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 witha 
stone muller four inches square, and then by rubbing with the 
muller he reduces them to a fine powder. He has a born 
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 more. When quartz is crushed in a custom mill, 
that is, a mill built to crush for all applicants, the cost is rarely 
Jess 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. 
