MINES AND MINING 



Folsom near Sacramento. There are a few dredges 

 in other counties. 



About half the gold now won in California comes 

 from quartz mines. The minor part comes from 

 hydraulic mines in Trinity, Sierra, Plumas, and 

 other mountain counties. The great hydraulic mines 

 of the Sierra Nevada were closed by debris troubles, 

 but the old workings may be seen from the train 

 near Dutch Flat on the main Southern Pacific line. 

 Colfax, nearby, is the point of departure for the 

 Nevada County Narrow-gage, a line leading to Grass 

 Valley and Nevada City. Here are numerous famous 

 mines. Perhaps the most notable are the Empire 

 and the North Star where a 30-inch (approximately) 

 quartz vein containing $11 to $18 per ton in gold has 

 been worked to unusual depths. In the North Star, 

 mining extends to 5390 feet in the plane of the vein, 

 corresponding to a vertical depth of 2000 feet. To 

 the close of 1912 the mine had yielded 1,064,782 

 tons, of a gross value of $15,515,515. The Empire 

 mines have not yet extended to as great depth, but 

 have been so profitable that a surplus equal to the 

 full value of the capital stock has been accumulated. 

 Both mines are notable for beauty of situation. At 

 the Empire the grounds have been improved by 

 most unusual landscape gardening and by building 

 so that the visitor must revise any previously held 

 notion of ugly mining camps. The ore is treated by 

 stamp-milling, amalgamation, and cyanidation. 



The California mining region made famous by 

 Bret Harte and some of the Mark Twain stories (for 

 example, The Jumping Frog of Calaveras) is now 

 known as the Mother Lode region. Interest here 

 centers in quartz mining. The five Mother Lode 

 counties, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Mariposa, 

 and Tuolumne, yield $4,500,000 to $5,000,000 per 

 annum. In general, mining is now in the zone ex- 

 tending from 1500 feet to nearly 4000 feet (vertical), 

 in the Kennedy mine at Jackson. The Kennedy is 

 the deepest gold mine in North America and one of 

 the deepest in the world. The vein is wide, the 

 walls are hard to hold, and square-setting and other 

 methods of timbering require much attention. The 

 ore is crushed by stamps and amalgamated, and the 

 practice is simple. At the Plymouth mine on the 

 north, however, and the Black Oak at Soulsbyville 

 on the south, most modern fine grinding plants may 

 be seen. At the Kennedy and at the Eagle-Shawmut, 

 chlorination works are operated, and at the Ken- 

 nedy there is a notable equipment of tailing wheels 

 and a multiple arch dam to protect the mine from 

 claims for damage by agriculturists below. The 



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