black, bare, level surface, extending across the landscape like a gigantic wall. Examined closely, it appears to be a mountain capped with basalt, a quarter of a mile wide and 40 miles long. It poured out of a volcano near Silver mountain, in Alpine county, and took the same general course as the present Stanislaus river, which has cut across it in various places. There is a fork in the basaltic stream, 14 miles above Columbia. The average height above the adjacent ground in Tuolumne county is from 500 to 800 feet on the northern side, and from 200 to 500 on the southern. The adjacent earth has been washed away. to a greater depth near the line of the mountain along its northern base, and for that reason nearly all the tunnels run in on the northern side.

The main strata of the mountain, commencing at the top, are: basalt, which is in most places 140 feet deep; under that is a stratum of volcanic sand 100 feet; then pipe clay and sand, 50 feet; then coarse gravel, 20 feet; then pay gravel, 5 feet; then bed rock. These strata vary greatly in thickness, however, in different places; there are spots where the pipe clay is 100 feet deep; but the above figures are given as an average.

The pay gravel is found in two places; there are really two channels, and whether they were the beds of two different streams or two beds of the same stream, occupied at different times, is not clearly determined, although the latter supposition is the more probable. The channels are not found under the middle of the mountain at every point; there are places where one of the channels is not covered by the basalt at all, and the other is only under the edge of it.* In a claim near Whimtown a tree standing erect 100 feet high was found in the pipe clay, and it looked as if it had never been moved from the position in which it grew; but it was all charred, though the basalt was a hundred yards distant.

Table mountain has been an unfortunate locality for miners. It is estimated that at least $1,000,000 more have been put into the mountain, counting the regular wages, than were ever taken out. Nine-tenths of the miners who undertook to work claims there were the losers. There was enough gold to pay well, but the miners did not know how to get it. They worked in companies, and many of the members were shirks and idlers. They had no experience in this kind of mining, and did not know how to manage so as to do the most execution with the least labor. They guessed at the level of the channel, and started their tunnels too high, so that they could not drain their ground, and either had great expenses for pumping or had to cut new tunnels. The old channel, when first discovered, was extremely rich, and it was presumed that the possession of a claim anywhere on the mountain was equivalent to a fortune; so no economy was used. Two companies side by side might have united to cut one tunnel, but, instead of that, each made its run. But the outsiders who did not get claims when the mountain was first 'taken up, in claims 300 feet in length, running across the channel, held a meeting and resolved that those claims were too

* Mr. J. Arthur Phillips says, in his recent work on the mining and metallurgy of gold and silver: "The summit of this elevation is occupied by a thick bed of basalt, of a very dark color and great density of texture, which is occasionally distinctly columnar, and appears to have been poured out in one continuous flow. This, in the neighborhood of Sonora, is from 140 to 150 feet in thickness, and its width near the entrance of the Buckeye tunnel is about 1,700 feet. Beneath this capping of basaltic lava is a heavy deposit of detrital matter distinctly stratified in almost horizontal beds, but with a slight inclination from either side side towards the centre of the mass. These sedimentary beds chiefly consist of a rather finegrained sandstone, which rapidly disintegrates on exposure to the atmosphere. Interstratified with this sandstone, and more particularly in the proximate vicinity of the bed-rock, are clays and fine argillaceous shales, frequently nearly white and often beautifully laminated. With these are associated beds made up of coarse grain, strongly cohering together, forming the cement of the mines; and at the bottom is found the pay gravel, exactly like that seen in the bed of an ordinary river. The entire thickness of this detrital mass at its greatest depth is at least two hundred feet. This thickness, however, diminishes towards the extremities of the deposit, where the edges of the basin formed by the rim-rock gradually rise." (Pp. 43, 44.)

large, and no man should hold more than 100 feet square. These jumpers, as they were called, far outnumbered the original locators, and they took up a large part of the mountain, held their own for a long time, and spent large sums in prospecting, but were at last defeated in court and ejected. Not one of them made anything by the jumping operation, and it is now conceded that the 300 feet, instead of being too much, was too little, since most who held even those large claims lost money by them.

The old channel was discovered at Springfield in 1852, in the Fox claim, in a shaft eight feet deep, on a flat from which the basalt had been washed away. The next year the Berry shaft, 55 feet deep, struck the channel; but it was not till the first of May, 1854, that the first tunnel was started, and the theory of lead running under the basalt was generally considered absurd until October, 1855, when the first tunnel reached the channel under the basalt.

The tunnels, to reach the channel, average about 1,000 feet in length, and the present cost of cutting tunnels at Table mountain is $16 per lineal foot. The common size of the tunnel is six feet high and four feet wide. The grade is one foot in a hundred. At the bottom of the tunnel is laid a tramway, 28 inches wide. Sleepers, three by four inches, rest on ties of the same size four feet apart, and are covered with iron straps an inch and a half wide and a quarter of an inch thick.

The following is a list of the claims in Table mountain, with a brief statement of their success and present condition, commencing near Columbia and running down stream:

The Buchanan claim, 300 feet long, has a tunnel which never paid expenses nor reached the gravel; it is not working now.

The Springfield claim, 2,000 feet long, has a tunnel 1,500 feet long, and paid well. The claim is working now. Three channels were found in this claim, and all were rich.

The Joint Stock claim, 2,400 feet long, has one tunnel of 1,000 feet and another of 1,200, that was commenced in 1855; and the claim is not abandoned, although $150,000 have been spent on it and only $50,000 taken out. Good gravel has lately been found, and the claim is considered valuable.

The yield The first causing so

The Saratoga claim, 1,200 feet long, has a tunnel 1,200 feet long. was $300,000, but rumor says the expenditures were still greater. owners sold out at a high price, making a profit by speculation, but much more loss to the purchasers. The claim is not working now. Here comes a gap in the mountain, and below are the following claims: The Crystal Spring claim, 800 feet long, reached the 'channel and produced much gold, but the sum was not ascertainable; it is standing idle now. The Know-Nothing, a jumper claim, never reached the channel. The Gold Hunter, a jumper claim, never reached the channel.

The Virginia claim, 1,700 feet long, reached the channel with a tunnel 800 feet long, but took out only $5,000 and spent $100,000. The company had very long and costly litigation with jumpers on both sides.

The Blank jumper company started a tunnel on the Virginia ground, but never reached the channel.

The Independence jumper company reached the channel by a tunnel 500 feet long, but found no gravel, and lost $75,000 by their enterprise.

The Mary Ann, another jumper company, ran a tunnel in a considerable distance, but found nothing.

The Cape Cod, also a jumper, had similar bad luck.

The American claim, 1,600 feet long, has a tunnel 900 feet long, and cut across the channel with a drift five feet wide. No pay gravel was found here, and the company were so poor and so much discouraged that, instead of examining the channel further, at a slight expense, as they could have done, they

stopped work, and nothing has been done now for three years. Their loss was $30,000.

The Buckeye claim, 1,000 feet long, now includes several old claims, and has three tunnels, only one of which, 2,000 feet long, is now used. One of the abandoned tunnels was 1,650 feet long. Work was commenced in 1854, and has been kept up, with the exception of one year, ever since, at an expense of $100,000, while the total yield has been only $10,000. An artesian auger was used in prospecting this claim, and Mr. Gould, who tried the experiment, thinks it should be used frequently. His drill was four and a half inches wide, and he bored four or five feet in basalt and eight or ten feet in slate in 12 hours. The cost in slate is $6 or $8 per foot. A water blast is used for ventilation.

The Boston claim, 3,000 feet long, commenced work in 1855, and has worked steadily ever since. The total yield has been not less than $500,000, and the total net profit nothing. Much of the work was done at first by a joint stock company, the shareholders in which claimed the right of being employed, though some of them were of little value as laborers. The manager did not know how to work to advantage, and did not pursue any steady plan. They worked first in one place and then in another, without exhausting either, and then the timber rolled and the roof fell in. There are now two owners in the claim, and they are doing better than any of their predecessors, though the gravel is not so rich as it was some years ago. There is still a large amount of ground untouched. Ten men are employed, and there is pay dirt enough in sight to keep them busy for half a year. The average yield per day is $8 to the man, or $1 per ton. The dirt is soaked over night in a dump-box before.

The Maine Boys' claim is 1,200 feet long on the north side of the mountain, but the lines converge so that they are only 550 feet apart on the south side. The expenses have been $120,000, and the yield very little. The original shareholders, having starved themselves out, sold conditionally to a San Francisco

company.

The Scraperville claim, 1,200 feet, has paid. It is said that the owners of one-fourth of the stock saved $5,000 in a few years.

The Oliver claim, 4,000 feet long, has yielded $200,000, and report says $8,000 have been taken from a single dump-box, which holds 150 tons. The profits were moderate till the end of 1866, and are now large. This company has been engaged in litigation for six years, has spent $30,000 on the suit, and has been before the Supreme Court, in one form or another, with it four times. The company is working the side channel.

The New York Company claims 2,400 feet, and their ground is considered the richest in the county. They are working on the side channel, which is there about 60 feet wide, and each lóngitudinal foot on it pays $1,000. They say they have taken out $250,000; others say $300,000.

The Chinese claim, so called because the shareholders came from a Chinese camp near by, is 2,000 feet long, and never paid anything. The tunnel was run in 300 feet.

The App claim, 2,000 feet long, has a tunnel 1,500 feet long, cut at a cost of $50,000. It never paid anything.

The Know Nothing claim, 1,500 feet, has yielded nothing and swallowed up $7,000.

The Chicken Company claimed 2,500 feet, spent $20,000, cut two tunnels, and got nothing.

The Montezuma Company claimed 3,000 feet and sunk $20,000 in a tunnel 2,000 feet long.

The Rough and Ready Company claims 5,400 feet, and have taken out not less than $200,000. One of the shareholders observing some gravel on the mountain side, filled his pan with it, and on washing it found a good prospect. They set to work here and found it rich. It was a bar of the old river, 75 feet

above the level of the channel. The claim has been worked regularly since 1854, and still pays a little.

The Union claim,

feet, unopened.

The Palisade claim, 5,400 feet, is unopened.

Here we come to a place where the channel is lower than the country on each side of the mountain, so it is impossible to get any drainage or to do any work. The old Stanislaus Company has a claim 12,000 feet long on Table mountain, just above the point where the Stanislaus river cuts off. The channel where it opens on the bluff is 350 feet above the level of the present river, so there is abundant drainage down the channel, though the country on both sides of the mountain is higher than the old channel. The old Stanislaus Company spent a good deal of money trying to get in from the side before they discovered the outlet on the bluff. Some of the gravel paid $18 per ton. A mill was erected in 1859 to crush the cement, but it did not pay.

At Two Mile Bar (two miles east of Knight's ferry) the channel is 80 feet below the level of the present Stanislaus river.

QUARTZ MINING IN TUOLUMNE.-Tuolumne county is very favorably situated for quartz mining, and so far as external indications and facilities may serve as guides, the presumptions are that it will be second to no other county in California in production of quartz gold. Wood and water are abundant; the roads generally are good, and the quartz veins large, numerous and easily traced. The mother lode and the companion talcose vein here have their largest and most regular development. The Golden Rule, the Reist, the Mooney, and the Heslep are all in the companion talcose vein, and have paid for a longer time than any other of their class in the State. The quartz veins in the granite about Soulsbyville are the most productive of their class in the State, and the cluster of pocket mines on Bald mountain is unsurpassed in the multitude and richness of pockets within a small area.

GOLDEN RULE.-The Golden Rule, 1,600 feet long, is on the mother lode, about three miles eastward from Jamestown. The claim includes both veins, the main mother lode, and the talcose slate branch or companion vein. At the surface they are 75 feet apart, and 87 feet below they are 40 feet apart. The main lode is 12 feet thick, exclusive of a horse, and the slate vein is eight feet. The latter is the one which is being worked. The vein is a black slate, bearing much resemblance to ordinary roofing slate, and is penetrated in every direction by seams of quartz, seldom more than two inches in thickness. The gold is found in the slate, seldom in the quartz. All the vein-stone is worked, though that near the foot wall is the richest. The rock is soft, and is easily extracted and crushed. The pulp from the battery is black like the slate. The walls are a hard magnesian rock. There is a slight dip to the east. The mill has 15 stamps, and is driven by water. The weight of the stamps is 750 pounds, their speed 50 blows per minute, and their drop from five to eight inches. There is sufficient power to drive 15 stamps more. The water is obtained from the Columbia Ditch Company. About 85 per cent. of the gold is caught in the mortar, and nearly five per cent. on the copper plates immediately below. The pulp · runs over a shaking table, which has 120 jerks per minute, and is cleaned out twice in 24 hours, yielding about 400 pounds of sulphurets each time. The pulp also passes over blankets, which are washed once in an hour. There are 10 pounds of pure sulphurets to a ton, but the concentrated tailings as saved are about 40 pounds to a ton of ore, and there are $40 per ton in these tailings, which are worked in an arrastra, which pays six ounces a month. A Stetson amalgamator below the blankets pays only $1 per month.

The slate vein was brown and decomposed at the surface, and was washed in sluices by placer miners to a depth of 30 feet. In 1866 the present mill was finished, and in the year preceding the 1st of July, 1867, the number of tons crushed was 4,099; the average yield per ton, $8 94; the total yield, $36,653 ;

cost of labor, $16,500; cost of repairs, timber, lumber, charcoal, hauling, taxes, &c., $5,800; cost of supplies sent from San Francisco, $2,400; office expenses in San Francisco, including salaries of president and secretary, freight in bullion, travelling expenses, &c., $1,500; dividends, $7,500, and cash on hand, $2,953. The total expenses were $6 39, and the net profit $2 55 per pon. The average number of days that the mill ran in a month was 23; the highest being 27, and the lowest 17. The average yield per ton was $5 71 in March, $6 79 in January, $6 97 in June, $7 72 in November, $15 54 in October, and $10 or $11 and odd cents in the other months. The number of men employed was 16, of whom 8 were miners, 2 carmen, 4 millmen, a blacksmith and a superintendent. The rock is extracted through a tunnel 400 feet long, 80 feet below the summit of the hill, and 500 feet above the level of Sullivan's creek, below which the mine cannot be drained by a tunnel.

APP.-The App mine is 1,000 feet long on the mother lode, near Jamestown. The vein there is nine feet wide on an average. The vein-stone is quartz, in places white, in others greenish, and others dark. The richest spots are near the walls. The vein dips about two feet and a half in ten. The hanging wall is magnesian rock, and the foot wall slate. At the surface there were three pay chimneys, 75, 100 and 125 feet in horizontal length respectively, separated by intervals of 60 and 35 feet, with a dip to the northwestward of 70° on the upper side, but widening out on the under side, and at 180 feet the three had united in one chimney 235 feet long horizontally. Horizontal sections of the chimneys would represent not rectangles but quadrangular parallellograms, with two very acute angles. The chimneys have not run out in any place, but in several places the walls have pinched close together, so that there were only seven inches of quartz. In these spots the chimneys were of the same richness to the ton as elsewhere. The distribution of gold in each chimney is very even in relation to the depth; but on any given level the most gold is found at the sharp ends, and the least in the middle of the chimney. Each chimney, however, has its peculiar quartz. One chimney has white quartz, another greenish, another bluish, and the last is the richest. The gold is fine, and seldom visible in the quartz. The present supply of rock is obtained at a depth of 300 feet, and the shaft is now being sunk deeper. The working level is 300 feet long, and the supply of pay quartz in sight will last two years for the present mill, which has ten stamps, and is driven by water. In 1866, 1,800 tons were worked, and the average yield was $14 55 per ton; from 1863 to 1866, inclusive, four years, 7,200 tons were worked, and the average yield was $15. The pulp as it comes from the battery is ground in charges of 400 or 500 pounds for three or four hours in various pans, without quicksilver, and two pan charges are amalgamated in a separator for the same length of time. The yield in the pan is about $6 per ton. The total expense per ton in this mine is about $8 per ton, and in the mine alone $4 50. The wall is in places as smooth as glass, and the gouge, is thickest at the pay chimneys.

SILVER.—The Silver or Anthrax mine, 1,500 feet on the mother lode, is being opened in good style. There is a 10-stamp mill, which was idle in May and waiting for the complete opening of the mine. The companion talcose vein strikes the main lode 400 feet from the south end of the claim, runs with it, but as a distinct vein for some distance towards the north, then diverges again, and at the northern end of the claim the two are six feet apart. The companion vein, so far as examined, is barren here.

HESLEP. The Heslep mine, 1,650 feet on the companion talcose vein, has been worked 1,200 feet on the surface, and has paid all the way. The pay matter is decomposed quartz and slate, of a tan color, and soft enough to be picked out, and in some places to be shovelled without picking. The cost of working is estimated at $2 50 per ton. The vein varies in width from 8 to 20 feet. The deepest workings are 90 feet down. The mill has ten stamps, which