CALIFORNIA. 



207 



viz., from January 10 to December 1, 1862, 

 embraced in the governor's statement) com- 

 menced with a floating debt against the General 

 Fund of $535,603.93, and the previous admin- 

 istration had received $251,705.34 of the rev- 

 enues of 1862, and applied the amount on the 

 expenses of 1861. The total revenues of 1862 

 were $929.334.34, less this sum of $251.705.34 

 anticipated, leaving only $577.629 of actual 

 funds to meet the current expenditure. The 

 expenses of the State from January 10 to De- 

 cember 1, 1862, were $738,117.76, of which 

 $455.057.70 are yet unpaid. The governor rec- 

 ommends the levying of a tax of twenty-three 

 cents on the $100 to meet this floating indebt- 

 edness and place the State on a cash basis. 

 Some measure, he thinks, sh'ould also be 

 adopted to obviate constitutional objections 

 against taxing the Chinese. He also recom- 

 mends the organization, arming, and equip- 

 ment of an efficient militia force in the State, 

 and the adoption of a provision allowing vol- 

 unteers in the army to vote. He suggests 

 trie propriety of gathering all the Indians 

 in the State upon one large reservation, where 

 they could be more easily guarded, and ren- 

 dered far more comfortable, while the citizens 

 would be protected from their hostile in- 

 cursions. The State prison, he says, is inse- 

 cure, and not in any respect reformatory. He 

 recommends a system of solitary confinement. 

 There are 585 convicts, and the average cost to 

 the State of their support is eighty-four cents 

 per week. On the 22d of July, 1862, 150 of 

 the convicts escaped, and in the pursuit for 

 their recapture three were killed and twenty- 

 two wounded. At the close of the year six- 

 teen of the number were still at large. The 

 orphan asylums and the Deaf, Dumb and Blind 

 Asylums at San Francisco were well managed, 

 and deserving of aid from the Legislature. The 

 State Reform School at Marysville is a very 

 costly institution to the State, and the good it 

 accomplishes is not commensurate with its 

 cost. The care of an average number of about 

 ten boys costs the State as much as the care of 

 two hundred convicts at San Quentin. The 

 governor suggests that an arrangement may be 

 effected to place the boys in the Reform School 

 at San Francisco (a city institution). The In- 

 sane Asylum is not in a satisfactory condition. 

 It needs more room, more buildings and better 

 management. The school fund lands and the 

 receipts from the sale of portions of them 

 should be carefully guarded and sacredly ap- 

 plied to the purposes of education. Seven 

 millions of acres of the lands granted by the 

 General Government are devoted to educational 

 purposes. The Swamp Land Commissioners 

 report that they have established the claim of 

 the State to 485,252 acres of swamp lands, all 

 of which are susceptible of permanent reclama- 

 tion. The governor recommends the Legisla- 

 ture tq enlarge the list of bounties for home 

 products. 



Congress, in 1S61, in organizing the new 



territory of Xevada, bestowed upon it some 

 land included within the lines of the State of 

 California, providing, however, that such lands 

 should not enure to the new territory until the 

 assent of California had been given to their 

 surrender. The east line of California, it now 

 appears, had never been carefully and ac- 

 curately surveyed, and it was not possible to 

 ascertain, without a survey, what portion al- 

 ready belonged to the territory and what to 

 California. Governor Stanford urged the im- 

 portance of an immediate survey, and the diffi- 

 culties which have since occurred (in February, 

 1863) in regard to the boundary show its ne- 

 cessity. 



Flood*. Mention was made in the Ax- 

 XTTAL CTCI.OP.EDIA for 1861 of extensive floods 

 which desolated the Sacramento Valley in 

 December, 1861 ; the continuous rainfall which 

 followed caused still more extensive and disas- 

 trous floods in January, 1862, which attained 

 their greatest height on the 24th of that month, 

 and laid waste the greater part of the Sacra- 

 mento and San Joaquin valleys. Seriously 

 destructive as these floods were, and large as 

 was the amount of property they destroyed, 

 they were not without their partial compensa- 

 tions. The river beds, when again bare, were 

 found to contain large amounts of gold, new 

 placers were laid open, and the mining interests 

 profited largely by the incursion of the waters. 



Hines and Mining. The year 1862 was one 

 of great excitement among the mining popula- 

 tion of California. The gold mines of the 

 Cariboo region in British Columbia, and those 

 of the Salmon river, the Xez Perces and the 

 John Day and Powder rivers in Washington 

 Territory and Oregon attracted the attention 

 of the miners, and led to an extensive emigra- 

 tion in the early part of the year, and to these 

 was added intelligence of a large and profitable 

 yield in the mines on the Colorado river in 

 Arizona. The new and constantly multiplying 

 discoveries of silver in Xevada caused an ad- 

 ditional excitement during the later summer 

 and autumnal months, and from September to 

 the close of the year new companies, many of 

 them with large capital, were formed daily to 

 prosecute silver mining. The gold mines in 

 the vicinity of Grasshopper Creek, near the 

 boundary of Dakota, discovered in July or 

 August, 1862, attracted a considerable emigra- 

 tion thither in the autumn. 



The magnitude of the copper deposits and 

 the richness of the ore have led to the exten- 

 sive and profitable development of the copper 

 mines during the year. There are two very 

 extensive beds of the ore at remote points : one 

 at Copperopolis and its vicinity, in Calaveras 

 county, near the centre of the State, and on 

 the slopes of the Sierra Xevada; the other in 

 Del Xorte county, in the extreme northwest of 

 the State, west of the coast range, and only 

 eighteen miles from the port of Cresent City. 

 The Calaveras county mines are said to yield 

 over $60 worth of copper ore to the ton, and 



