THE QUARTZ MINES OF CALIFORNIA. [From the "Alta California," August 25.]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 693, 4 December 1852, Page 3

THE QUARTZ MINES OF CALIFORNIA. [From the " Alta California," August 25.]

Among intelligent persons at all familiar with the character, history, and natural resources of this State, the quartz mines have ever been considered the most important of all her vast sources of wealth and prosperity. They have ever been eeteemed her chiefest treasure ; and the time has 1 been long and ardently desired when they would be made available, and their hidden millions added to her already immense resources. It has been, the study and labour of individuals, the State Legislature, and the National Congress, to devise some practical plan for the accomplishment of this object. The hardy miners among the mountains and gulches of the interior, and the merchants of our cities, have joined their efforts to develop these treasures, believed to be most boundless. Failing in single-handed endeavours to cope with and overcome the formidable obstacles in their, path, they have organised joint stock companies to attain the end desired. When they have expended their means, and failed of the go il of tlie'r wishes, they have called to their aid foreign capital and foreign experience, in the hope of thus attaining success. In the midst of all the delay, expense, disappointment and disaster that have attended these various experimental operations, it is somewhat remarkable that no one who has been embarked, in the enterprise, or who has had opportunity to form an opinion upon the subject, has been led to doubt the final attainment of the object sought. None are found to question the abundance of the gold in this form, or the practicability of separating it, so as to make it by far the most profitable mode of mining. The more these mines are examined by men of science and practical skill, the stronger the conviction of their great value, and of the importance to the State that their riches should be made accessible to our citizens. The more failures have been multiplied, the stronger has the conviction become that they.are not necessarily inherent in the case, but that they are the result of want of experience and capital. That those who have engaged in these enterprises have been deficient in both is well known. Without the former, millions on millions may be expended in such enterprises, without any return; and with all the aids of science and experience, millions are often expended on them, before a profitable result is reached.' An English company expended, during ten year?, in working one of the mines in Mexico, twelve millions of pounds sterling. They persevered, and in four years more, cleared about forty millions. So it will, doubtless, be here. When science and experience combine, and energy and wealth direct and sustain their efforts, success will crown their labours. The golden current will commence to flow, in a stream, compared to which the present ai'e but as rills, and in a channel offering no obstructions in any seasons or under any circumstances. The results of a full development of the mineral wealth of this State will undoubtedly far surpassthe present expectations of the most sanguine. Stated generally, the results of an increased yield of gold will be an increase of all kinds of business. The demand for all the productions of agriculture will be greatly increased. The consumption of all the wares of the merchant will be as much greater as that of the products of the soil. The labour of miners will be more in demand, by reason of the number of men required to work in the quartz mines, and who will be taken from the mines at present worked \ and thus the miner's wages will be raised. Thus will every interest of our State be j>romoted By the successful development of those vast natural resources, hitherto unproductive. But there is another consideration that adds to the importance of this subject. If these quartz mines are successfully worked, it will be (at first) by foreign capital, to a very great extent. This is indispensable, for no new State like this has the means to carry on, unaided, such gigantic enterprises. All our new States would remain with their resources undeveloped for generations, but for foreign capital, uniting with the energy and enterprise of her own sons to make them available. Capital, here in California, and now, is what, above all things else, we need. Br all fair means, and from all quarters of the earth, it should be the effort of our citizens and our legislators to favour its introduction amongst us. It is all we need to make our State —though but an infant in years —• a giant in stature and strength. The whole mining interest of the State is especially related to the success of the efforts now making in quartz mining. When once the means best adaptad to our particular locality are ascertained, and the best mode of separating the gold discovered, most of the difficulties that now surround this subject will have vanished, and the whole gold field of the State will be open to our miners, just as the "wet" and «*dry diggings" are now 5 and they will, doubtless, many of them. exchange the present toilsome and unhealthy labour in the water and under ground, with total uncertainty as to whether they arc to empty a pocket filled with golden lumps, or to turn over sand, rocks, and earth, without finding either pocket or gold, for the more sure, steady, profitable, and healthy employment of unearthing a vein of gold, whose constant stream,<like tbjejproJuct of a mill, shall render them a daily return of riches for their toill ' The right of every, BSmer to his "claim" is one that has been, l^ertciyri*p lec'ied throughout tkec

State, and that of all sorts of claims alike: as well as the quartz mines as the placer and others. ]t is a right that was conceded by the first miners in Spanish America, adopted and made the law of the realm by Spain ; and again, in the panic c r 'innstanccs," by common consent, acted inon by the first Americans who worked the mines of California; and again enacted and made a part of the statutes of this State by the Leg" lature, and allowed by Congress to continue in fore % as the best disposition that can be made of the mineial lands. That right, thus established, is that every discoverer of gold, in whatever form or position, can hold and work it, so long r.s he chooses, limited only in extent of surface; and all his rights he can selL If he abandon it, or cease for a certain time to work it, he loses his "claim" to it, and it is open to the first comer. But while he retains possession and works his mine, he has as good a title io its "peaceable possession" a? any man in the State has to his agricultural lands, and the quartz miners to theirs, just as much as any other class of miners. If any one docs anything to throw doubt over the title to hold and work the quartz mines, he, in just the same degree, invalidates the right of every miner in the State, for tiey all hold by precisely the same tenure. As we are advised, the miners generally look upon the matter in this light, and regard all such efforts with the execration they deserve. They say that all their claims are involved in this question ; and that whoever would infringe upon any of them is the enemy of all. They see, to in tl c advent of capital to this State, come it whence it may, no omen of evil, but only matter of congratulation, that the energy and industry here suffering for the want of it, will be better rewarded as the- consequence of its domiciliation amongst us. This is no party question, and with politics it has no connection ; but to such, a length do some people allow partizan efforts to carry them, and so far out of their way will they go to find matter of accusation against political opponents, that they will jeopard the best and most important interest of the State (if their influence could extend so far) with as much sang froid as one of our writers of fiction would manifest in the introduction of an anecdote into one of his productions. To point a moral, or adorn a tale.