298 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



Creek one eacli. Tlie county has eight mining-ditches, with an 

 aggregate length of one hundred and sixty-seven miles. 



§ 224. Calaveras and Tuolumne. — Next to Amador is Cala- 

 veras county, bounded on the north by the Mokelumne River, 

 on the south by the Stanislaus River, with the Calaveras Rivei- 

 running between them. The principal mining towns are Moke- 

 lumne Ilill, San Andreas, Murphy's, Angel's, Yallecito, West 

 Pomt, Campo Secho, Douglass' Flat, Carson, Jesus Maria, and 

 Esperanza. The county has thirty- three quartz-mills, of which 

 twelve are at Angel's, at Carson and the South Fork of the Mok- 

 elumne River four each, three at the North Fork of the Mok- 

 elumne, at "West Point, Rich Gulch, Murray's Creek and the 

 Middle Fork of the Mokelumne, two each, and at Bear Creek 

 and McKinney's Humbug one each. Mr. Capp says, " The main 

 wealth of the district about West Point consists in its quartz 

 leads, which are so numerous that several of the residents in- 

 formed me, that starting three miles north of West Point, and 

 proceeding south for a distance of nine miles to the junction 

 of the forks of the Mokelumne, a j^erson would cross a quartz 

 vein in every hundred yards. About one hundred of these veins 

 have been prospected upon the surface, and scarcely any have 

 been found that did not prove to contain gold. As a proof of 

 the richness of the veins of this district, it would be sufficient to 

 state that large numbers of Mexicans and other Spaniards are 

 now working them successfully, although they pay fi-om one 

 dollar to one dollar and fifty cents per cargo of three hundred 

 pounds, to have the rock ground in arastras, to which freight 

 from the leads to the mills along the river has also to be added. 

 Mexicans who do their own work, cannot possibly afford to 

 work rock that does not at least pay three dollars per cargo, 

 or tw^enty dollars per ton, and in fact they seldom do work 

 rock that pays less than six dollars per cargo and forty dollars 

 per ton. 



" There is very little slate in this district, and nearly all the 

 quartz veins are encased in granite, which is usually much de- 

 composed. Occasionally, the granite appears to 'pinch' the 



