principal shippers being the Planet, Great Central, Mi phia, Mountaineer, Mammoth, Copper Hill, and Occidental. tity shipped might have been sent had there been means for ta tlemen just returned from these mines state that there ar tons of ore that will average 40 per cent., now lying on th for shipment. The steamers and two or three schooners en are wholly inadequate for the purpose.

Some of the mines in this district have been extensively of shafts, tunnels and drifts, and in nearly every case the creased in importance in proportion to the extent to which oped. The Mineral Hill company have run a tunnel or length of 350 feet, out of which, while cutting, they took ore of an average of 30 per cent., the whole work from t a body of ore. The ore in none of the mines in the distric lar lode, as in the mines in California, but the whole co formed of the ores of iron and copper, the hills for miles ored red by the iron, or green and blue in patches where wa bonate of lime in solution have percolated through the copp

In running the tunnels and drifts through this extraor miners run considerable risk of injury by being crushed ore, which, having been held in place by large quantities o iron, drop out when they are undermined in cutting the blocks fall out, in some cases hundreds of tons of this dr nothing more nor less than iron rust, will come rushing dow ther work till the opening can be timbered up.

The great body of ores found in the district being black icates and carbonates, all of a character that admit of con by the application of heat alone, and by a single process, se nies have erected extensive smelting works. Martin &