60 KESOUKCES OF CALIFOENIA. 



high fineness from other districts, but, on assaying, it proves 

 to be poor. 



The gold from the San Joaquin River is in small scales, and 

 about 800 fine. 



The Kern River gold is 630 fine. 



The Colorado gold is 930. 



The Walker's River gold is 560 ; the Mono gold 600. 



The above figures of the fineness of gold from various dis- 

 tricts refer only to the placer-gold. The gold from diff*erent 

 quartz-lodes also varies. As a general rule, the quartz-gold is 

 not so rich as the placer-gold; but some of the gold taken 

 from quartz is nearly as rich as any from the placers. 



§ 40. Silver. — A large amount of silver is found in Califor- 

 nia. One-tenth in weight of the gold-dust is silver. But it 

 was n'ot until 1860 that valuable veins of argentiferous ore 

 were discovered in the state. As gold predominates on the 

 western side of the main divide of the Sierra Nevada, so does 

 silver on the eastern side. The Washoe mines are not in Cali- 

 fornia ; but the Esmeralda and Coso districts are. 



Esmeralda is in latitude 38° 15', about two hundred and fifty 

 miles in a direct line from San Francisco in an eastward direc- 

 tion, and just within the limits of the state, as is generally siip- 

 posed, though some persons assert that it is in Utah. The 

 country is mountainous ; the rock is porphyry and trap. The 

 argentiferous veins are of a bluish-white quartz, containing sul- 

 phuret of silver. The principal vein of the district runs north 

 and south, and this has very little gold ; many other veins, 

 containing considerable quantities of gold mixed with the sil- 

 ver, run east and west. The main vein is about twenty feet 

 wide. The ores assay from thirty to fifteen hundred dollars 

 per ton, but the latter figure was only obtained from picked 

 specimens. Timber suitable for firewood is abundant, and 

 there is sufficient water to supply the wants of a small town. 



The Coso silver district is about one hundred and fifty miles 

 northward from Los Angeles, one hundred miles eastward from 

 Visalia, and twenty miles southeastward from Owen's Lake. 



