100 MINING INDUSTEY. 



Each claim mentioned in the foregoing table formerly represented a dis- 

 tinct and separate ownership in the vein, originally acquired by location under 

 the laws of the State. A few of them have since been consolidated, reducing 

 slightly the number of individual owners. Many of these claims are very 

 short, their length varying from 10 to 2,000 feet. The length of each claim, 

 as given in the table, is measured along the line of the lode, or in a nearly north 

 and south direction, covering in width the whole of the known extent of the 

 vein between the east and west walls. The difference of opinion regarding the 

 position- of these walls and the relation sustained toward each other by parallel 

 bodies of ore, separated by country-rock, but all included between what are 

 now held to be the main walls of the vein, was, in former years, a fruitful 

 source of litigation, involving the expenditure of millions of dollars. 



Each claim, with few exceptions, is represented by an incorporated 

 company. In most cases, formerly, the number of shares in any company 

 was equal to the number of lineal feet contained in its claim on the lode; lat- 

 terly, however, nearly all the more important companies have found it desirable 

 to increase the number of their shares, and this has been done by subdividing 

 each foot into fractional jDarts, usually twelve or twenty in number. 



The subdivision of the workable portions of the lode among so many 

 independent owners, has not only given rise to much expensive litigation, but 

 has doubtless increased the cost of development, multiplying the expenses of 

 administration, the outlays for machinery, and other requisite equipment of 

 the mines, and in various ways involving expenditures that would be avoided 

 under more comprehensive or consolidated management. 



All of these companies have explored their ground to some extent, and 

 most of them throughout the entire length of their claim ; but the number of 

 those that have attained great success as producing mines is comparatively 

 small. These latter, whose locations fortunately covered the great bonanzas, 

 form four or five distinct groups. The northernmost comprise the claims 

 of the Ophir and Mexican mines, from which a large amount of bullion 

 was produced in the earlier years of the development of the lode.' Adjoin- 



^ The Sierra Nevada, north of the Ophir, has latterly become a successful and 

 profitable mine. Its product, however, has thus far been chiefly gold, derived from 

 surface roch. Its deeper explorations have not developed large bodies of silver ore. 



