STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 321 



retarded the general growth of that section to a lamentable degree; 

 aiul not till these and other much needed improvements are made, can 

 an}^ great or substantial progress be looked for. 



Coming on into Tuolumne and Calavei'as, and passing thence through 

 the tier of counties that lie against the western slo])e of the Sierra into 

 Southern Oregon, we find the work of placer mining being vigorously 

 and intelligently prosecuted in all its dil?erent branches, and aided by all 

 the auxiliaries that capital can command, or that ingenuity has been able 

 to invent or science supply. Here we have every variety of mining, and 

 see at v\'ork the many devices contrived for diminishing labor and saving 

 gold. The several styles of sluices, the hj-draulic washings, the long tom, 

 and in some instances the still more primitive pan and rocker, are all 

 encountered, and the hill, gravel, dry, river, tunnel, and cement diggings, 

 are seen in every stage of development. By passing over to the sea 

 shore, in Klamath County, we can even witness the operations of what is 

 known as " beach mining," carried on in the vicinity of the once famous 

 Gold J31utf. To describe these different kinds of mines and the various 

 appliances and modes adojited in furtherance of this business, would 

 require more space than could well be spared; suffice to say, the latter 

 are nearly all the inventions of ])ractical miners, called fortli by the 

 necessities of their business or suggested by experience, and that water 

 is the principal agent employed in separating the gold from the earth and 

 gravel in which it is imbedded, these contrivances being simply used to 

 apply it more effectively It is in the central and northern portion of 

 the State that we find the principal hydraulic washings, and here, too, are 

 the blue gravel lead and cement deposits, marked features of that section, 

 from all which large quantities of gold are annually extracted. The sup- 

 ply of water furnished by the late copious rains having enabled the miners 

 to get to work early in the season, there is much activity generally through- 

 out the placer diggings, and- with timely rains from this on till the dry 

 season sets in, the product from this source will undoubtedly prove indi- 

 vidually remunerative, and in the aggregate, large. 



Of the prospects of tliis bi-anch of business outside of California the 

 coming season we have already bricfl}" spoken, so far as the northern 

 country is concerned. The limited breadth of placer mines that at one 

 time existed in the State of Nevada is now aboat worked out, and the 

 calling can hardly be said to be pursued there at all. With the excep- 

 tion of a small force engaged in sluice washing the tailings that come down 

 Grold Caiion, a locality that paid well at a former day, and some small 

 companies occasionally essaying the business elsewhere, nothing in this 

 line is now being done in that State. From Utah reports reach us from 

 time to time of stream washings being found and worked on a small scale 

 in that Territory ; but either there are no extensive diggings of this kind 

 there, or else, as seems most pi-obable, the jealous and exclusive policy 

 of the Mormons has sufficed to prevent their being wrought, or the knowl- 

 edge of their existence being disseminated to the outside world. The 

 probabilities are, that, like Nevada, this territory is destitute of these 

 superficial gold deposits, the climate and external geology of the two sec- 

 tions l)earing in their general features a strong similitude. During the 

 past summer, gold diggings, reported to be rich, w5re found in the Black- 

 foot country, in the northern part of Montana Territory, and according 

 to latest accounts from that region, a multitude of pco])lc — com))uted at 

 twenty-five or thirty thousand, drawn from both sides of the Eockj 



41 



