Miscellaneous Intelligence. 295 



that time than earlier in the evening. An old Californian who saw it, 

 said it was the first time he had ever witnessed any thing of the kind. 



44 The transit of Mercury on the morning of the 9th 1 was designing 

 to observe as well as I could with the telescope of my theodolite ; but 

 the weather proved to be densely foggy where I then was. The August 

 meteors 1 lost from the same cause. 



11 There are portions of California where the sky is most admirably 

 adapted to astronomical observations, being almost perfectly cloudless 

 for eight months of the year in succession, and generally unclouded a 

 large portion of the remaining four. Beautiful sites for an observatory 

 might be selected in the neighborhood of Puebla de San Jose, fifty 

 miles soulh of this place." 



4. Gold Mining in Virginia, (Mining Journal, London, April 15, 

 1848.) — As every thing connected with the successful results of mining 

 operations, particularly as regards the precious metals, is of the most 

 lively interest, we proceed to lay before our readers some account of a 

 gold mine in ihe state of Virginia, in North America, supposed to be 

 the most extensively worked, and the best organized of any of the gold 

 mines in the United States. This mine is situate in a fertile and pop- 

 ulous country, with good roads, and rapid and easy conveyance, and 

 when we consider the mining districts of South America and Russia, 

 their almost inaccessible situation, difficulty and expense of carriage, 

 &c, the superiority of the situation of those of North America is self- 

 evident. 



"The Orange Grove or Vaucluse Mine is situated in Orange County, 

 State of Virginia, near the eastern line of Spotsylvania Coumy, about 

 two miles north of the Swift-run gap turnpike, leading from Frede- 

 ricksburg to Orange Court-house, one mile south of the Rapidan, or 

 south branch of the Rappahannock River; and about seventeen miles 

 from Fredericksburg This mine was discovered in 1832, and for a 

 number of years worked as a deposit or surface mine for gold, before 

 the veins or lodes of ore containing the precious metal were discover- 

 ed. The surface working, or washing, for gold on the estate has been 

 conducted from that time (with few, if any intervals) until the year 

 1846, always yielding a good profit for the labor and capital employed. 

 1'he veins or lodes of ore, which are numerous, run N.N.E. and 



S.S.W., and dip to the N.E. The walls of the same are of various 

 slates. The ores are slate, talcose, schist, and quartz, containing sul- 

 phuret of iron, brown oxyd of iron, black and brown hydrates of iron, 

 and the slates near the veins or lodes are highly metalliferous and often 

 colored with iron* At the depth of seventy or eighty feet, the hydrates 

 are often found incrusting the sulphurets, all of which contain gold, 

 and some of which are very rich. The lodes, or veins, vary in size 

 a nd width, from four to twenty feet, and some bodies of ore are found 

 as wide as thirty or forty feet; most, if not all, are connected, one with 

 the other, by small leaders, or threads. Parallel with these, there has 

 been discovered ore containing native copper in minute crystals, and 

 also the sulphurets and oxyds of copper and iron, all rich in gold, but 

 they have not been worked to any extent, as the native copper forms 

 an amalgam with the gold and quicksilver, which requires the process 

 of cupellation to separate the gold. All the ores here are worked by 



