THE GOLD-BEARING QUARTZ OF CALIFORNIA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 491, 17 April 1850, Page 4

THE GOLD-BEARING QUARTZ OF CALIFORNIA.

[From the Pacific News, 20th November.] In our last publication we alluded briefly to the interest which bad been excited here by the- exhibition of some fine specimens of goldbearing quartz, said to be found in inexhaustible masses of quarries through the whole mountainous region, which forms the western slope of Sierra Nevada. We have since had an opportunity of examining these specimens, and of learning more minutely the character of the rock. We are glad to learn that the whole subject will very soon be brought, in an authentic shape, to the attention of the public, in the form of a full comprehensive report to the department of state, at Washington, by the Hon. T. Butler King. As early «s June last, Mr. King devoted two -entire months in a laborious exploration of the whole region, and finally matured his conclusions in regard to it. His labours were interrupted by a severe and protracted illness, but his report will now soon be completed, and will doubtless, we trust, reach Washington before the discussion upon the California question shall have come up in Congress. We hazard nothing in saying that the facts and the views to be set forth in this report will command the public attention and interest, to an extent almost, if not altogether, unexampled by any similar document. The particular specimens which we have seen of those quartz mountain quarries are in the possession of Mr. Wright, one of the members elect from California, who will t«ke them on to Washington in the steamer of Ist December. They consist for the most part of small pieces of quartz rock, generally of a brownish tinge, and in some instances presenting the appearance of a slight incipient decay, or decomposition, of the rock formation. In all these specimens the gold points, or particles, are very slightly if at all visible to the naked eye. The microscope, however, reveals the, gold more clearly. Besides these

pieces, which Mr. Wright has himself selected with great care, as the fairest average samples of the general appearance of enormous and numerous veins or quarries of quartz, there is also one larger fragment of the same rock, weighing, we should suppose, some ten or twelve pounds, from all part 3 of which the gold protrudes plainly, in a state almost pure. This single fragment of quartz, which Mr. Wright by no means regards as an average sample of the quarries, but which he pronounoes to be the richest rock specimen he "has seen, is found by the most careful specific gravity test applied to it by Mr. Wright, to contain pure gold to the Amount of about six hundred dollars. This piece of rock we understand from Mr. Wright, is destined to be laid (as a memorial from the Californian mountains, we suppose,) upon the table of the speaker of the house of representatives. Its appeal, we think, will be heeded. But the interest or importance attaching to this or any other single or isolated fragment specimen, however peculiar and curious and rich in itself, is very slight and ef en inconsiderable, in comparison to that which belongs to the more numerous fragments of quartz, in which very little gold, or none, can be discerned by the naked eye, and which have been cautiously selected by Mr. Wright on the spot, as the fairest average specimens of whole veins and quarries, said to sweep visibly in sinuous and broken lines through the whole western slope of the Sierra Nevada, and to form vast masses of mountain rock large enough and numerous enough to freight many times over all the navies and commercial marine of the world. The astonishing results brought out by these investigations is, that in a particular and very extensive vein four pounds of this rock yielded upon the average eleven dollars worth of pure gold, valued aisixten dollars to the ounce. That is to say, the yield of gold from these average samples of the rock in this particular vein is nearly three dollars for each pound of quartz. Mr. Wright exhibited to us two small masses of gold, each about the size and shape of a large musket ball, and both presenting the granulated appearance of gold extracted and collected by the aid of quicksilver. One of these contains about twelve dollars of pure gold, and is the largest yield which has been obtained from four pounds of the rock from the vein in question. The other contains about ten dollars, and is the smallest yield which has been obtained from any of the experiments upon the rock of this vein. We understand that the tests applied have been sometimes the operation of quicksilver, and sometimes the test of the specific gravity of the pure quartz and the gold-bearing quartz. The samples of the rock which Mr. Wright has tested have been taken from many different veins. In no sample tested has the yield been less than one dollar to the pouad of quartz. The average yield of the different veins has bsen, as determined by samples, from one dollar and a-half to two dollars to the pound of rock. A single fact will show the unheard of and astonishing character of the results which i have been thus- arrived at. Mr. Wright informs us that he has recently conversed with an intelligent gentleman, now in this couutry, who has been long conversant in the capacity of an overseer, with mining operations, as carried on in the quartz veins of Georgia. From this source Mr. Wright learns that a 15horse steam power, working 12 stamps, will stamp about a thousand bushels of quartz rock in a day, each bushel of quartz weighing about eighty pounds. If 25 cents worth of gold is yeilded from each bushel of eighty pounds, the business is considered a good one in Georgia. If the yield be fifty cents, to the bushel, the profit is large. Now the yield of the rock which Mr. Wright has collected and tested, instead of being a quarter of a dollar, or halt a dollar, to the seventy-five pounds, Is in one great vein nearly three dollars to one pound ! Abate this in view of possible or probable mistake, or in view of the superior yield of a single richer vein, to an average of two dollars, or of one dollar, or of half a dollar to the pound, and the result still remains, in every point of view, almost equally unexampled and momentous. In conlusion we have only to add that we put forth such statements as these under a full sense of our responsibility to the public. We avow nothing of our own knowledge, for to us this information is as new and as surprising as we are persuaded that it will be to most of our readers, both here and in the Atlantic states. We would say nothing inconsiderately to aggravate the gold mania anywhere. It has already produced in the gold region of California, and on the routes to it, terrible scenes' of individual suffering, disease, and death— scenes before which the boldest spirit may well quail, and from which the hardiest frame may well shrink away. But our information comes to us at first hand, from sources of unquestionable integrity and intelligence, and appears to be the result of very

thorough and deliberate investigation. In iti general outline it has had the full sanction of the most eminent minds amoqg us. It apprises us of a state of facts of the highest importance to California, to the mining interest everywhere, and, in a word, Ui the whole commercial and financial world. ~-If these facti turn out to have been accurately^nvestigated, and accurately stated, it seems to us that neither in the wet diggings, nor yet in the dry diggings, are the future mining pperations in this state to go on ; but on the contrary in those primeval masses of rock in which it still lies imbedded and inexhaustible, of which all the gold, in all its forms, scattered through "the ravines and bars of the rivers, is only the inconsiderable chance washings or abrasions, and which the hand even of the most adventurous and intrepid never, among us, has yet scarcely touched. Such information, so. derived, and so vouched for, we have deemed it our duty to lay before the public without delay.