62 KESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



The gangue or vein-stone is quartz. The ore varies in rich- 

 ness from 5 to 70 per cent. : the ore of the Ahnaclen mine 

 averages 18 per cent. ; that of the Enriqueta mine is about the 

 same; that of the New Idria mine is about 8 per cent. The 

 lodes are extremely irregular ; sometimes there will be a mere 

 thread, which will widen out into a mass forty feet in breadth, 

 twenty high, and seventy long, of rich ore, and then diminish 

 again to a thread. The total annual production of the state 

 will probably amount to three million seven hundred thousand 

 pounds, of which two million four hundred thousand at least 

 will come from New Almaden. The New Idria mines, in the 

 Coast Mountains, about seventy-five miles southeastward from 

 8an Jose, furnish about three hundred and fifty thousand 

 pounds per annum. In Napa county, on the slopes of Mount St. 

 Helena, and in Sonoma county, in the Geyser Mountains, west 

 of Clear Lake, cinnabar has been found, and companies are 

 now at work opening the mines. Whether they will prove to 

 be of value is as yet a matter of doubt. It is a singular fea- 

 ture of the cinnabar veins in these two last-mentioned places, 

 that they are accompanied by a porous limestone w^hich is full 

 of pure quicksilver ; and when the stone is shaken or struck, 

 the liquid metal flies out in minute globules. There have been 

 rumors of discoveries of cinnabar in other parts of the state, 

 but they are not well authenticated. 



§ 43. Copper. — Copper ore has been found near Crescent 

 City ; at Copper Canon, in the southwestern corner of Calave- 

 ras county ; in San Diego county ; in Napa county ; six miles 

 below Grizzly Flat, in El Dorado county; near Svveetland, in 

 Nevada county ; and in Shasta county. Sulphuret of copper, 

 or copper pyrites, is found in auriferous quartz-lodes in nearly 

 all the mining counties. Near Sweetland, Nevada county, 

 there is a claim in which so much copper is found with the 

 gold, that the dust is w^orth only eleven dollars per ounce. 

 No copper has been smelted in the state; the only attempts 

 to mine for the ore have been at Copper Canon, and on the 

 bank of the Cosumnes River, below Grizzly Flat. Some of 



