REVIVAL OF GOLDMINING IN CALIFORNIA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1163, 18 July 1885, Page 3

REVIVAL OF GOLDMINING IN CALIFORNIA.

We have frequently had occasion of late to speak of the improved condition and prospects of quartz mining in California. A feature of this improvement that deserves special notice is the extent to which ore-bearing lodes of this kind are being discovered all along tho main scold belt and often in districts rhat had yeara ago been densely populated and largely worked for the placer deposits thoy contained. Many of these districts, as in the case of New ftiver, Washington, and various other localities, had, by reason of the surface diggings becoming exhausted, been nearly deserted long ago, and so remained until a year or two since, when these new quartz finds gradually rcpopulated them, some containing now several thousand inhabitants.

But not in all cases have the sites of these now finds been confined to the dead or decaying camps. Ou the slopes of the Sierra Buttes, a notable peak in the central part of Sierra county, and where quartz operations have been carried on actively and successively fora great many yean, a number of valuable' auriferous lodes have lately been found, the mo3t noted of these consisting of the Alaska, Phoenix, Colombo, Marguerite, and tho Young America, the latter one a most promising gold-bearing vein. The Sierra Buttes mine, owned by an Euglish company, has been worked continuously and profitably for 29 years. To their 90 stamps now running this company will add 20 more in the course of another month. The Alaska, Colombo, and Marguerite have each been outfitted with a 20-stampur mill ; a mill will also be put up on the Phoenix as soon as tho ditch to supply water-power is completed. The 10 stamp mill on the Young America will be increased to 20 the coming summer. The vein in this mine occura in a belt of metamorphic slate lying at the line of contact between greenstone and syenite, which form the country. Embedded in this belt and running with it is a quprtz lode having an average thickness of ten feet, which, from extensive working tests made, it is expected will yield under tho stamps $125 per ton ; il being, furthermore, calculated that 10,000 tons of this ore have been developed in the mine, which isownedby three or four individuals, a once prominent Comstock superintendent having also an indirect interest in the property.

With such discoveries as these being made in much prospected and even long worked localities as well as in old and onco populous, but now partially deserted districts, what may we not expect will yet be brought to light in those extensive sections of the California goldfields that yet remain sparsely populated, and, comparatively speaking, have not been much explored ? The undeveloped, not to say undiscovered, auriferous resources of this State are undoubtedly very great — greartcr by far than has generally been supposed, if not greater than the most sanguine have ever dreamed of. In view of this fact it is not at all strange that gold mining is again coming to the front. Nor would it be at all surprising if California should before the lapse of many years recover much of her lost prestige as a gold producing country.— "Mining and Scientific Press."

A correspondent writes as follows to the "Ceylon Observer": — "The evening of the day we sailed from Colombo in the Valetta will long be remembered by all on board because of a terrible tragedy then enacted. A Chinese ayah, whose behaviour during the day led us to think her either insane or under tho influence of drink or bhang, in the momentary absence from the cabin of the parents, a Mr and Mrs Abbott, threw overboard out of the port a nice child, a girl of six years old, and then herself committed suicide by jumping after her, not before, however, also nearly having killed another child, a sister of the nrst,~by smothering it under mattresses and pillows. The ship was stopped speedily, a boat lowered, etc, but all to no purpose. The commotion among the passengers was immense, whilst the tearless agony of the bereaved mother was distressing in tho extreme, and such as few of ua ever witnessed." If a man really wants to know how little importance he is, let him go with his wife to the dressmaker s, -