The ore contains an average of twenty to twenty-five per cent. of copper, the balance being sulphur and other chemicals, in combination with such earthy substances as are ordinarily encountered in sulphate veins. The richest copper mines of the coast are in Arizona, very near the California line. Specimens from a mine on “Bill Williams’ Fork,” eight miles from steamboat navigation, on the Colorado River, assayed from sixty to seventy per cent. of copper. The ore from these mines ought to yield from forty to fifty per cent. pure copper, and the miners are confident of a richer return than this as they descend into the earth.
Arizona is also rich in silver and gold, particularly the former, but the climate is so unhealthy, and the Indians have such a persistent habit of killing white men on frequent occasions, that a residence there is not as desirable as a home on the banks of the Hudson, or the Ohio. But as we are always ready to go wherever there is a prospect of money-making, this out-of-the-way territory bids fair to become peopled before many years have passed away. Steamboats are running on the Colorado, and the Southern Pacific Railway taps the country, so that the mines near it have a good prospect of development. Some of the companies now in operation in Arizona sell their ore to speculators, while the balance ship theirs to England for reduction.
The want of good coal mines is severely felt in California. Coal has been discovered, and is being taken out in considerable quantities at Mount Diabolo, thirty miles from San Francisco, but it is of inferior quality, and unfit for many purposes where coal is used. The same is the case with the coal from Bellingham Bay, British Columbia, and from nearly all other points on the Pacific coast where mines have been opened. The river steamers burn the California coal. Some of the founders use it, as well as all the establishments on land where the making of steam is the only object. It is said that ocean steamers cannot burn it, in consequence of its tendency to spontaneous combustion, when kept in the hold of a ship for any considerable time. Coal is taken there from the Atlantic seaboard, and from Sydney, New South Wales. If a mine, favorably located anywhere on the Pacific coast, furnishing a good quality of coal, could be found, it would yield a fortune to its owners.
CALIFORNIA QUICKSILVER.
I have spoken of gold, silver, and copper among the minerals, but there is another metal which is an important product of the coast, though the area of its production is somewhat limited. I allude to quicksilver, which exists in quantities worthy of note, only in Spain, California, and Peru. For a very long time the Almaden quicksilver mine in Spain was the only one known, and it held a rigid monopoly of the trade. The discoveries in Peru opened a new field, but, though it reduced the price for a time, it did not seriously affect it. The discovery in California threw such a quantity into the market, that the whole quicksilver trade of the world is now ruled by it.
The great mine is at New Almaden, sixty miles south from San Francisco. The ore is taken from a mine in the hills on the inside of the Coast Range of mountains, and is found in chambers, instead of veins. Some of the earthquakes that occasionally disturb San Francisco, put money in the pockets of the New Almaden owners, as they open up new and very rich chambers, not previously discovered. The ore from which the quicksilver is taken is about the color of a well-burned brick, and looks, when piled up for use, much like a heap of broken granite and bricks. The ore is placed in furnaces, a wood fire is built beneath, the quicksilver flies off in vapor, and is caught and condensed in air-tight rooms, partly filled with water. After condensation, it is bottled up in flasks containing 76-1/2 pounds, each of these being the same as the weight used at the Almaden mine in Spain.
This mine has been the subject of much litigation, as indeed has nearly everything valuable in California. The product in one year was 47,194 flasks, worth about $50 per flask, or a total value of $2,359,700. The cost of producing this result was about $800,000, leaving a very fair margin of profit. The ore averages from twelve to eighteen per cent. of quicksilver, and frequently exceeds the latter figure. A piece of the ore which I picked up at the mine, lies before me as I write. It is a deep red color, heavy, like a lump of lead, and is said to contain about twenty per cent. of quicksilver.
QUICKSILVER.
A large quantity of quicksilver is used in gold and silver mining on the Pacific coast, and the balance goes to various parts of the world. Of the production of the year I mentioned, fourteen thousand flasks were sent to China, ten thousand to London, five thousand to Peru, two thousand to Chili, seven thousand to New York, two thousand to Mexico, and two hundred to Australia.