Publications of the State of California. 33 



Bulletin No. 23. {Continued.) 



resources of the State was by Hiram Hughes, the discoverer of the 

 Napoleon mine, in Calaveras County, although the presence was 

 known in 1859 or earlier of rich deposits on the Pit and McCloud 

 rivers, and copper ore yielding 70 per cent of the pure metal was 

 extracted from a vein in El Dorado County. 



They made no impression favorable to California as a copper- 

 producing field. Hiram Hughes's discovery in 1860 had, however, 

 a marked effect upon mining development. Hughes found that the 

 gossan cap of what became Quail Hill No. 1 mine was rich in gold, 

 and he began working it for that metal. Soon after he found the 

 gossan of what later became known as the Napoleon mine, but 

 finding no gold in it he sent ore to San Francisco to be assayed. The 

 report showed that it contained 30 per cent copper worth $120 per 

 ton. This report started a copper excitement in that locality. Soon 

 afterward the Copperopolis lode was found a few miles west of the 

 Napoleon. 



During that era of activity in California copper mining, Calaveras 

 County was the chief scene of operations. Thousands of tons of 

 rich copper ores were shipped abroad to be smelted. The greatest 

 depth reached was in the Union mine, the lower levels being 600 

 feet below the outcroppings. But the ore degenerated with depth, 

 and prices in the copper market falling caused the final suspension 

 of operations in 1868. 



According to Professor Thomas Price, Del Norte County ranked 

 second to Calaveras in the production of copper ore during the 

 period extending from 1862 to 1865. The copper belt in that 

 county extends north and south for a distance of ten miles. 



Some high-grade carbonates and oxides were also shipped then 

 from the Zinc House mine, near Empire Ranch, Nevada County, and 

 small quantities from Colusa County. 



In 1862, copper was discovered and mined at Copper City, Shasta 

 County ; but it carried only 8 per cent copper. Subsequent assays 

 showed that it carried .$40 per ton in gold and $20 in silver, and it 

 was shipped to Swansea to be smelted. This is the vein on which 

 the Bully Hill mines are now located. As all California copper 

 deposits carry silver and gold and other by-products they are all the 

 more valuable to mine. 



Colusa, Plumas, Mariposa, Fresno, and Santa Cruz counties 

 shipped some copper to market in the sixties. Prospects obtained 

 in Mariposa and Fresno counties indicated that Tuolumne, Mari- 

 posa, Madera, Stanislaus, Fresno, and Tulare counties would become 

 large producers of copper. 



The first smelting works was a small reverberatory furnace of 10 

 tons per day capacity at Antioch, Contra Costa County, in 1863. 

 The lignite produced at the Mount Diablo mines was used as fuel. 



From 1868 until 1895, the copper industry of California was 

 practically dead. In the latter year, the new era of activity set in 

 with the purchase and opening of the mines of the Mountain Copper 

 Company of Shasta. 



From 1860 to 1874 inclusive the total copper exports amounted to 

 96,674 tons, valued at $7,439,080. From 1895 to 1900 inclusive 

 the total value of the Shasta copper output amounted co 



