MINING.

BY ALBERT D. RICHARDSON.

METALS were known at a very early period. Most barbarous and semi-civilized nations, especially Orientals, have always decorated their persons with metallic ornaments; and for this purpose probably, minerals were first dug from the "everlasting hills." Abraham sent ear-rings and bracelets as a wedding present to Isaac's wife. They have been preserved in the granite tombs of Egyptian kings, and in the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They were found by Alexander in Babylon, by Cortez in Mexico, and by Lewis and Clarke among the remotest American Indians.

Metals became very early a medium of exchange. The special fitness of gold and silver for money was obvious even to barbarians, on account of their brightness, the ease of distinguishing them from other metals and of making and stamping them, and their hardness, and freedom from liability to rust. Abraham paid four hundred shekels of silver, "current money with the merchant,”—the Catholic version has it "common current money,"—for the cave of Machpelah, as a burial-place for Sarah his wife. His greatgrandson too was sold as a slave for twenty pieces of silver. At first gold and silver seem to have been used in bars and wedges. Herodotus attributes the invention of coinage to the Lybians. Coins had spread through the civilized world four centuries before Christ. The ancient Mexicans had a tin currency. Lycurgus made the money of Sparta of iron, and it is said to have required a cart and a yoke of oxen to remove a hundred dollars of it. The Carthaginians made money of leather. Cæsar's Commentaries relate that the early Britons used for money rings of brass or iron, “determined by weight." In later times, tin, pewter and gun-metal have been used in coinage in England, and platinum in Russia.

The first American coin was a brass penny for the Virginia colony, made in 1612. It was struck in the Bermudas, then known as the Summer Islands, and it bore the legend "Sommer Island" and "a hogge" on one side, with a ship in full sail, firing a gun, on the other. "Pine Tree Shillings" were coined in Massachusetts in 1652, and some even circulated in England, where Charles II. was assured that the tree represented the Royal Oak which saved his life. This so mollified the "merrie monarch" that he was pleased to term the sturdy colonists a "parcel of honest dogs." There is a story that the master of the mint gave to his daughter as her wedding dowry, her weight in Pine Tree shillings, putting her in one end of the scales and filling up the other with the shillings till they lifted her from the floor. Our first national coin was the copper cent of 1787. Our present decimal system, invented by Thomas Jefferson, went into operation in 1792. Our metallic coinage is not so extensive as that of Great Britain. It has been calculated that the British silver shillings alone would form a column upwards of a hundred miles high. Mining among the ancients was rude and simple. Hand washing for gold and the quarrying of other metal veins near the surface, were the methods first practised. The tools found in ancient mines on this continent, are merely

rough hammers of stone. Pictorial representations of Egyptian mining show criminals and prisoners of war digging ore out of the ground, crushing it into small pieces, grinding it to powder in hand mills, and washing away the refuse and earth on broad inclined planes, while the smelters are purifying the metals in crucibles. Blasting by gun-powder was introduced about 1600. Before that time shafts and horizontal galleries were excavated by hand, with great labor, and ores carried to the surface on the heads or shoulders of workmen. The earliest improvement was the windlass. The use of horse and water power successively followed, and then the steam engine which was first applied to mining by Watts, in Cornwall. The transportation of heavy ores led to the introduction of wooden railways, about 1676. Iron was substituted half a century before the invention of the locomotive.

A mine usually consists of a vertical shaft, from which tunnels branch off into the mineral veins. The deepest mine in the United States is in Nevada, (silver), and is something over 1,200 ft. The deepest shaft in Cornwall, (tin), is 2,112 ft. There is a silver mine in Peru 2,400 ft. The (silver and lead) mine of Andreasberg, in the Hartz mountains, is 2,500 ft., and a now abandoned mine in Bohemia reached the unparalleled depth of more than 3,000 feet. There is a silver mine in the Andes 11,375 feet above sea-level, and a gold mine in Colorado, 11,200 feet.

Steam hoisting machines are now so perfect, that workmen are lowered into or lifted out of the deepest mines smoothly, safely, and almost instantaneously. The earth and ores are brought up to the surface in the same manner. Steam engines of great power are also used to pump out water.

Previous to 1775, persons employed in the coal mines of Scotland were transferable with the estate. Under the laws of Great Britain, mines are generally the property of the lords of the soil, who receive a royalty averag ing one-fifteenth of the gross proceeds. No difference is recognised in the United States between mineral and other property, the deeds of an estate conveying entire control of all ores found on the property, unless specially reserved. The miners in our various mineral districts in the new Territories -usually opened before civil government is extended over them-make reg ulations of their own, limiting the number of "feet" along a mineral lode, to which the discoverer is entitled by right of discovery, and the restrictions under which he or purchasers may hold additional "claims." They also establish courts to determine questions of ownership which frequently arise, as a lode or vein often runs into another, and it is difficult to distinguish between them. After the establishment of civil law, these local regulations are recognised as binding by the highest courts, both State and National. Placer gold mines on the public lands, are free to all, and quartz lodes may be pre-empted on the same principle as agricultural lands.

MINERAL WEALTH OF NATIONS.

RUSSIA was formerly the great gold-producing country of the world. Her product began to decline in 1847, just before the California discoveries. Mines-less rich than those of Australia and California-extend along the

Ural range for four hundred miles. From 1814 to 1860, their product was $300,145,000. Silver and copper are also found in the Ural mountains, and in Eastern Siberia, The iron mines, chiefly in Siberia, are of vast extent, give employment to 50,000 laborers, and produce annually nearly half a million of tons. Some sheet-iron of excellent quality finds its way to this country. AUSTRIA produces annually about $2,500,000 in gold and silver. She is rich in quicksilver and in iron. The latter is used for rails on nearly all her railways, and it proves very durable. Her annual yield of copper is 4,000 tons, and of lead, 6,000 tons. Her coal beds seem inexhaustible, though both coal and iron mining are yet in their infancy.

BELGIUM abounds in iron and zinc, and next to Great Britain, produces more coal than any other country in Europe.

FRANCE is agricultural rather than mining. A little gold is found in the streams of the Pyrenees, and silver is also worked, but with small profit. Coal beds are numerous, and have been greatly developed within the last thirty years. Iron is the most abundant metal. The mines, over 800 in number, employ 40,000 workmen, and are estimated to produce annually, $20,000,000 worth of pig iron. Lead is plentiful in Brittany, and copper abounds in the Pyrenees, Alps and Vosges.

GREAT BRITAIN is extremely rich in coal and iron; while copper, tin and lead are also abundant. The number of active iron works is about 200, and of furnaces in blast, 560. A little gold has been obtained from the south of Scotland and Wicklow in Ireland, and the quartz veins of Wales now yield it in small quantities. The mineral product of the kingdóm in 1867, was:

silver, which were worked Strabo and Pliny speak of

SPAIN has mines of lead, tin, iron, copper and successively by Phoenicians, Romans and Moors. the country as rich in gold, but the present yield is estimated at only $8,000 per annum. Lead and iron are abundant, but copper and tin scarce. The quicksilver mine of Almaden, worked over three thousand years ago, is still the richest in the world.

HINDOSTAN Contains all the metallic ores, and is specially rich in coal and iron. Borneo yields annually, several millions of dollars in gold, and the island of Banca in the Malay Archipelago, contains rich deposits of tin. CHINA has produced gold, washed from the sands of the streams and wrought into ornaments, from time immemorial, though the Chinese have never used it for coin. Deposits believed valuable, have recently been discovered in the mountains north of Shanghae. They are known as the Shangtung mines. Whenever their richness shall be fully demonstrated, they will doubtless attract miners from America and Europe, whatever attempts may

be made to exclude them. Coal, anthracite and bituminous, is abundant on the Yang tse and in the northern peninsula. The surface veins, worked by manual labor, yield an inferior article, but with proper machinery, China would soon become a great coal producing country. Considerable lead is obtained, and a large portion of it consumed in the lining of tea chests.

JAPAN is reported to have yielded $200,000,000 in gold and silver between 1570 and 1740. Both metals are obtained in several portions of the island, but not plentifully. Excellent copper and indifferent coal abound.

AUSTRALIA first became famous as a gold producing region through the discoveries made at Ballarat, in 1851, three years after the discovery of gold in California. The largest nugget ever found, was worth $4,500. Enthusiastic savans estimate that the veins of Victoria can give employment to a hundred thousand laborers for three hundred years. The yield of the colony from the first gold discovery to the beginning of 1868 was $565,167,500 gold; $15,750 silver; $975,225 tin. The present annual gold product stands at about $25,000,000, of which one-fourth is from quartz veins, and the rest from placers. The island is also rich in copper, and in excellent coal.

NEW ZEALAND produces some gold and silver, chiefly by sluicing. The principal gold-fields are at Massacre Bay and in Otago. Quartz mining is just beginning.

AFRICA, though believed to be one of the richest gold countries in the world, produces only about one million and a half of dollars annually, nearly all fine dust from hand washing. The Gold Coast in Guinea is named from the prevalence of the metal, but its deadly climate thus far proves an impassable barrier to the white man. During 1868, two extensive gold-fields, reported very rich, were discovered in the district of Bamanguato, on the northern limits of Cape Colony, adjoining the Dutch republic.

BOLIVIA, New Granada and Brazil abound in metals, but export little except silver. British Guiana contains gold-fields in the valley of the Essequibo, believed to be rich, but not yet developed.

CHILI is rich in minerals. Within seventy-five miles of the town of Capaipo, are 253 silver, 6 gold and 14 copper mines. The latest annual exports of the republic which we find recorded, are $497,736 gold; $4,725,655 silver; $10,760,589 copper; $176,765 coal.

PERU has been famous for silver and gold ever since its discovery. Pizarro and his soldiers extorted seventeen and a half millions of dollars before the captured Inca, Atahuallpa, who had offered his prison full of gold for his liberty, was put to death. The amount of silver produced from 1630 to 1800 has been estimated at over $1,200,000,000. The Andes contain rich deposits of copper which are only extracted on the western slope, owing to the difficulty of transportation from the east side of the ridge. All mining is backward, on account of the great altitude of the mineral veins and the lack of enterprise among the people.

MEXICO is extremely rich in gold and silver. The total product of her mines since the conquest by Cortez, has been estimated as high as $3,000000,000. The ancient Mexicans worked veins of silver, tin and copper, but

were ignorant of iron. They cast vessels of gold and silver, which were afterward delicately carved and chased. Few modern improvements have been made beyond the introduction of steam engines for pumping. The yield of silver is now larger than that of the United States, but that of gold comparatively insignificant. The export is generally shipped direct to England. Excellent iron is produced in several of the states, and at Guanaguato is the richest and most extensively worked copper vein in the world.

CANADA contains valuable beds of iron and copper. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia abound in coal and iron, and Nova Scotia is beginning to yield gold. British Columbia has rich gold-fields, found chiefly on the Fraser river and its tributaries. Victoria, Vancouver Island, is the supply point for the region. Present annual gold yield of British America, about $3,000,000. THE UNITED STATES contains mineral resources more extensive and more varied than any other country in the world. Gold has been found in greater or less quantities in half the States of the Union. Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia formerly furnished our largest supplies. Now, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Dakota and Wyoming are by far the most extensive and productive gold-fields on the globe. Much of the immense tract is also rich in silver, copper, lead and other valuable minerals. Comparatively little of the field has been even "prospected," and important discoveries in the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas, and the Pacific Coast Range may be looked for, for the next hundred years. Early Spanish, Portuguese and English explorers were all on the lookout for minerals. Huts and utensils, supposed to have belonged to De Soto's party in the 16th century, have been discovered among the mountain gold regions of Georgia, and the lead mines of Missouri. Previous to 1848, our annual gold product was estimated at about one million dollars, chiefly from Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. Some gold had been known to exist in California for nearly three hundred years, and when Humboldt visited that region, he had predicted that large quantities would yet be discovered. The first rich deposits were found in January, 1848, at Sutter's Mill near the present city of Sacramento, by James W. Marshall, of New Jersey. By the close of 1850, there were fifty thousand miners at work in the State. Quartz mining began in 1851. Silver exists in all deposits of lead ore. It is found in largest quantities in Nevada and Idaho, though some is procured in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico.

Iron is found in every State and Territory, and in every form. The great deposits of lead are in Missouri and in half a dozen adjoining counties of Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. Lake Superior is the great copper region, though the metal is found in Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and in nearly all our new, gold-bearing States. Tin exists in Maine and California; zinc, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and many other States, and quicksilver in California. Vast beds of coal which are already worked, underlie many of the States east of the Rocky Mountains, and portions of Utah, California and Washington Territory.