In a short time after the title was satisfactorily settled the yield of gold from the quartz mines of the estate became very large. The monthly production in 1860 averaged $39,500; in 1861, $53,500; in 1862, the year of the great flood, which injured the mills, flooded mines, and broke up roads, $43,500; and in the first five months of 1863, $77,000. In March, 1863, the yield was $94,000; in April, $92,000; and in May, $101,000. The production seemed to have reached the figure of $100,000 per month, with a fair prospect of still further increase. It was at this time that the estate was sold to an incorporated company in New York city, and the stock put upon the market in the midst of the San Francisco mining stock fever, which extended its influence across the continent. The prospectus of the company presented a very attractive picture to speculators. The average monthly yield for three years and a half had been $50,000, and for half a year the net profits had equalled that sum. The reports of various mining engineers indicated that the results of future workings would be still better. Messrs. Wakelee and Garnett, who spoke with great caution, and expressed doubts about the value of the Mariposa, the Pine Tree, and Josephine mines, still thought that the monthly productions of the estate could soon be raised to $220,000, at an expense of not more than $50,000, leaving $170,000 net monthly income. Dr. J. Adelberg, speaking of the Pine Tree and Josephine mines, said:

In regard to the value of the veins, I can say no more than that their yield in precious metal is limited only by the amount of work done in them; but I recollect Mr. Fremont once commissioning me to make an estimate as to their endurance in the limits of the longitudinal extent now opened. I found by calculation that they would yield for 388 years 100 tous daily, without the requisition of pumps. I mean down to the water level.

Mr. Timothy C. Allyn made a report on the property in December, 1862, and expressed the opinion that the yield could be increased $100,000 per month, gross, and $50,000 net. A report equally favorable by Mr. Claudet was also published. Professor Whitney, a most careful, conscientious, and competent authority, had said:

The quantity of material which can be mined may, without exaggeration, be termed inexhaustible. I can hardly see a limit to the amount of gold which the property is capable of producing, except in the time, space, and capital required to erect the necessary mills, build roads to them, and open mines, so as to keep them supplied with ore.

With these opinions and facts, large quantities of the stock were purchased, and there were large quantities of it to be purchased, for the paper capital of the company was $10,000,000.

The company was organized by Frémont's creditors, who had become owners of the property; but instead of cancelling the debt and taking stock for it, they took a mortgage for $15,000,000, payable in gold, and issued the stock subject to that debt, which was supposed to be the only incumbrance on the property; at least that was the supposition of many who bought the stock. It soon → appeared, however, that there were $480,000 in gold duc, besides $300,000 on the garrison lien, $50,000 on the Clark mortgage, and $130,000 to workmen and others in California. The new company selected Mr. F. L. Olmsted for their manager, and he took charge of the estate on the 14th November, 1864. He found everything in confusion. The production had fallen off very suddenly after the sale. It seemed as if every nerve had been strained to make the yield of May as large as possible, and that as soon as the sale was made the production decreased more than 50 per cent. The yield for the first five months of 1863 before the sale was $385,000, and during the last six after the sale was $186,993. In the former period there was a net profit of $50,000 per month; in the latter a net loss of $80,000.

In May, 1864, Professor Silliman made a report on the estate, in which he said:

A person accustomed to view mines must be deeply impressed on the first view of this estate, not more with the great extent and vigor of the former workings-evidence of which

is seen equally in the underground extraction and in the surface works, railroads, mills, trails, wagon roads, warehouses, and workshops-than with the equally conspicuous fact that the former owners had no regard for their successors, inasmuch as they have in every instance violated in the most remarkable manner that fundamental maxim of all successful mining, namely, to keep works of exploration well in advance of works of extraction. The neglect of this maxim, in ordinary cases, is never of doubtful issue. In your case the result has been peculiarly unfortunate, since your estate is not a mine, but a vast collection of mineral veins, on many of which valuable mines may be developed, and on some of which such developments were made of an encouraging character, but the neglect to apply the principle in question has resulted in the complete suspension of three of the mills, the partial suspension of a fourth, and the supply of the fifth for a time with an inferior quality of ore, all because the veins on which these mills depended for ore were worked on the improvident plan of taking all the ore in sight as far and as fast as it could be found, but never anticipating the evil day, sinking shafts and driving levels long enough in advance of the calls of the present hour to foresee disaster, much less to prevent it.

A mine is a storehouse in which are garnered certain treasures of large, it may be, but not inexhaustible supply. Certain it is, the ore which has been mined will never recur. Hence, it is the fate of all mines at some period to become exhausted. The only compensation to this circumstance is in the possession by one company of a considerable number of mines which may be brought, in succession, into activity, so as to supplement each other. Your position in this respect is one of immense strength; not only do you hold on the Mariposa estate a vast plexus of veins, of most of which very little is known at present, but you also own a great length of country on several veins, the character of which is already proved. It follows from this state of facts that, with the frugal and timely application of capital, you ought never to be in a position where the partial or complete exhaustion of a particular mine, or of several mines, should be severely felt on your general production, nor would it be so to-day had it been the interest of those who preceded you to apply the simple maxim already quoted. But the reckless disregard of this sound principle has resulted, not only in a partial suspension of your production of gold-amounting to a serious disappointment of well-founded hopes-but, still worse, in the almost destruction of certain parts of the mines, where the usual piers of vein have been removed for milling, leaving the mines to crush in, endangering not human life only, but the very existence of the mines themselves. The simple result of all this has been, that your manager found himself, at the outset of your occupancy, face to face with a most embarrassing and painful state of facts, with the alternative before him of throwing off the duty he had undertaken or of grappling with the difficulties and, by a series of judicious measures, extricating this noble estate from its disastrous position. Fortunately for all concerned, he elected the latter alternative; and it will give me pleasure to point out in what manner he has, with great good judgment, proposed to meet the difficulties he has found.

*

It is quite obvious, from the facts and statements already detailed in this report, that you hold an estate of very great value, but also in a great degree undeveloped, and demanding a large amount of active capital for its proper management. That the judicious use of money will be rewarded, and that speedily, by exploring the undeveloped quartz veins of the estate, is too obvious, I trust, after the arguments and facts already set forth, to require further illustration. All explorations will not be fruitful certainly, but those which are so will become so largely remunerative that they will cancel the others. By no other plan can you hope to manage the estate with honor or profit. By this method you will be sure to develop a vast value, which will render your stock desirable as a permanent and safe investment. By any other system you may attain a spasmodic vitality-to be followed soon by a total collapse. Your manager fully appreciates these views, and his plans now in progress of development will not fail to secure the carly and permanent prosperity of the Mariposa estate.

In 1864 the yield was $465,000, and the expenditure of the mines and mills $760,000. With a debt of $3,000,000, (that was about the figure on the 1st January, 1865,) and a monthly loss of $20,000, the company was evidently not in a prosperous condition. On the 23d January, 1865, a committee of stockholders, appointed to investigate the condition of the company, made a report, and recommended that money be raised by assessment or loan to pay the most pressing debts, so that the work might be continued. They gave it as their opinion that the property was "worth preserving to the stockholders," and that the embarrassments were "owing to defective organization and want of working capital." The company did not succeed in raising the money to pay their most pressing debts, and the estate was placed in the hands of Dodge Brothers, creditors, for the purpose of enabling them to work it and pay their own and others' debts.

The trustees found, according to their own statement, that they had spent

more at the end of a year than they had received; and the company being dissatisfied, brought suit and obtained the appointment of a receiver, who is now (May, 1867,) in possession.*

*Mr. Mark Brumagin, president of the company, under date of September 6, 1867, gives the following statement of the present condition of the Mariposa estate:

After a period of legal and financial difficulties which have weighed heavily upon the Mariposa estate, the company have succeeded in successfully terminating the long pending law suit with the lessees. A final settlement has been made with the Messrs. Dodge Brothers, (the lessees,) by which they relinquish to the company all their rights under the Olmstead lease for the possession of the whole property.

The floating debt has been reduced from about $200,000 to less than $60,000, which has been concentrated into holders who are interested in the success of the company, and the greater portion of which is made payable in instalments running through the next twelve months.

The Mariposa estate consists of upwards of 44,000 acres of gold-bearing land, in the heart of the mineral region of California. It contains more than 1,000 auriferous quartz veins, of which some 30 have been partially opened, and proved to be paying veins when provided with proper reduction works. Of these mines only five have been supplied with machinery, and that of a primitive kind, and very inefficient for saving gold. Where thousands have been taken from the estate, millions of dollars have been lost by bad management and worthless machinery.

The working of the Josephine and Pine Tree mines for the year 1860, and to the date of the incorporation of the company, shows an average gross yield of $8 533 to the ton. From that time the yield for the above two mines has been respectively, as follows:

The Pine Tree mine, under the succeeding management, yielded, in gross, an average of $6 per ton; the lower run having been $4 21, and the highest, $9 97 per ton.

The books kept by the Olmsted management also exhibit the following in regard to the Josephine mine: The lowest run for any one clean up was $2 42 per ton; the highest, $7 05 per ton, making an average gross yield for this period of $4 52 per ton. In brief, the average yield of this mine was at that time so low that it was partially abandoned as worthless by their method of saving gold.

Under the next management, (that of the lessees of the company who succeeded Olmsted,) the books show that the quartz from these two mines was worked together with an average gross yield of $9 01 per ton, the ore having been more or less selected.

The Pine Tree vein is in some places over 30 feet wide, and runs parallel with the Josephine, which has a width of some 12 feet, both mines cropping out on the summit of Mount Bullion, 1,500 feet above the Mercer river, at which the Benton mills are located.

The Josephine contains considerable sulphurets, while the Pine Tree has rather the character of a "free gold" vein. Both have more or less of oily substances in the seams of the veins. The ore contains largely of "float gold," so fine that it floats for hours on the surface of the water.

Quartz from these mines is now supplied to the mills from the tunnels penetrating the veins near the top of the hill, but it is designed to open them by a tunnel at the base, some thousand feet below the present workings, which will insure an unfailing supply of ore.

Under the company's, or present management, since we obtained full possession, we have changed the Bear Valley mill into the "eureka process" for saving gold. This mode of disintegration produces a fine, almost impalpable powder, like superfine flour. Half a ton of this is enclosed dry in an iron receiver. Superheated steam or gas is admitted, which, in the course of a few minutes desulphurizes and drives off all base metals and oily substances. Quicksilver is then introduced, and a portion evaporized, and is afterwards condensed by common steam and cold water. An ingeniously constructed shaking table, of copper, about 20 feet long, on a wooden frame, with riffles of a peculiar formation, gives to the water and pulverized substance, with the amalgam, the same action as that of the ocean surf, an undertow. As the mass descends on the table, the amalgam, from its metallic weight, gradually clears itself from the quartz substances, and the gold is easily and quickly collected in the troughs of the riffles; and so effectually that the residue contains scarcely a trace of gold. With this mill the company have recently worked some 800 tons of quartz from the Josephine mine. The lowest yield at any clean up was $31 per ton; the highest was $173 per ton; giving an average of $40 53 per ton. In the greater portion of this quartz not a particlo of gold could be discerned before crushing. From these facts it will readily appear why the property has hitherto paid no dividends.

Captain Henry J. Hall, a practical and experienced quartz miner, has now charge of the mines and mills of the company, and is adapting the eureka gold-saving process to all the mills of the estate. The aggregate capacity of these mills under former management was 292 tons daily, or about 7,500 tons per month, a capacity which still exists. The mills are located near the Josephine, Pine Tree, Mariposa, Mount Ophir, and Princeton mines, all proved to be large, well defined, and inexhaustible veins. There may be easily taken out from these five mines, at the present time, 200 tons of gold ore per day, and increased on the present

Experienced quartz miners, familiar with the estate, are almost unanimous in the opinion that the Princeton, the Pine Tree, and the Josephine mines are far from exhausted, but, on the contrary, that they are all very valuable, and ought to be made to pay well, and that the failures of the last four years are to be ascribed mainly to bad management. It is true that when the Mariposa company took possession the mines were not opened in advance as they should have been; but they were opened, the position of the pay chimneys was determined, the hoisting works and pumps and mills were in working order, with capacity to crush and amalgamate 150 tons of rock per day; there were experienced miners present, familiar with the character of each vein; there was a railroad for transporting the rock of two of the principal mines to the mill; and there were improvements that were indispensable, and that could not have been placed there for less than a quarter of a million dollars. The property, however, was not managed properly, and the result was a failure, which is the more remarkable because it followed immediately upon the heels of the most brilliant

success.

PRINCETON.-The Princeton mine has been one of the most productive in California, and has been noted for both the abundance and the richness of its quartz. For a time it yielded $90,000 per month from milling rock, and this is more than any other mine of the State ever did.

The mine is situated about half way between the Mariposa and the Pine Tree mines, and is on a hill easily accessible. The course of the vein is northwest and southeast; the dip, 55° northeast; the thickness varies from a few inches to 10 feet. The vein has been opened to a depth of 560 feet on an incline, and 200 feet below the surface; drifts have been run 1,200 feet along the vein, and at the deepest workings the drifts extend 500 feet. The richest rock was found within 100 feet of the surface, where the pay was $70 per ton from milling well, besides large numbers of specimens, of which it is said that not less than $100,000 in value were stolen by the miners. Below this rich mass of rock the quartz gradually became poorer, and there were spots which did not pay for working; but it is said that there is still an abundant supply of good milling rock in sight.

Professor W. P. Blake made a report on the mine in November, 1861, and said:

The vein is composed of white friable quartz, and is divided into parallel layers or plates by thin slatey films, which are generally charged with fine-grained pyrites and free gold. The body of the quartz bears white vein pyrites crystallized and spread in irregular patches and a small portion of galena, together with free gold in irregular ragged masses, in plates and scales, and sometimes crystals. The gold appears to be most abundant in the neighborhood of the galena, and is found not only with the iron pyrites striking its sheets through its substance, but entirely isolated from it and enveloped in the pure white quartz. Some of the specimens preserved are exceedingly rich and beautiful, and just before my examination of the vein some superb crystallizations had been broken out. These crystals are bunches of octahedrons, with perfectly flat and highly polished faces from one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch across, and are attached to masses of white quartz.

openings by enlarging the working facilities, to 4,000 tons per day. The cost of mining and reducing the ore will be less than $10 per ton, and may yield an average of $40 per ton. The old mills have produced upwards of $3,500,000. Under an intelligent system of working they ought to have yielded over $10,000,000.

The amount of profits from the estate can only be estimated in proportion to the number of mills provided for the reduction of the ores. The reader may draw his own conclusions from the facts and figures herewith presented.

It will be remembered that the representations heretofore made by the undersigned were based on the low estimate of a sure gross average yield of $20 per ton, by the new reducing machinery. The present working shows that such estimates may no longer be regarded as theoretical, as the actual results fully illustrate. Theywill be amply confirmed by the future of this great property.

Professor Blake made a second report on this mine in December, 1864, and said:

arc.

It is evident on a careful examination of the surface that there is a want of conformity in direction between the vein and the slates. The slates on the west side are curved towards the vein in the form of a bow, the ends of the curve appearing to abut against the vein at both ends, the vein forming in its line of outcrop, with respect to the slates, the chord of an There is also a want of conformity in direction between this body of curved slates on the west side of the vein and those on the east side of it, showing with most distinctness at the north end, near the mouth of the upper drift. On the east side the trend of the slates is seen to vary at different places from north 45° west to north 95 west. They are nearly east and west at the north end of the vein. * *There is also a want of conformity between the body of curved slates on the west side of the vein and the slates still further to the west, as if the curved body of slate had been broken from some other place and forced into its present position. The line of contact is not very distinct, but just in the position we would expect to find it we see a quartz vein which seems to mark the place. It is approximately parallel with the Princeton vein, and is also gold-bearing.

This want of conformity in the direction of the slates on the opposite sides of the vein and with the course of the vein itself, and the fact that the ends of the layers of slate abut against the vein, or in other words, that the vein does not coincide with the plane of the bedding or stratification of the slates, justifies the conclusion that it is a fissure vein rather than a bedded mass, as has heretofore been generally supposed. It evidently occupies the line of break between the two distinct bodies of slate.

The mineralogical character of the slates on the opposite sides of the vein is also different. The slates on the west side are much more sandy than those on the east, which are argillaceous and in very thin layers of uniform composition, presenting the well-known appearance and character of roofing slates. There are several layers in the series on the west side which might be called sandstones rather than slates. There are also in connection with these sandy bars of a hard argillaceous rock, with an obscure slaty structure which resists weathering more than the surrounding portions and stands out in well-defined outcrops. These two bars of rock are each from six to eighteen inches in thickness, and are about 170 feet apart.

It is a curious fact that the gold-bearing part of the vein appears to have a certain relation to these peculiar argillaceous rocks or strata, for it does not extend beyond the line of contact of these strata with the plane of the vein. So also in the northern extension of the Princeton vein, half a mile to the northwest, at the Green Gulch mine, where the vein was productive, the same peculiar rock is found in connection with the vein on the west side.

Near the mill the vein splits and the two branches run off southeastward nearly parallel with one another. At a distance of a mile they are about 300 yards apart. These branches have not been well explored or prospected, so not much is known of their character. On the main vein there are seven shafts and a great number of workings of different classes, such as might be expected of a mine that has yielded $4,000,000 and sustained a considerable town. From January, 1859, till June, 1860, Steptoe and Ridgway had charge of the mine, and extracted 2,000 tons, which averaged $18 per ton. From June 1, 1860, till November of the same year, under the management of Park, 23,916 tons of quartz were crushed, yielding $527,633, an average of $22 25 per ton. In 1862 and 1863 the production was 121,000 tons of quartz and $2,000,000 of bullion, averaging $16 50. In 1864 the yield of bullion was $243,707. In 1863, when the mill was working rock which yielded $53, the tailings, according to assay, contained $13 56 per ton. The pay was distributed rather in an irregular mass than in a chimney; but Professor Blake expressed the opinion in his report of 1864 that there was a chimney, and that its dip was 18° to the horizon. The Princeton mill has 24 stamps, and is the smallest on the Mariposa estate, at least of those owned, erected, and worked by the Mariposa company. The capacity of the mine far exceeds that of the mills, and while the former was in a productive condition much of the ore was sent to other mills. The gold in the quartz is coarse and is easily caught in the battery, or at least most of it; but the assays of the tailings show that great quantities of it were lost. The heap of tailings at the mill is immense, and it will no doubt be worked over at some day with a profit, if not all blown away. The sand being fine many pounds of it are carried off every hour when the wind blows in summer. The