STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 317 



speedily be purged of this and all other abuses is greatlj^ to be hoped, 

 since to it we must continue to look for those large and certain revenues 

 which have thus far never failed us, as they are not likely to do, our mines 

 being vast in extent and literally exhaustless, while the value and amount 

 of their productions are less dependent on the seasons, the demands of a 

 foreign market, and other incidental circumstances, than are our cereal 

 crops, wines, wool, and other staple productions. 



Neither rain nor drought, seasons of plenty or dearth, of financial ease 

 or stringency, can ever wholly cut off or seriously diminish the j'ield of 

 our mines or lessen the value of their products. In this feature of sta- 

 bility, apart from the extent and prolific character of our mines, we have 

 a fund of wealth upon which we can always rely, even should our grain 

 crop prove short, our herds perish with famine, and all our other 

 resources fail. But that this element may be made to yield its full mea- 

 sure of advantage, it must obviously be prosecuted with a more careful 

 economy and less with a view to large and immediate than to certain 

 and permanent results. Wherever it has been carried on in a legitimate 

 manner, being conducted with the same discretion and care evinced in 

 most other callings, it has generally ^^roved a success ; the failures mostly 

 being attributable to lack of skill, extravagant expenditures, or some 

 other sort of mismanagement. 



EXTENT or THE MINING FIELD. 



We have now within the American possessions west of the Eocky 

 Mountains, three States and five Territories, embracing an area of more 

 than one million square miles, the whole of which may be considered a 

 mining country. Not that every part of this vast region is metalliferous, 

 there being large tracts of it in which the ]n'ecious metalkat least have 

 not been met with in any considerable quantity. Still, scattered every- 

 where over its surface are districts abounding in not only these but also 

 in nearly every variety of the useful metals; the latter, in some one or 

 more of their varied forms, being nearly everyw^herc present. To what 

 extent this region is metal-bearing has as yet been but partially d(;ter- 

 mined, its magnitude and the difficulties attending exploration having 

 precluded a thorough examination of more than a small part of it. Of 

 that portion 13'ing within the limits of California and Nevada, with 

 which we have become most familiar, it can be truthfully said that the 

 more it has been explored the greater appears to be its capacity for yield- 

 ing, under the conjoint aid of well directed labor and ample capital, large 

 amounts of gold and silver. It is now perceived that the placer mines 

 of this State, liberally as they gave up their treasures at first to the sim- 

 ple and inexpensive processes emploj-ed for working them, formed but 

 the husk and chaff, as -it were, of our real and more substantial mineral 

 wealth, hid away in the vast repositories of auriferous quartz found in 

 every county that flanks the Sierra; while the further the work of pros- 

 pecting has been carried into the wilds of Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, the 

 richer and more extensive have been the discoveries made, establishing 

 to all practical intents not only the illimitable bounds, but also the inex- 

 haustible character of this field of labor. 



VARIETY OF OUR MINERAL PRODUCTS. 



Under this head may be noticed, as forming a portion of the more val- 

 uable of the metallic and mineral products heretofore found upon this 



