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,