STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 189 



the mine has produced about one thousand tons of low grade ore, assay- 

 ing from eight to twelve per cent. 



The Cosuranes, of Amador County, have sent forward one hundred 

 tons during the past year. 



The Newton mine* has shipped, since June last, about nine hundred 

 tons. 



The Lancha Plana has sent to this city one hundred and fifty tons 

 during the past year. 



The Alta mine, of Del Norte County, have shipped to Europe three 

 hundred and fifty tons, assaying about twenty per cent. 



COAL. 



Second to no other production in its bearing on the permanent pros- 

 perity of the State is the article of coal. As an agent of promoting our 

 mechanical and manufacturing interests, and rendering our other min- 

 eral resources available, it has the strongest possible claims upon our 

 attention. In connection with the vast beds of superior iron ore already 

 found upon the 'coast of the North Pacific, it becomes doubly important, 

 since, with the facilities it will afford for its manufacture, we may soon 

 hope to supply ourselves with this very costly but indispensable article. 

 The economical generation of steam, whether for the purposes of navi- 

 gation or the propulsion of machinery, will probably go further than 

 any other one thing in deciding the question of national supremacy. In 

 comparison with a permanent supply of cheap fuel, gold and silver are 

 commodities of altogether secondary importance. Better far that our 

 mines of the precious metals utterly fail, than that it should be deter- 

 mined we had only a limited supply or an inferior character of coal on 

 this side the continent. That such a lamentable result, however, is not 

 likely to happen we have good reason to hope. The only points in our 

 territoiy, at which coal is now being obtained in marketable quantities, 

 are Bellingham Bay and Mount Diablo. From both these localities a 

 very fair article is being procured, and though inferior to the imported, 

 it answers very well for a domestic fuel and the purposes of making 

 steam. At a great number of places, both in California and the neigh- 

 boring Territories, signs, and, in a few instances, small veins of coal 

 have been found. At Corral Hollow, Alameda County, there is quite a 

 heavy deposit, which, when greater depth is attained, it is thought will 

 yield a good article of fuel. The following are some of the localities 

 that have exhibited carboniferous signs sufficient to entitle them to 

 notice. In the Coast Range, on Bear Creek, to work which a company 

 has been incorporated in Marysville At San Bonita, Monterey County, 

 where the coal is sufficiently pure to answer for the forge being used for 

 sharpening the picks of the miners. At Mark West Creek, Sonoma 

 County, where, from a shaft one hundred and twenty-six feet deep, an 

 article suitable for blacksmiths' use, also used for genei-ating steam and 

 gas with success. Eight miles from Jacksonville, Oregon, a heavy de- 

 posit of coal has been discovered, but not tested sufficiently to settle its 

 character. On Dry Creek, near Folsom, are good indications, to pros- 

 pect which a company has been formed and work commenced. In the 

 Slate Range, Tulare County, a seam of something very like coal crops 

 out, four feet wide ; it is of a soft nature, and burns freely. Near the 

 Half Way House, on the road from Placerville to Washoe, a substance 

 sufficiently carbonaceous to burn under the blow-pipe has been found j 

 it is called coal, but is probably lignite. At the Whitman coal mines, 



