322 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



245. Quartz Mining as a business. Many fine fortunes 

 have been lost in gold-quartz mining, and it is proper to give 

 warning to the ignorant against the dangers that beset 

 the business. Here are a few remarks for the consideration 

 of inexperienced persons solicited to take an interest in quartz 

 mines. 



1. Gold quartz mining is one of the most uncertain of all 

 occupations. 



2. No amount of experience, scientific knowledge, and 

 prudence, will secure the investor against loss in it. 



3. Many of the men engaged in it are very bold, and 

 their statements must not be accepted without great caution, 

 even when there is proof of their sincerity. 



4. No one should risk more in gold quartz than he can af- 

 ford to lose without serious inconvenience. 



5. The presence of large lumps of gold in a vein, is no 

 evidence of a profitable mine. Most of the best mines have 

 had little rich rock ; and the finest specimens have come from 

 mines that are not now worked. It is the large supply of pay- 

 ing quartz, and not the extraordinary richness of small pieces, 

 that makes the great mine. 



6. There is no occupation in which it is easier to waste 

 money by inexperience, carelessness, or folly. 



7. No business has greater need of the presence and con- 

 stant attention of an economical, attentive, and capable man- 

 ager, directly interested in the business. 



8. For persons of small means, the only safe way to work 

 a quartz mine is to make it pay as it goes along, and to aban- 

 don it whenever the outgo exceeds the income. 



9. Many of the best quartz mines in the State were rich at 

 the surface, and have yielded more than enough from the be- 

 ginning to pay for all the work expended on them. 



10. Not one in five of the mines which did not pay at the 

 surface, and has been worked to a depth of one hundred feet, 



.has ever paid. 



