GEOdKAI'IIICAL BXPLOBAHONS AND DISCOVERIES IX 1866. 341 



quently dosed suddenly by what is called a cap, 

 or ' in l>y the wall-rock, 



! with gn-ut difficulty, and 

 Uurous or pyritotisoiv is ivaeli- 

 e n^iiiii shut off after a time, lut 

 .trillions uro K -s frequent and le-s formi- 

 !. -;ivnd. Tho'pyritous ores 

 <-d with sulphurate of iron and 

 i gold in lar^v <{U:iutities, but its 

 ready .;i is ft difficult problem, nnd a 



new OIK- in mining science. Processes adopted 

 duri: . entirely new, and the^ re- 



mit < -:ii investigation and invention, 



!>ro!iu'so of solving tho problem suc- 

 cessfully ami cheaply. If they prove success- 

 ful, Colorado will yield more gold than any 

 other of tho mining States. New Mexico gives 

 great promise of becoming the most productive 

 .0 silver-mining districts, if she can bo 

 t'rom the invasions of tho Camancb.es and 

 hes, who now render life so insecure in 

 many parts of her territory, and can have rail- 

 road communication with the Mississippi Valf 

 ley. She has also vast stores of superior cop- 

 per ores in her mountains. Silver is also abun- 

 dant in Colorado. Montana, tho youngest of 

 the western Territories, is immensely produc- 

 tive of tho precious metals. Mr. Taylor, with 

 every disposition to be cautious, and discarding 

 \.iggorations of tho miners, states the pro- 

 . >n of gold alone in this young territory, 

 now but four years old, as follows: In 1863, 

 $2,000,000 ; in 1864, $5,000,000 ; in 1865, $6,- 

 000,000 ; in 1866, $12,000,000 an aggregate of 

 $25,000,000 in four years, while its present pop- 

 ulation does not much if at all exceed 28,000. 

 Forty-seven quartz mills are erected or in pro- 

 cess of erection, and 2,500 lodes, represented 

 to bo gold-bearing, have been prospected, and 

 titles recorded. Silver is nearly as abundant as 

 mainly in tho form of argentiferous ga- 

 K-nn. The ore is very rich, many of the assays 

 yielding from $1,200 to $1,700 of silver to 

 the ton. Three furnaces for smelting silver are 

 !y in operation. Coal, iron, and petro- 

 leum are also found abundantly in this terri- 

 tory. Utah is known to possess extensive lodes 

 of argentiferous galena, though tho Mormons 

 are averse to their being worked. Coal, iron, 

 and copper are plentiful in tho territory. Tho 

 Black llills, in Dakotah Territory, situaf 

 and near tho forty-fourth parallel of latitude, 

 and between the 103d and 105th meridians of 

 longitude west from Greenwich, are now known 

 to be very rich in gold, silver, coal, iron, and 

 copper. This differs from most of the mining 

 di>tricts of the West, in being a heavily tim- 

 bered region, its vast pine forest covering most 

 of tho hill country. The Black llills co\ 

 area, of about 6,000 square miles, and while 

 their general elevation is from 2,500 to 8,500 

 feet, there are several peaks rising to a height 

 of 6,500 or 6,700 feet above tho sea level. The 

 gold is found at the junction of the Silurian 

 rocks with tho upheaved granite, porphyry, 

 other metamorphosed azoio rocks. The coal 



measures crop out in another portion of tho 

 M a result of the upheaval. On the. North 

 .:.-he\vaii, in the limits of llritMi Colum- 

 bia, and on the South Saskatchewan, above the 

 boundary of 49, gold lias also been found in 

 very considerable quantities in placers. 



In 1865-'66, some islands in Vermillion Lake, 

 Minnesota, about the 48th degree of latitude, 

 were discovered to contain auriferous quartz in 

 considerable quantity. Tho islands bear traces 

 of volcanic action. This quartz, in numerous 

 assays, yielded gold in quantities varying from 

 $10 to $35 per ton. Some gold was also ob- 

 tained by washing the drift. In Canada two 

 gold fields of considerable extent have been 

 discovered, one at Madoc, near Kingston, in 

 Canada West ; the other, on the Chaudicre and 

 its tributaries, near Quebec. Assays show that 

 the quartz rock in tho latter yields from $21 to 

 $95 per ton. In Nova Scotia there are ten or 1 

 twelve distinct gold fields of somewhat limited 

 area, one of them not more than five miles from 

 Halifax. The gold is of remarkable purity, av- 

 eraging 22 carats fine, and much of it free, 

 though associated in the veins with cuprite or 

 yellow copper, malachite, mispickel or arsen- 

 ical pyrites, zinc-blende, and eesquioxide of 

 iron. The quartz vein is in wavy folds, and 

 not in level sheets, as it usually occurs else- 

 where. The average yield for all the districts 

 is about $30 to the ton of quartz rock, while 

 the maximum at one of the mines (Wine Har- 

 bor) has been $1,000 per ton. This is independ- 

 ent of the great waste which attends the reduc- 

 tion of pyritous ores, with which a considerable 

 portion of the quartz is filled. 



The extended and varied experience in min- 

 ing, pained during the past few years in Colora- 

 do, Nova Scotia, Montana, Idaho, Fraser River, 

 AVa-hington Territory, Oregon, Nevada, and 

 California, is now being applied to the develop- 

 ment and scientific improvement of the gold 

 fields of the Alleghany range, in Virginia, 

 North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Ala- 

 bama, and under the active efforts of skilful 

 miners, it is probable that much greater results 

 than have hitherto been attained will be reached. 

 Tho yield of this extensive gold field for tho 

 sixty-two years ending with 1866, deposited iii 

 tho United States mint and its branches, has 

 been $19,375,890.80, of which $16,250,309.17 

 was from North Carolina and Georgia. At 

 least an equal quantity passed into manufactures 

 or foreign commerce without coinage, making 

 tho total yield of the sixty-two years about 

 $40,000,000, of which fully three-fourths was 

 mined in the twenty years, 1828-1848. Under 

 the improved processes and greater energy of 

 skilled free labor, the production ought to reach 

 within a few years $20,000,000 per annum. 



4. Mexico. The Franco- Austrian occupation 

 of Mexico, now drawing to a close, though 

 hardly entitled to be considered a success in 

 any other respect, lias been somewhat fruitful 

 in the geographical and topographical explora- 

 tion of that country. This has resulted in part 



