STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. , 191 



a perpendicular depth of one thousand feet from the surface. This com- 

 pany is not incorporated. 



The Black Diamond mine was opened in eighteen hundred and sixty- 

 one, and sent to market that year six hundred tons per month. During 

 eighteen hundred and sixty-two, one thousand two hundred tons per 

 month Were shipped, and for the past year the average yield will exceed 

 one thousand six hundred tons. Seventy-five thousand dollars have thus 

 far been spent in developing the mine, but only four thousand dollars 

 have been required from the shareholders. This company is incorpo- 

 rated, with five thousand shares of one hundred dollars each, which are 

 firmly held at about forty dollars. A level tunnel, nearly one mile in 

 length, has been run on the veiD. The mine is at present paying about 

 sixty-two and one half per cent on market value of stock. 



The Eureka mine, an incorporated company, of four thousand shares 

 of twenty- five dollars each, has been shipping regularly since eighteen 

 hundred and sixty-one, averaging during that year eight hundred tons 

 per month, and for the year eighteen hundred and sixty-two nearly one 

 thousand tons monthly. During the past year the average monthly 

 yield will exceed one thousand two hundred and fifty tons. The mine 

 is now in a flourishing condition, and pays handsomely. 



Other mines in the Mount Diablo region are being prospected and 

 opened, but are not 3 T et shipping coal. The great drawback to the mines 

 before mentioned is the lack of convenient and cheap access to water 

 communication, some five miles distant. All the coal from these mines 

 is now hauled to the landing at a heavy expense — two dollars to two 

 dollars and fifty cents per ton. A railroad has been projected, but thus 

 far nothing tangible has been accomplished. It is said that there are 

 many difficulties to be overcome in its construction, involving a large 

 outlay of money in excavating, tunnelling, etc. From the landing to 

 this oity, schooners and other small craft can ply without difficulty at all 

 seasons of the year. 



IRON MINING. 



, Of iron ores we have every variety, and in quantities wholly inex- 

 haustible; and although no attempts have yet been made to render them 

 available, the time will no doubt soon arrive when, with our facilities 

 for its manufacture and immense consumption of iron, these repositories 

 of the crude material will be drawn upon to meet in part a demand 

 which, already large, must rapidly increase upon this coast for many 

 years to come. Chemical examinations show these ores to be all that 

 could be desired; and it would really seem as if Ave might produce pig 

 iron at least, leaving the establishment of rolling mills for a later period. 

 For castings we require a vast quantity, and that we could make this 

 kind there is no question, even though our iron may not prove anneal- 

 able. At many points in the Slate, and even in the vicinity of San 

 Francisco, magnetic iron is very abundant. In the Washoe country, 

 this and other forms of the ore is found in huge reefs, traceable often for 

 miles. On the Willamette Eiver, near Oregon City, a whole mountain 

 of iron has latety been found, and which, on trial, proves as malleable 

 and tough as the best Swedish. The ore yields seventy-five per cent of 

 pure metar, and the country about being covered with heavy forests, the 

 manufacture of iron could be carried on very cheaply. In Mono County 

 the protoxide of iron, a rare and valuable ore, exists in large ledges. 

 That we shall be able, when transportation comes to be cheapened by 



