i86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



like Colorado, from being mostly a silver-mining state, has become a 

 great gold producer. 



In the same way, after the fall in silver, the mines of Fergus, 

 Chouteau, Madison and other counties in Montana, assumed fresh 

 activities; in Idaho the old gold regions of the Boise Basin and other 

 places in Boise County, as well as in Owyhee and other counties, again 

 attracted attention; in Utah the old gold mines at Mercur, in the 

 Camp Floyd district and elsewhere were reopened; in Arizona some of 

 the gold districts of early days, which had long been abandoned for 

 silver mining, were reopened, while new discoveries were made in many 

 places, especially from the Gila Eiver northwestward to the Colorado 

 Eiver ; in New Mexico several old districts were reopened and a few new 

 ones discovered. In California there was a general revival of gold min- 

 ing and the production materially increased. New discoveries were 

 made in the northern part of the state, in Shasta, Trinity and other 

 countries, and also in the barren regions of the southern part, where 

 many districts were added to the list of producers. Oregon and Wash- 

 ington also felt the stimulus to gold mining, though the production 

 from those states has never been large. Even the Philippine Islands 

 have begun to produce some gold, and though the amount is yet small, 

 it will probably increase. 



Present Distribution of Gold Mining in the United States 



The final result of the exploration for gold in the United States 

 since 1800 is that the metal has been found in large quantities along 

 the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska, also in the Great Basin 

 region east of the Sierra Nevada, in the Eocky Mountains and in that 

 eastern outlier of the Eocky Mountains known as the Black Hills; it 

 has been found in much smaller quantities in the Appalachian region 

 of the eastern states, and sporadically elsewhere in the region lying be- 

 tween the Appalachian and Eocky Mountains. Among the latter in- 

 stances may be mentioned the Eopes mine in Michigan, where a gold- 

 bearing vein was worked for a number of years, and many other places 

 where a little gold has been obtained, but not enough to cut any impor- 

 tant figure in the general production of the country. 



At the present time the chief gold-producing regions in the United 

 States are California, Nevada, Colorado, Alaska, South Dakota, Utah, 

 Montana, Arizona and Idaho, while the first four produce by far the 

 larger part of the American output. 



Events Influencing Gold Discoveries in the United States 

 Several important events in the history of the United States have 

 done much to stimulate the search for gold. In California the declara- 

 tion of freedom from Mexico about a year and a half before the discov- 



