276 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



pay, and to determine this, the superintendent of the quarry-men 

 must occasionally test the vein-stone. He takes several little 

 pieces of it, average specimens, places them on a hard, smooth, 

 flat stone about a foot square, on which he crushes them with a 

 stone muller four inches square, and then by rubbing with the 

 muller he reduces them to a fine powder. He has a horn 

 spoon, made of a large ox-horn, with a bowl about three inches 

 wide and eight inches long, being merely one-half of the horn 

 in its natural shape. With this spoon he washes out the pow- 

 der in water, and if he does not find a speck of gold or a 

 " color," as it is called, in a pound of the rock, he infers that 

 it will not pay. The three principal quartz mines in the state 

 are those of Fremont in Mariposa county, of the Allison com- 

 pany in Nevada county, and of the Sierra Butte company in 

 Sierra county. The first has produced $75,000 in a month, the 

 second $60,000, and the third $20,000, but the average is prob- 

 ably thirty per cent, less, and the expenses about thirty per 

 cent, of the total product. The average yield of the Fremont 

 rock is fourteen dollars to the ton, of the Sierra Butte rock 

 eighteen dollars, and that of the Allison company, according 

 to report, has for more than a year at a time been one hundred 

 dollars per ton. The cost of working quartz rock, including 

 quarrying, crushing, and amalgamating, is in the best mills 

 from five to ten dollars per ton. The width of the vein, the 

 softness of the rock, the amount of work done, and the skill 

 and industry of the workmen, all are items of great importance 

 in estimating the cost of quartz-mining. It is a business which 

 the owner of the mill ought to understand. The cost of 

 quarrying common quartz rock is about two dollars per ton, 

 that is, for mill-owners that understand the business and super- 

 intend the labor themselves. When given out by the job, it 

 usually costs iQore. When quartz is crushed in a custom mill, 

 that is, a mill built to crush for all applicants, the cost is rarely 

 less than five dollars per ton, and in Washoe, the price was at 

 one time thirty dollars per ton ; but in the large mills, where 

 many tons are crushed every day, is about two dollars per ton. 



