Full text: Mining statistics west of the Rocky Mountains

INTRODUCTORY. 
Washington, March 1G, 1871. 
Sie : I have the honor to transmit herewith my report on mines and 
mining in the States and Territories of California, Nevada, Oregon, 
Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. 
The anticipations of an increased prosperity of the mining industry, 
expressed in my last report, have been realized. Not only the aug 
mented bullion product, a discussion of which will be found in the 
accompanying report, but an improved tone in the business itself, and 
the progressive reduction of the burdensome expenses under which it 
has labored, bear witness of substantial gain. 
The year has been marked by comparatively few and feeble mining 
excitements, such as have in other times caused the depopulation of 
entire districts, and the emigration of vast throngs en masse to the new 
Eldorados. Something of this kind is the necessary consequence of the 
enterprise of the free-footed people of the West ; it is by “stampedes” 
that all our new States and Territories have been explored and settled, 
but the waste and friction of the process are so great that we may be 
grateful lor its gradual subsidence into the forms of slower and more 
regular progress. 
The movements of the year, more detailed accounts of which will be 
found in the following pages, may be briefly enumerated as follows : 
The gold mines of Southern California, near San Diego, discovered in 
18G1), were the scene of some excitement and activity early in the follow 
ing season. 
The silver discoveries in the Burro Mountains, on the confines of New 
Mexico, attracted much public attention, but' it was speedily shown that 
these mines require capital for their development, and do not invite the 
penniless adventurer. 
Humors of rich placers on Peace River, far in the interior of British 
Columbia, were in circulation early in the season, but the memory of 
Eraser River, and its disastrous “ stampede,” seems to have quenched 
the zeal even of those adventurous souls who generally find the greatest 
charm of a new discovery in its remoteness and inaccessibility. 
Several thousand miners were attracted to the bars of Snake River, 
mostly from other districts of Idaho; but this region is so near the rail 
road that the equilibrium of population was soon established, and a 
manufactured excitement was impossible. Such artificial enthusiasms 
are usually due to two causes : first, the presence of a crowd of unem 
ployed, adventurous, and sanguine men, who keep up their courage,
	        
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