320 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



the best paying, and so far as discoveries have extended, the only rich 

 and extensive placers are supposed to exist, those found near the Rio 

 Colorado some three j-ears ago, having proved to be contracted and 

 eplienieral, and even the more ancient washings on the Giha being found 

 by actual tests, of no great extent. That there is a gold bearing belt 

 reaching north and sopth across the centre of the countr^^, embracing 

 in its limits the Walker and the Weaver placer districts, situate in the 

 San Francisco Mountains, is now well known; and though a considerable 

 amount of dust has been collected there, its value as a gold producing 

 region has not been definitely ascertained. A portion of it at least is 

 but poorly supplied with water, the process of gold gatljering being by 

 dr}' washing, so-called; and although some flattering accounts have 

 reached us in regard to the mineral resources of that section, it will 

 probably be a long time before they can be turned to much practical 

 account, owing to their situation so far inland, and the sterile and rugged 

 character of the country between the site of the mines and the Colorado. 

 Between the hostility of the Apaches, the dry and barren character of 

 the country, the extreme heat of the climate, and the indifferent success 

 that has hitherto attended the efforts made at placer raining in that 

 Territory, there would seem to be but little encouragement for under- 

 taking its further pi'osecution at present. That Arizona possesses an 

 immense wealth in her numerous gold and copper bearing lodes admits 

 of no doubt, though these too must be worked under many of the disad- 

 vantages incident to the development of the placer mines. 



As from those of Arizona, so also from most of the surface diggings 

 found at various localities in the several counties of Southern Califoi'nia, 

 though worked with considerable persistence, only meagre results have 

 been obtained. The ph\cers heretofore found in that quarter consist of 

 a narrow extent of auriferous earth in Holcomb Valley, and another on 

 Little Creek, both in the County of San Bernardino. The former was 

 worked out several years ago, the latter still being occupied and giving 

 emploj'ment to a small number of persons at wages ranging from three 

 to six dollars per dsiy. In the foothills of the San Fernando Mountains, 

 twenty miles northwest of Los Angeles, are the first gold fields ever 

 found in California. They were worked to a considerable extent nearly 

 thirty years ago, being finally abandoned only on the discoveries of the 

 much richer deposits I'ound on the American Fork in the beginning of 

 eighteen hundred and forty-eight. They have even been worked some 

 since that event, though not capable of yielding what are now considered 

 fair wages. With these trifling exceptions, the entire area of southern 

 California, covering nearly one half the State, is, so far as we know, 

 without remunerative surface mines. Li the Counties of Tulare, Fresno, 

 and Mariposa, a ver^^ extensive and profitable business was at one time 

 carried on in the placer mines; but of late j-ears the product from that 

 section has greatl}' diminished, either because these deposits have been 

 exhausted, or because the inhabitants have possessed less energy, or 

 possibl}'' fewer facilities for their effectual Avorking, than those living 

 further north. Along Kern, King, and San Joaquin Rivers, and other 

 smaller and parallel streams cutting the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, 

 as also to the east of these mountains near Mono Lake, this species of 

 mining is still cari-ied on to a limited extent, and might no doubt be 

 made to yield much larger aggregate amounts than at present, had 

 ditches for supplying water been as generally constructed there as else- 

 where in the Slate. The want of these indispensable aids to mining has, 

 by curtailing that business, checked the increase of population, and 



