SILVER MINES IN CALIFORNIA.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 523, 29 June 1869, Page 2

SILVER MINES IN CALIFORNIA.

The discovery of the mines of Treasure Hill, and the building of the present city upon it, now astonishes the world, and will long stand as one of its great wonders. Treasure Hill is isolated like Potosi, is of similar formation, of equal size, or perhaps a little larger at the base, and not quite so high; its mines are of Indian discovery, and its future promises equal brilliancy, and, equal, if not superior, wealth. Two years since, a degraded and starving Indian carried to a camp of miners a piece of the ore from the locality of the Hidden Treasure mine, and this led to the exposure of the wealth of Treasure Hill. In the explorations following, quantities of pure silver were found, where trees had fal'en and burned, or where the Indians had built on the beds of chloride ore, reducing the easily smelted rock to metal. Following the discovery of the great Eberhardt deposit, or vein, were these of Chloride, Flat, Pogonip, Suunyside, and the Pase Range, all most surprising in their wonderful richness. The geological formation of the mountain is as singular as its richness is l'are. It is an isolated peak of fossiliferous limestone overlying silurian rocks at a great depth, and these having a foundation on those of the primitive age. Into the crevices, eaves, and chasms of the limestone, or in displacements occasioned by the action, of thermal waters rising from the primitive and silurian rocks, were deposited the lime, silicia, spar, and ore . which now constitute the mines and veins of the hill. These crevices, chasms, caves or displacements, are in every portion of the hill, and of every size from that of a bull's eye to that of the mammoth chasm of the Eberhardt, and the continuation of each, with increasing or varying richness, may be followed to an indefinite depth. A body of ore, small at the surface, may at a greater or less depth expand to a .great size, aud vice, versa. Such formation is very advantageous for mining, as the ores are in vast quantity, pure and rich and easily mined. The exhaustion of the hill is almost a matter of impossibility, and none now living well see it accomplished.

An extraordinary announcement appears in the London Scotsman of March 20. In regular course among the births notified in that periodical appears the following (we suppress the name) : —".At 334 City Eoad, Islington, on March 16, the wife of quests the prayers of his friends and acquaintances in this his sore affliction."