ASHLAND, Or., Dec. 27.--Precious metal mining in Jackson County for the year 1900 exhibits gratifying progress, and is of a more substantial character than in any former epoch since gold was first mined in the region. It is not so much involved in perplexity and doubt. Extensive development of a few of the quartz properties with profitable returns and proof of continuity of the veins, with persistence of metalliferous matter carrying good values at the considerable depths attained, has cleared away a mass of misconceptions and errors which has seriously impeded the industry in Southern Oregon during a number of years. There are pocket ledges, so-called, and pocket mining is still carried on to some extent and with profit, but it can no longer be said there are no workable ledges conforming to the requirements of "milling leads." There is in operation close to Ashland one of the deep mines of the state, and there are several within the county whose underground workings are quite extensive with development of ore bodies which maintain them as dividend-payers. In no former year has there been so much work done on ledge prospects and on veins of proven value, and this has been  attended with such results that quartz mining has attained an unquestioned position as a permanent and leading industry of the county. Another feature of advantage to the mining interest is that less money and less effort, relatively speaking, are thrown away on capricious notions of the occurrences of precious metal deposits and hopeless undertakings than in previous years. Work has commonly been done on lodes affording some promise, and with intelligent direction. This is perhaps to be expected in the progress of quartz mining, for each year there are more trained minds and experienced hands, and fewer novices in the working of mines; hence waste work and disappointments are more infrequent and a mining district is more likely to prosper or be abandoned on its own merits.
    The placer mines have held the foremost place as to gold output, but the product of the quartz mines will likely soon be equal (it is nearly so now), if it does not exceed that of the placers. The working of the sands and shallow bars of the streams is small, and the placers of importance comprise the hydraulic diggings, where water is conducted by miles of expensive ditches and flumes to operate giants to tear down huge beds of Neocene gravels and conglomerates, some of which, as the Sterling, are highly auriferous and pay well. The pick-and-shovel miners of early days have nearly disappeared from the creeks, though there are a few who do fairly well in a good season, and the aggregate of their product throughout the county annually amounts to a considerable sum of money. If permitted to class the pocket-hunters with them, their produce exceeds in value that of some of the important farm products of the county. Having pointed out the sources of the gold, the mining man would doubtless desire a description of the country in a general way, to be made acquainted with the character of the rock masses, and some information in detail as to the principal mines and the mineral products.
    South of Ashland are Ashland Butte and its near neighbor, Mount Wagner, two very conspicuous topographic features of the Siskiyou Range or Klamath Mountains. They are some seven miles distant, and the former attains a height of 7662 feet. The trend of the range approximates an east-and-west line, and, except in the vicinity of Ashland, the crest line is mostly in California. It is flanked by spurs of such magnitude in some instances as to make a distinct range, like that north of Mount Wagner, which separates the valleys of Bear Creek and the Applegate. East of Ashland is the Cascade Range, with a northerly and westward trend, which forms the eastern barricade of Bear Creek Valley. From the western slope of this latter range and from the north side of the Siskiyous, the waters are gathered by a series of mountain streams, which are perennial, and conducted to Rogue River. On the south side of the Siskiyous the waters fall into the Klamath River; these are the trunk streams of the region. While the trend of the uplifts are well defined, denudation has been marvelously effective in land sculpture, and the country is essentially mountainous and hilly, with several fine plateaus and rich valleys, relatively small; of the latter the Rogue River or Bear Creek Valley is the largest, and comprises one of the richest agricultural and horticultural areas in Oregon.
    The mountain region, the locality of most of the mines, is attractive and enjoyable to a degree not exceeded, perhaps, in any other section of the West. The forests are magnificent, comprising the best types of the coniferous trees of commercial value, and a variety of smaller growths, inclusive of some vines and plants of particular interest and value. The areas near the summits are often beautiful in their alternation of glade and grove. Groupings of fir and pine, or of fir and hemlock, at the higher altitudes, are often ideal and park-like, and the opens--where there have been no sheep--are bright with beautiful flowers and grasses. The country is bountifully watered, and on the plateau summits there are numerous ice-cold springs of sweet water whose source is probably Shasta, which is generally in grand and majestic view from these points on the Siskiyous, and seemingly only a few miles away.
    The Siskiyous, or Klamath Mountains, comprise extensive areas of the older rocks, in which the auriferous veins commonly occur, and are to certain extent regarded as an extension of the Sierra Nevadas. They merge into the Coast Range westward, with their Cretaceous and Tertiary formations, and are flanked on the north side by these latter formations, which cover much of the area of the county, though there are patches of the older rocks exposed in numerous places. In these patches one is likely to find mines, but they are not confined exclusively to the older formations. Metamorphism is a noticeable feature of rock history, as one goes south and west of Ashland, particularly in the Wagner Butte region. There is a good mining district there, as might be supposed. Further westward is a serpentine belt, covering a large area: the bedrock of the streams being commonly slate, which appears to underlie the serpentine. The mountain mass projecting northward and westward from Wagner Butte is mainly slate, in which there are a few encouraging prospects, but no mine of proven value. In the serpentine belt mentioned there are patches of eruptives or igneous rocks, such as diabuses and bivrites, in which prospects have been found of copper ores carrying some silver and gold values. In this region, too, the prospects of cinnabar appear to be of considerable importance, and on one claim there is extensive development work. There are some huge masses of talc, asbestos is common, and varieties of schists are well represented in places. Immediately to the south and west of Ashland the rock masses are mainly granite and cranodiorite. The Ashland mine is in this formation near town, and there are numerous neighboring prospects, some of which are being extensively developed. Relating to certain specified localities close to Ashland, I quote Professor Diller, a distinguished member of the United States Geological Survey, whose pen has rendered Oregon some valuable services:
    "At Ashland the Cascade Range is separated on the southwest from Siskiyou Mountain, a part of the Klamath group, by Bear Creek Valley, a branch of Rogue River Valley. The topographic features just referred to are composed of four sets of rocks: (1) pre-Cretaceous sedimentary and igneous rocks, (2) Cretaceous conglomerates, sandstones and shales; (3) Miocene conglomerates, sandstones and shales; (4) Miocene and later lavas. Among the pre-Cretaceous rocks of the Ashland region quartz-mica-diorite is one of the most important. It extends from Ashland southward into Siskiyou Mountain. It is the base upon which the Cretaceous strata lie and from which the sands and silts of both the Cretaceous and the Miocene strata were derived. The Cretaceous strata occupy the middle portion of the Bear Creek Valley, and much of the lower slope upon the southwest side . . . and dip eastward beneath the Cascade Range, in all probability connecting with similar rocks of the same age exposed on Crooked River, in Eastern Oregon. The Miocene beds are exposed upon the lower slope of the Cascade Range a short distance northeast of Bear Creek. Although not accurately measured, they must have a thickness of over 500 feet. The Miocene sandstones, like those of the Cretaceous, . . . were derived directly from the disintegration of the adjacent diorite, which formed the shore of the water body originating them. The conglomerate, of which a heavy bed occurs near the base of the Miocene, is made up largely of fragments of older igneous rocks from the Klamath Mountains, and differs from those of the Cascade Range. Mixed with these in the conglomerate, but more particularly in the overlying sandstones, are pebbles of quartz, quartzite, schist, and slate, from among the older rocks of the Klamath Mountains."
    Some of these conglomerates and gravels are auriferous, and a tract north of Ashland has been prospected some. The old Davenport placers were doubtless enriched from them. The Sterling mine is probably in the same formation. Again, Professor Diller says: "The older portion of the Miocene strata contains no trace of the modern volcanic rocks of which the Cascade Range is composed. They dip gently eastward beneath the sheets of lava composing the range." From this and other evidences mentioned he concludes that the Miocene strata of the Ashland district are older than the adjacent portion of the Cascade Range, and that the earliest eruptions in this part of that range took place in a later portion of the Miocene or Pliocene. He further states that the Cascade Range is not underlain by a parallel ridge of pre-Cretaceous rocks. These points are cited as they have an important bearing on the mining geology of the region. In some features they are interesting, too, in relation to the project, said to be afoot, to bore for oil in Bear Creek Valley. Assuming that the animal and vegetables deposits laid down in these Cretaceous and tertiary strata formed carbonaceous shale or other rock rich in hydrocarbons, then the heat produced in the rocks attending the movements and uplifts which created the Cascades and the subsequent disturbances, may be supposed to have been sufficient to have made petroleum from these hydrocarbons. In this connection I may state that some asphaltum has been found in the region, the locality being named of the samples I have examined, which I have no reason to doubt. As asphaltum is a product resulting from the oxidation of the hydrocarbon of petroleum oils, the value of this evidence is manifest, and the oil-boring project is not without a rational basis.
    The Ashland mine whose location has been noticed above is the most important of the quartz properties that is being worked in the county. The underground workings comprise about 6000 feet of shafts, tunnels, drifting, etc. The main shaft is now rapidly approaching the 700-foot level, and it is therefore the deepest mine in Southern Oregon. A 1400-foot tunnel, driven into the north side of the mountain spur which carries the ledge, connects with the shaft at the 250-foot level, which facilitates the ventilation of the mine, and through it the water is carried out. Drifting at the 500-foot and 600-foot levels on both sides of the shaft in fine ore is in progress. The blocking out and exploratory work furnishes all the ore that can be handled with the present milling facilities. This mine has improved greatly with depth, and is a very important factor in supporting confidence in the mining district. At the 600-foot level the vein is "filled," as the miners term it; that is to say, there is ore from wall to wall, a width of seven to eight feet, and so continues. The proportion of free gold in these lower levels is large, and it is an excellent type of a good free-milling lode. Pyrites of iron are practically the only sulphides carried in the ledge. An average of two cars per month of high-grade base ore are shipped to the Tacoma smelter. The concentrates from the mill run in amount from two to five percent, and will perhaps average $45 to $250 per ton. This is known to be correct, as to ores from the upper levels. About 40 men are employed on the mine. Most of the gold product of the Ashland district for the current year came out of this mine. The Shorty-Hope, a neighboring mine which has a 10-stamp mill, is not now in operation. Much work has been done on supposed extensions of the Ashland, but there have been no important discoveries on the lead outside the limits of the Ashland corporation's property.
    The Free Silver, or Barron mine, nine miles southeast of Ashland, on the southwestern slope of the Cascades, has had considerable development, showing a large amount of good ore, and is held to be a very valuable property. A description of this mine has heretofore appeared in The Oregonian. The complex character of the ores will likely require a smelter to save the values, though there is free gold at the greatest depth attained, which is a little over 200 feet. There appears to have been much crushing of the rock material in the vein, which does not seem so well defined as the veins in the Siskiyous. At the 200-foot level it is seven to 12 feet wide. The mineralogy of this mine is more interesting than that of any other known in Southern Oregon. Among the minerals carried in the vein are pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, native silver, red silver ore, or ruby silver, native gold, sphalerite, and realgar. There is much silver. In the milling tests the concentrates gave $157 gold and 900 ounces silver per ton. The silver in the gold reduces the bullion value to $13 to $14. The Ashland's gold is worth about $15.50, due to the presence of silver, or has been, whereas the placer gold of the county generally will run from $17 to $19.50. Local dealers usually allow $16 per ounce. The Free Silver is the only mine of established value known in the extreme southern section of the Cascades. There are said to be some good prospects up Elk Creek, and numerous locations have been made, but no important properties have been developed.
    The development work on a number of the prospects in the Ashland district is considerable and as a whole encouraging. There have been no sensational "strikes," but there appear to be at least two of the recent discoveries of substantial value to the owners and highly advantageous to the district.
    The mining districts of which Jacksonville and Gold Hill are the commercial centers, though Medford may also be named in the former, are old and have often been described in this and other papers. To the mining man it may be said the metamorphic rocks, such as slates, schists and miners' "porphyries," are well represented in the geologic formations. A peculiar base of granite is a noticeable feature of the Gold Hill rock masses. Both districts are thrifty, and their gold product this year is in excess of that for a number of years past. Explorations in quartz are in progress near Jacksonville, and at several points up the Big Applegate and along its affluents, embracing a large territory of auriferous country. Some of these are yielding money, but no large mines have been developed yet. The placers of the region hold the first place, as heretofore. The Sterling is a large, well-equipped and very productive mine, and holds a place as one of the big placer properties of the Coast. The placer properties generally have been much improved this year, and with their better equipment and promising water supply, will clean off more bedrock this season than in any previous season for years past. About Gold Hill the activities in quartz mining are greater than at any previous period in years, making the camp a prosperous one. There have been some important and very valuable discoveries, notably the Nye ledge, and the gold product inclusive of that of the neighboring placers is greater than that of any year since the bonanza days. In this district Foots Creek, Galls Creek, Sardine Creek and Evans Creek are the important localities of mining operations, both in quartz and placers.
    The writer has been at some pains to collect data by which he could arrive at a fairly close estimate of the gold product of Jackson County for the year 1900. In this work he has been courteously aided by the banks of Medford and Ashland and by a number of mining men. The statements received are for the most part confidential for manifest reasons. The banks of Medford have handled the most gold among the local banks. Some of the mines, like the Ashland, do not dispose of their bullion product through the local banks. The following are the figures obtained, which are submitted as
conservative and a very close approximation of the actual yield of all the mines in the county: Ashland district, $95,000; Gold Hill, $104,000; all districts tributary to Medford and Jacksonville, $155,000; total, $354,000.
    In the Ashland district the product is mostly from quartz. In the Gold Hill district about $55,000 is from quartz mines. Comparing the different sections of the mining areas Gold Hill makes the best showing as to increased product. The Ashland and Gold Hill districts are in a position to greatly increase the output during the next year, as there are several properties just reaching a position to become producers, and I think this will be true, too, of the country in the neighborhood of Jacksonville.
Morning Oregonian, Portland, January 2, 1901, page 11


    A few miles south from Cottage Grove the summit of the Calapooia Range, the line between Lane and Douglas counties and demarcation of Central-Western and Southern Oregon mining sections, is reached. No organized mining districts are known, and localities must be designated by reference to supply points for each as they are found on the line of the railway.
    Roseburg, county seat of Douglas, is situated among, the rolling hills which characterize the greater part of the county, distant south from Portland 198 miles. Here is the United States Local Land Office of Roseburg land district. A portion of Bohemia district laps over the Calapooias into this country, but with this exception but little mining business is done in the northern portion of the county. No mines of importance are tributary to Roseburg.
    Riddles, a growing town on the line of the railroad, 26 miles south of Roseburg, is a point of considerable importance as a supply point for neighboring mines, particularly the placers lying to the east, on Coffee Creek and its tributaries. On Cow, Ash and Bollenbaugh creeks the farmers engage in washing gold out of their lands during the rainy days of winter. For nine months of each year they cultivate their land and for three months they work at the edges for the "gold there is in them." And it is said to be a very profitable business. On Cow Creek, 15 miles from Riddles, several placers, one having a gravel bed 50 feet deep, are being operated by hydraulics under 100-foot head with excellent results.
    Three miles west from Riddles is a group of claims producing nickel. They occur in a range or mountain locally known as "Old Piney," having an altitude of 3500 feet. The formation is an eruptive magnesian rock technically known as saxonite. A series of veins intersect this mass, which covers an area exceeding 1200 acres. Since the formation of the ore veins a subsequent movement has tilted them from their original position and they now lie at a dip of about 20 degrees from horizontal. Apparently the hanging wall has been eroded, leaving great ore bodies exposed as a blanket. The ores are in form of a silicate of nickel and magnesia, averaging about 4½ percent, and the veins vary from 18 inches to 80 feet in width, the gangue being silica in various forms. Cretaceous sandstones, altered slates and serpentine comprise the general structure of the county.
    East of Riddles 35 miles, on the head of Elk Creek, the Rainbow Company has five claims on copper- and gold-bearing veins, of eight, five and 30 feet respectively; the ores going about 10 percent of metal. Elevation, 3500 feet; formation, anderesite, feldsite and schists. Numerous other claims are being developed in that neighborhood.
    Glendale, south from Riddles 35 miles by rail, is near the southern line of Douglas County, which follows the summit of the transverse range of the Rogue River Mountains. The mines tributary to Leland consist chiefly of placers. On Tennessee Gulch, 12 miles northeast, are about a dozen placers, one well equipped, the others on a small scale. On Ball Run, a tributary of Quines Creek, are several, getting coarse gold. Eight miles farther up in the mountains, and on Hogem and Starveout, are numerous others; three hydraulics on Hogem. On Stewart are two fairly extensive hydraulic mines. Six miles farther up, on White Horse Creek, is another group, and 10 miles still farther, cinnabar float has been found on the hillsides and in stream beds. The veins which threw off the float have not been found.
    On Quines Creek, 12 miles northeast from Glendale, is the old Union quartz mine, recently taken over by a California company. The veins lie in contact run parallel, carry free gold and pyrites; formation, diabase and serpentine; elevation, 2500 feet
    On the headwaters of Stewart Creek and above the placers on that stream, is a group of quartz claims known as the Green Mountain. They are reached by wagon road of 22 miles, from Glendale. A considerable amount of work has been done on these mines, and profits realized. The quartz vein is large, carries free gold and sulphurets, has a strike nearly due north and dip 60 degrees east. The hanging wall of slate, footwall of porphyry. A depth of 200 feet has been reached. A small stamp mill is on the property. Elevation, 4500 feet.
    Northwest from Glendale seven miles, on Cow Creek, are the Victory hydraulic placers, with very extensive workings. Four to five giants are kept steadily in operation during the water season. The Southern Pacific railroad passes through this property, and the operations in the mines can be seen from the car windows. The gravel deposits are extensive and from five to 50 feet deep. Just below this are the Fuller, Dewey and Valk placers; and about three miles below the Victory, at what is known as Railroad Camp B, is another hydraulic placer, to be seen from the car windows.
    On the headwaters of Shively Creek, a tributary of the South Umpqua River, some rich placers, producing heavy gold, have recently been discovered, and a hydraulic plant is being installed to work them. Lying near the line, in Josephine County, are the Gold Bug and Benton groups of quartz mines, but telegraph, postal and commercial relations are had with Glendale
    Excellent hotels are maintained at Glendale, and fair commercial establishments. Being in a picturesque, healthful mountain region, the charm of summer resort is added to the attraction of the mines.

    A detailed description of the mining industry of Josephine County would be like reporting the resources of a commonwealth. There are hundreds upon hundreds of miles of placer mines ramifying the mountain ranges. Some of them are of marvelous formation, of vast depth, and a few are being operated on a large scale and with modern, contrivances. What follows in the way of description, like what precedes it, is greatly abbreviated, and is in no case consciously exaggerated. Very much is omitted.
    The exalted bed of an ancient and mighty river, now filled with prodigious deposits of fossils. auriferous gravels and sand, covered with rich soil and the vegetation of centuries climaxed in trees 200 feet high, and paralleled in part by a great mineralized zone, which has been barely touched, is one of the mysteries of this wonderful country. Strength for the ordinary avocation of life falters in the presence of the work which is to despoil the gravel hills and rob the mountains of their golden stores.
    Mount Reuben, terminating in a summit somewhat higher than the surrounding elevations, is a part of the general uplift where the Rogue River Range intersects or joins the Coast Range. It is situated just south of the line between Douglas and Josephine. Romantic history here also has its wonderful tales to tell, including the discovery of the Gold Bug mines.
    Mount Reuben: This locality is as one just discovered. The genuine quartz prospector was late in coming, but found a virgin country for exploration. The mountain is seamed with veins, and the results so far attained are satisfactory and encouraging.
     The Gold Bug group, before referred to, lies on the western slope of the hill, 18  miles by wagon road from Glendale. The general formation of the county here is hornblende andesite. The veins of quartz are from 16 to 25 feet wide, strike west of south, and lie in chloritic chutes intersecting the general formation.
    The ores are free gold, with sulphurets carrying values. The savings on battery and plates are about 75 percent of assay returns; the sulphurets are saved by vanners in the usual way. The veins have gouge on well-defined walls and dip vertically about 70 degrees from horizontal. The Gold Bug vein has been opened to a vertical depth of 700 feet, the vein increasing in strength and value to the deep. Conditions here and at other mines in Southern Oregon prove that the veins are neither "blankets" nor "pockety." There is a five-stamp mill on this property and a cyanide plant being installed for treatment of the sulphurets. Altitude of mines, 3000 feet.
    The Benton group lies one-half mile due west of the Gold Bug at an elevation of 2600 feet. A serpentine dike traverses the country here, and this group lies in a magnesium trap. Workings nearly 500 feet deep, walls well defined, dipping uniformly 70 degrees east
    The California group joins the Gold Bug on the east in the same character of formation, and has a two-stamp mill.
    Farther around the mountain, to the southeast, some two miles from the Benton, is the Ajax of four claims; formation schists and porphyry. Two parallel veins of quartz, about 400 feet apart and from two to 18 feet wide, return gold averaging $6 per ton. A two-stamp mill is on the property.
    From the Ajax west of south three miles is the Copperstain, a group of four claims. Here an incline shaft follows the vein 320 feet A. Tremain mill is to be supplanted by the orthodox stamp.
    Adjoining the Copperstain on the southwest is the John Lewis property, consisting of a group of claims which are being developed systematically.
    Adjoining the Gold Bug on the northwest is the Ramsey group of six claims. A tunnel cuts the principal vein at a depth of 500 feet. It is well defined and shows 11 feet of ore. An upraise is being made to the surface. The ore is similar in character to that of other mines in the district.
    Across Whisky Creek, which runs at the base of Reuben and on the eastern slope of the opposite mountain, are four claims, known as the Palmer and Kramer. A cross-cut tunnel cuts the vein 200 feet deep. This vein is strong, has four feet of high-grade ore carrying free gold and tellurine.
    On the northeast slope of Reuben three miles from the Gold Bug, and on the wagon road from Glendale, is the New Hope group of seven claims. The formation is porphyry and schists. The veins run northeast, and are intersected by an iron dike nearly at right angles. This locality is intersected by veins running at various courses and from one to 16 feet in width, approximating stock-weeks [sic]. A cross-cut tunnel is to open the principal ore chute at a depth of 210 feet.
    The foregoing details are summarized to show that this very newly discovered quartz zone is receiving active attention. Many unmentioned prospects in this mountain are being exploited.
    Leland, another point on the Southern Pacific railroad, 276 miles south from Portland, is the departure point for the upper or northern portion of the immense placer fields of Josephine County, and some important quartz mines are being operated in the adjacent county.
    Ten miles east from Leland, by good road, is a quartz mine generally known as the Greenback. The property consists of seven contiguous claims, which are latterly known as the Victor, Jr. They lie in a spur of St. Peters Mountain. The general formation is metamorphic trap. The strike of the veins is nearly due east and west. A serpentine belt or dike, striking north and south, intersects this entire section, and the veins abutting it, as against a wall, cease entirely. The veins are in true fissures, averaging three and a half feet, dip 40 degrees north, at an elevation of 2800 feet. The depth attained on the Greenback vein is 700 feet; ores free and in sulphurets. A 15-stamp mill is kept in full operation, and 25 stamps are to be added. The property is reputed to be paying handsomely with ores averaging $18 per ton. Telephone connection with Leland.
    In this locality, many other properties are being developed, several giving excellent promise of future mines. A two-stamp mill at the foot of the mountain does sample and custom work.
    Placer claims of various areas, depths, deposits and methods of working are tributary to Leland, but rely on Grants Pass for large supplies and local bank facilities. Grave Creek and Wolf Creek, flowing from the north and east, unite near Leland. The beds and banks of these streams above and below the point of junction and the beds and banks of their tributary streams and gulches form an almost continuous chain of placer mines. In the aggregate these auriferous gravel beds cover a large area of country. A short description of one modern plant must suffice.
    The Columbia Mines Company, an Oregon corporation, has an extensive property and up-to-date plant thereon, on Grave Creek, eight miles from Leland by wagon road of easy grade--a delightful summer drive. This plant has, it is claimed, the largest hydraulic gravel elevator ever constructed A halftone cut from a photograph of this elevator, with description of its construction and operation, appears on another page of this paper. It is locally called the Hampton elevator, Professor Hampton having, in its construction, made improvements on the original device of another by adjustment of numerous parts on closely calculated scientific principles.
    The holdings of this company cover an area of about 2500 acres. Water is supplied the giants and elevator through 22 miles of ditches, all four feet wide on the bottom, seven on the top and three feet deep. When the plant is in full operation 4000 inches of water are brought to the mine under head, or pressure, of from 1 foot to 1000 feet, as the various needs require. The impact of a stream of water under a pressure of 700 feet through a six-inch nozzle is terrific. It is very like that of a solid bar of iron moving almost like a cannon shot. When such a stream is diverted upward through a  pipe constructed properly, everything that will enter the pipe must pass through it and to a height determinable by the calculations of the engineer.
    The ground is piped in the usual way into sluices fitted with riffles, where the gold is saved. The tailings--rocks, gravel and earth--fall from the tail of the sluice into the pit at the base of the elevator, where the uprushing stream of the elevator forces all the mass up the pipe to the desired elevation for "dumping."
    A small stream of water drives a Pelton wheel and dynamo, which furnish arc and incandescent lights to the workings, office and residence and quarters for employees. Telephone lines connect the office with distant points on the ditches and surrounding camps and with Portland. It is an ideal plant.
    Eight miles above the plant of the Columbia Mines Company is an ancient channel following, or lying in, the summit of a low range of foothills. This old channel is the bed of a prehistoric river, and now lies at an elevation of nearly 200 feet above the bed of Grave Creek. It has been traced at this point for nearly a mile, and its gravels are being washed in a small way.
    This city is the county seat of Josephine, and the commercial and financial center of this great mining country, which extends into Del Norte County, Northern California. Its location is beautiful and healthful. The streets are wide, and business blocks are of brick and stone. It has strong banking institutions, heavy commercial houses, splendid hotel accommodations, and well-stocked livery stables. It is favored with good newspapers, and the Oregon Mining Journal, a weekly publication devoted to the interests of that industry, and the oldest journal of its kind in the state, is published here. A Mining and Commercial Club has a strong and active organization with permanent rooms in this city.
    A 5-stamp custom quartz mill is located here. The elevation above sea level is about 1000 feet.
    Placers and quartz mines extend from within a mile of the town into the mountains and gorges of the Rogue River, Coast and Siskiyou ranges, all clothed with fir, cedar, pine and oak. The product of the placers has been enormous in the past and continues to be very large; the exact amount is not ascertainable.
    Quartz mining has received scant attention until very recently. Heavy plant growth has been a hindrance, though available timber is of great importance to a mine when opened. The discovery of one quartz mine serves as a fingerboard on the road to others; so the opening of mines aids the prospector in his search for others in the same locality. Somewhere in these hills lie the veins that fed the rough, quartz-bearing dust into the placers.
    West from Grants Pass, 25 miles by wagon road, and rising abruptly from the south bank of Rogue River, is Peavine Mountain. Apparently this mountain at one time joined Mount Reuben as a range or chain, and the accumulated waters cut through this formation, carving out the canyon through which Rogue River now gets its outlet to the sea. Intersecting Peavine on its eastern slope, in a nearly north and south course, and continuing on through the mountainous country, is an immense lode or zone, something over 300 feet wide, made up of a series of highly mineralized veins, lying parallel, carrying gold, silver, copper. Iron and various other metals. This lode was first discovered where the Rogue River had cut it to a depth of over 1000 feet. From this point it has been traced south 20 miles, and north 15 miles, to and beyond the Victory placers on Cow Creek, and through the Cow Creek range. It is surprising that very little exploration has been made upon this remarkable lode. Only one company is now actively and earnestly at work on it, and this is being done at a point on Rogue River. It is generally known as the the Yank ledge.
    A great river surpassing Rogue River 50-fold or more once flowed northward through this country. It was a mile or more in width, and has been traced at interval of its course. Rogue River has cut through it at the mouth of Galice Creek, and from this point northerly for a distance of 25 miles or more this old channel holds its course through the mountains, and cut across by the present streams of Rogue River, Grave Creek and Cow Creek. The northern end so far as traced passes into the placers of the Victory Company on Cow Creek in Douglas County. South from the mouth of Galice Creek the old riverbed passes through the Briggs Creek placer district, on across the lower Illinois River to the Waldo placers on the west fork of the Illinois, a distance of 45 miles. In its southerly course it has been cut across by Briggs Creek, Illinois River, Josephine Creek and the west fork or the Illinois. On its course south this old stream appears again in Northern California. Wherever encountered the gravelly bed of this prehistoric stream has been found rich in gold, and considerable quantities of platinum have been found in it. A very small portion of the bed of this ancient river has been opened in Oregon. The general elevation of its bed above those of the present streams is about 400 feet, and where modern streams have cut it their beds or banks have been  rich in gold.
    Peavine Mountain has many quartz veins; several projects being opened; ores, free-milling gold. The output of some of these claims is being reduced by the old arrastras--mule power.
    A copper vein, 15 miles northwest from Grants Pass, 15 feet wide and 5000 feet long, is being prospected; and in the southwest portion of the county is an extensive section of country which extends into California.
    The ancient placer towns of Waldo, Kerby, Althouse and Browntown are in this locality. Energetic work is in progress here on big copper prospects, all of which carry well in gold. Croppings appear in nearly every hill, and the surface showings are excellent. This country is reached from Grants Pass by daily stage through Kerby and Waldo to Crescent City, Cal. A daily stage also connects Kerby with Browntown, a distance of 13 miles. Telephone lines connect Grants Pass with Waldo, Selma, Kerby, Shelby Creek and Crescent City.
    South from Grants Pass is Williams Valley, a garden spot of orchards, alfalfa fields and flowers, 10 miles by three miles. It is surrounded by imposing mountains. Looking up from the valley one sees holes ranged in the mountainsides above like pigeonholes in a concave desk, apparently almost in reach. These are mouths of tunnels, opening to quartz veins of copper and gold. The ores are of high grade and extensive operations are being pushed. Three of these mines have a 5-stamp mill each, and another mine is procuring a mill. The formation is limestone and porphyry.
    A wonderfully beautiful and massive mountain of purest marble overlooks this valley. This hill has all the variegated marbles in colors and tints, and from purest white to onyx-like black. It is unappropriated and almost untouched.
    On Baldy Mountain, southeast, and four miles from Grants Pass, is the Jewett quartz mine of free gold, and calaverite, in large vein. It has a 5-stamp mill.
    Placers exist on Jump-off Joe, Louse and Jones Creek The Dry Diggings are within three miles of Grants Pass, and cover 100 acres. There are extensive placers in the Williams Valley country, and on Oscar Creek, the latter noted for big nuggets.
    Two properties merit special mention as typical of the formation and methods of operation in this county, one lying east and the other west of Grants Pass. On Louse Creek, eight miles northeast by good road, is a group of placer and quartz claims known as the Granite Hill property, where 500 acres have been covered under one title. The entire tract is covered by splendid timber, and to murder those trees, even in the pursuit of gold, seems a sacrilege and a crime. The elevation of the tract is 2200 feet. The middle, north and south forks of the creek converge at one point, and the placer claims are laid here, extending up each fork and below the junction. Just below this junction a movement of the earth, or slide, from the adjacent mountain on the north, long ago, filled the former channel of the stream, forming a huge basin which has been filled with gravel and subsequent soil to a depth of 50 feet, so that an area of 60 acres has been formed in what formerly was a mountain gorge. Prospect shafts sunk at various points show the gravels rich in gold, reputed to average 75 cents per yard of the entire deposit.
    To open this bed of gravel and gain a tailings dump in the canyon below, a tunnel which will tap the bedrock under the gravel at its lowest point is being run. It requires 1400 feet of tunneling, which will be utilized by placing sluice boxes firmly on its bottom, this conveying away the washings of the gravel deposits above to the canyon below. The body of the slide is of material too compact to be removed. The total pay gravel area of this property is fully 250 acres, the average depth being 25 feet. A few acres of the upper deposit have been worked profitably, 6½ acres returning $60,000 in dust.
    An excellent feature here is the absence of large boulders. Water for the hydraulic pipes and giants is brought eight miles by ditch, which are to be, or ought to be, enlarged.
    Five quartz veins cut the mountainsides above the placers. They are from one to 15 feet wide and carry free-milling ore. The ores from these claims was formerly worked by four arrastras. The mules, being of the slow-gaited variety, were turned out, the arrastras abandoned and a 5-stamp mill now reduces the product of the mines, which have been opened in some 1200 feet of workings. The owners are R. A. Booth. J. O. Booth and C. L. Magnum, of Grants Pass.
    Several lesser properties lie below on this creek, one of which is using the Ruble elevator.
    Here [the] chronic geologist and practical miner can find mental and bodily sustenance; the one in these marvelous mines, the other at manager Harvey's unpretentious but ample board. The property lies on Galice Creek, 25 miles northwest from Grants Pass. The deposit lies in a section of the bed of the ancient river before mentioned, which parallels Galice Creek at this point. The bed of the old stream, which is the bedrock of the placers, is about 450 feet higher than the bed of the present stream. This bedrock consists principally of shales and slates, with occasional thin strata of sandstone, all with strata upturned and in places much contorted and twisted. On extensive areas of this old riverbed, recently made clean by the placer washings, the polishing, rippling action of prehistoric waters is distinctly visible. At one place a sheer fall in the old river of 20 feet appears, disclosed by recent removal of the filling of gravel and sand, which had hidden it for centuries. The width of this channel is supposed to be from one-half mile to one mile; but at this point, though thousands of feet have been uncovered, the western rim has not been reached. The workings have been carried on from the east side--nearest Galice Creek--and the bedrock, or riverbed, is still "pitching into the hill," indicating that the center of the channel has not been reached. This old channel was filled with the gravels, rocks and sands of long ago, and with them the gold. It is a marvelous deposit, in places exceeding 200 feet in depth. Its course is due magnetic north. The placer claims laid along it, and now owned by one company, extend for a continuous distance of four miles. The general elevation is 1500 feet. Of these mining claims 950 acres have been patented and 600 acres are held under the usual possessory title. Seven small tributaries of Galice Creek have cut through this deposit and down through the bed of the older stream, enriching Galice Creek with the gold which made men rich and that creek famous in the early days of placer mining here.
    At 12 points along the eastern rim of this old channel, and within the four miles mentioned, the several original owners worked into the deposit, and the amount of gold obtained was very great, but the depth of the banks became so great that operations with divided supplies of water became impracticable. More water was indispensable, but various owners could never agree on means of getting it so titles finally were concentrated in J. R. Harvey and his Chicago associates. During the year past Mr. Harvey has improved the water supply and consolidated the workings so that three giants with 6-inch nozzles and under a head of 500 feet are thundering day and night against walls of auriferous gravels and sand over 175 feet deep, and which persistently stand vertical till knocked down in slabs of 10,000 tons each. It is a thrilling, awe-inspiring sight to look from the verge of a vertical wall of 200 feet, down upon the human atoms as they direct the hill-destroying streams below. The giants are set on the bedrock and the water applied at the base of the bank, and as the lower stratum is washed out the upper ground breaks for want of support and slides into the pit to be washed away.
    These great beds are composed chiefly of gravel from two to three inches in diameter, graduating into pebbles, grit and sand, lying in alternating layers or masses of quartz sand very compact, but not cemented. The deposit is practically free from boulders, cement and clay, a remarkable condition. A peculiar feature of this deposit consists of numerous large boulders distributed irregularly through the mass and of perfect form but so completely decomposed as to crumble at the touch and dissolve in the water more easily than does the material which surrounds them. Manifestly, it was a sluggish stream that made this deposit.
    The gold runs from fine dust to nuggets of $50--occasionally pieces are found which weigh $100. An abundance of timber of great height has grown upon and covered this deposit, and a saw mill comprises part of the plant. Water is supplied through 20 miles of ditches 5 feet wide at the bottom, 7½ feet at the top and 3½ feet deep. The climate is the ideal one of Southern Oregon.
    The Big Yank ledge, mentioned elsewhere, at this point parallels the old channel and its deposit, lying to the west at a distance of less than one-fourth of a mile.
    The Dry Diggings hydraulic placers, three miles east of Grants Pass, have been operated for 30 years with scant supplies of water and during short seasons. The property covers 400 acres and is noted for production of coarse gold and big nuggets. Preparations are being made to increase the water supply by pumping into reservoirs from the adjacent stream, and to enlarge the ditches. A mammoth vein was uncovered by these placer workings and lay unappropriated until November last. It is 200 feet wide, evenly mineralized, and preliminary tests show an average of $5 per ton in free gold and pyrites. A mill run is to be made of ore taken entirely across the vein. Its strike is nearly due north, dip not definitely ascertained.
    Gold Hill is a growing town on the Rogue River, 313 miles south from Portland by rail. It is immediately surrounded by a rolling country, the foothills of the mountain ranges. It is ably represented by a good weekly newspaper. Two quartz mills are maintained here for custom work. There are two well-stocked livery stables. The hotels, three in number, are not quite good enough to meet the demands. Miners, like other experienced men, prefer comfortable quarters and pretty good food. Even in rude cabins the American gold miner usually manages to have good provisions, and on  necessity is a good cook. One of these, on placing before his guests a splendid dinner of bean soup, brook trout, grouse, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, biscuits and ideal coffee, all elegantly prepared in the ample fireplace of his log cabin and served smoking hot, declared that "it is better to have good food on one's table than napkins and silverware." Good hotels are useful adjuncts to all important mining camps.
    Development of placers tributary to Gold Hill has been retarded by insufficient water supply; and this district has suffered somewhat from ill-founded repute that the quartz veins are "pockety." The pocket hunter is no true miner. Vegetation and soil cover the hills wherein lie the quartz veins. The pocket hunter methodically "potholes" the hillsides. He digs a system of holes in the soil to the rock and pans the dirt, noting the presence and quantity of gold dust taken from each hole. Finding by this means a channel or flow of gold in the soil, he follows it, potholing as he goes, until he locates or reaches the source in the quartz vein upon the hillside. He sinks on the vein here and often secures several hundred dollars' worth of very rich free gold quartz, which he crushes in a mortar or in a dolly, and pans out the gold; or takes it to the custom mill for reduction. It is a fascinating business. But when depth is attained, compelling the use of candles for light, or windlass for hoisting, the work becomes slow and tiresome. Nothing but the biggest of prospects holds him. Ores yielding less than $100 to the ton do not pay for this style of mining. Twenty-dollar ore is useless to him, so if the rich streak from which erosion fed the hillside doesn't hold out, or the vein "pinches," as all pay bodies do, this anomalous miner goes to another point on the same or a neighboring hill for renewal of prospecting for pockets. A great deal of this kind of mining has been done in this section, and men do well at it, make big wages often. But the reports of surface pockets have gone abroad, and tended to divert the real quartz prospector to other fields. However, late working to depths show that the veins continue with ores of high grade for milling. As to quartz mining, this section is as a new country, and unprospected.
    On Sardine Creek for several miles are a series of placer claims, all worked when water can be had. One of these is a farm of 360 acres, patented as such, which the owner cultivates in summer and hydraulics in winter.
    The Lucky Bart quartz group of six claims is on this creek, the mouth of which is within a mile of Gold Hill. A five-stamp mill is on this group, which is in a formation of diorite and slate, elevation 2600 feet, ores free gold and sulphurets. There are many quartz prospects on this stream.
    On Wards Creek are hydraulic placers, and the Gold Chloride quartz claim, a late discovery, being developed; ore mills an average of $30 per ton, altitude 2600 feet, formation slate and porphyry. On Pleasant Creek are some placers reputed as among the best in the state. The Cameron claims of 1500 acres are operated at several points by giants; depth of gravel banks 30 feet.
    On Kanes Creek adjoining the town of Gold Hill, the placers extend up the stream continuously for four miles, but there is scarcity of water. Above the placers on either hillside are numerous quartz prospects. The Braden group covers 800 acres, has five parallel veins, striking easterly, dipping about 30 degrees south. One vein strikes across the course of the others, dips westerly 40 degrees, vein 10 feet wide, all pay ore. Formation of the locality granite, diorite, porphyry and slate; elevation 1800 feet. A 10-stamp mill is running on the ore. One mile farther up the stream is the Roaring Gimlet group of three claims. It has been very productive, and continues to supply free-milling ore to a custom mill in the vicinity. The vein lies between a slate-hanging and porphyry footwall; pay streak two feet wide, strikes easterly, dip nearly vertical.
    On Galls Creek placers are being worked in a small way for three miles. The water supply is scant. Some of the best quartz claims in the district are on this stream. The principal ones are the Kubli property of 12 claims, three parallel veins, all being worked. A three-stamp mill is being replaced by a modern five-stamper. On the hill opposite is the Bill Nye group, a large producer; veins nearly vertical, strike northeasterly, ores worked in custom mill at Gold Hill. There are numerous prospects here, and one, the Bliss claim, is reputed to have produced over $30,000 from a shaft of 42 feet and a drift of 30 feet
    On the west fork of Foots Creek for six miles, and on the east fork for eight miles there are continuous placer claims, several of which are operated extensively by hydraulic. There are thousands of acres of unappropriated placer lands on these streams. Water is scarce. Mayhap the dredger men will find opportunity here.
    On the Main Creek is the Horseshoe group of two quartz claims, with a five-stamp mill. The Dixie Queen, south from the Horseshoe, with similar formation, has its ores worked at a custom mill. The ore is reputed to produce gold at $100 per ton. These are types of some 40 prospects in that vicinity.
    East from Gold Hill two and a half miles is the locally famous Blackwell quartz property of 320 acres. There are seven ledges, three being worked. Depth can only be attained here by sinking. Veins nearly vertical, formation slates and porphyry. The Tolo, of six claims, adjoins the Blackwell on the north. These lie in a granite belt and carry free gold. These workings are well supplied with steam hoist and power drills.
    On Nigger Baby Hill, three miles north of the town, is a recent discovery of an 18-inch vein, carrying $40 gold per ton.
    There are a great number of prospects, making promise of permanent mines, on which development is being prosecuted. They are too numerous for detail.
    Some 10 miles north from the town a large body of cinnabar has recently been exposed. The vein is 500 feet wide, and ores from it discharge globules of pure quicksilver. It is now being opened by a strong force of men. And on Elk Creek, 25 miles north of Gold Hill, is an entirely new district of large veins of low-grade ores. A Huntington mill has been taken to it, to be followed by a five-stamp mill. It is in the foothills of the Cascade Range at an elevation of 4000 feet.
    Deposits of copper, coal, asbestos and mica exist in the county at the headwaters of Evans Creek. The extent of these is not known, but all are being opened. It is known as the Meadows district.
    The immense power of Rogue River can be utilized to great advantage in this locality, and the gravel elevator and dredger may soon come to obviate the extensive use of water and overcome the flat-lying gravel beds, which exist at some points. The quartz prospects are most favorable. Well-directed work will make a great country of Gold Hill district.
    From Medford northeast 25 miles, and from Gold Hill 18 miles, in a spur of the Rogue River Range, are two groups of claims on a cinnabar deposit. Development is in progress. On one group of six claims the Rogue River Quicksilver Mining Company has a shaft 6x7 feet sunk to a depth of 56 feet, showing a vein of ore 6 to 14 inches. The other group of five claims lies adjoining the first named. A shaft has been sunk here 112 feet in ore formation like the other. In this shaft the vein is 11 feet wide at the bottom, has a northerly strike and a dip nearly vertical.
    Jacksonville, county seat of Jackson County, is the pioneer town of the Southern Oregon district. It began as a frontier mining camp in the winter of 1851-52. Its founders and dwellers were types of the best brain and brawn of America. Others came, but Americans dominated. Their courage and strength and their gold aided mightily in the then new and forward movement of the world. They poured millions into the then almost empty chest of commerce. Oregon and California roused a lethargic world. Since those days civilization and science, with seven-league boots, have climbed to heights never dared before.
    Contemplation of these things dwarfs consideration of present details to insignificance. Yet science, built upon what the delvers disclose, comes to give reward and help to renew the harvest of gold and rejected rocks may become "the headstones of the corner."
    The placers have not all been worked out; the veins in the hills have remained untouched, scarcely looked for. A great many small gulches are being worked in a limited way; scarcity of water again. Their number is too great to specialize. The principal ones are on Frost Creek, six miles from Jacksonville, Poormans Creek, five miles, and several others that were once large producers. On Upper Applegate are two hydraulics and numerous small mines.
    The Sterling placers are a type of the greater mines. They are on Sterling Creek, eight miles by splendid wagon road of easy grade, from Jacksonville. Great quantities of coarse gold came from them in the early days, gotten by the simplest methods. But the water supply was limited to the rainy season, and with each passing year there was a marked decrease of rainfall, until now it is not more than one-half its early annual supply. So, with failing water and deepening gravel banks, the old-timers slowly gave way. Nearly all the original claims finally passed into the hands of the Sterling Mining Company, a Portland corporation. This corporation has two stockholders, V. Cook and Henry E. Ankeny, the latter being practically president, board of directors, manager and superintendent, the rest of the company trustingly leaving everything to him. It is an ideal board, and necessarily everything moves satisfactorily and to the great profit of the stockholders.
    These placers cover some 1500 acres, which extend for 5½ miles along Sterling Creek. The deposit of gravel is from two to 100 feet deep. The  hillsides are piped for gold. The property is splendidly equipped with piping, giants, flumes, ditches and sluices. When in full operation, four No. 4 giants utilize 4000 inches of water, brought chiefly from the Siskiyou Mountains, by a system of ditches constructed for the purpose. The largest, or Siskiyou, ditch, is three feet wide on the bottom, 6½ on top, 3½ deep and 28 miles long. Other ditches bring water from other sources. One, six miles long, carries 500 inches of water; another of the same length, 1500 inches, and another, five miles long, carries 500 inches.
    The bedrock consists of strata of shales, porphyry, sandstone, in streaks, and occasional points of granite, all tumbled and distorted, small kidneys and stringers of barren quartz cutting through and interlacing the whole. These mines present curious and interesting features, not possible to relate here, in variety of gravels, including cinnabar, and of bedrock.
    Fossil remains in abundance and great variety are encountered in the deep workings as the giants break down the bank in huge slabs. Among the remains thus exposed was one of a mastodon's tusk measuring 26½ inches in circumference and 11½ feet long. Nine years ago nearly an entire skeleton of one of these monsters was distinctly exposed, imprinted in the massive banks; the backbone, ribs, joints, shoulder blades, leg bones, all save the head. They were much decomposed, but perfect in outline and position. Tusks and bones of these mammoths have been encountered yearly during the last 10 years. Last season a six-foot tusk was uncovered. Imprints of fossil shells and of leaves, etc. are of common occurrence.
    A post office and excellent school near it are maintained on the grounds of the company. Gardens and small farms in the vicinity supply vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk and meat to the community engaged in getting the gold.
    There is a group of gold quartz claims covering 240 acres of patented ground 1½ miles west of Jacksonville, at an elevation of 2600 feet. There are five parallel veins opened, one to a depth of 200 feet. The strongest vein is 24 feet between walls, all regarded as pay ore, the best values being in a six-foot stratum. A five-stamp mill is on the property, crushing ore. Values in concentrates run high. The strike is northwest and dip 70 degrees west. The formation is slate and diorite.
    On Forest Creek, 10 miles northwest from Jacksonville, are several quartz properties in various stages of development. The Mountain Belle has been worked almost continuously for several years, reducing the ores in a Huntington mill.
    On the same stream the Winningham and Pentz has been operated for three years, using a five-stamp mill.
    On Applegate, west from Jacksonville, 10 miles, a custom mill has been running for several years, reducing and testing ores mined in that locality. There are no deep or extensive workings here, but the miners are sticking to their prospects.
    Jacksonville is well supplied with commercial houses and a solid banking institution. The hotels are fair, the livery stables good. It is splendidly represented by a newspaper issued in weekly and semi-weekly editions.
    This city, situated on the Southern Pacific Railway, 341 miles from Portland, is the southernmost point of supply for Oregon mines. The climate is matchless, and the location of the city superb. Its most excellent hotel is of advantage to mining men, as well as are its good livery stables, prosperous banks and ably conducted newspapers. Its site at the foot of the Siskiyous is at an elevation of 1940 feet. Ashland Butte, to the south, is 7662 feet high, and Wagner Butte, west of south, reaches an altitude of 7245 feet. The Siskiyou Range rises immediately to the south of the city, and the railway's grade commences its ascent of the mountain before passing from the city limits.
    A quartz mine named the Ashland is reached by a good wagon road of three miles, running southwest from the city. The mine is in a mountain ridge buttressing Wagner Butte, in granite formation; the hanging wall is granite, foot wall diorite; elevation 3500 feet. The workings are through a shaft and tunnel levels to a depth of 800 feet, the deepest workings in the county. The vein is from four to 10 feet wide; strike northerly, dip west about 65 degrees. The gangue is quartz, carrying free gold and sulphurets. It has a 10-stamp mill located in Ashland, which, by amalgamation and concentration, saves 90 percent of the assay values, a good mill record.
    The Shorty Hope mine lies about one-half mile west from the Ashland. It is a typical, fissure vein of large size, cutting all formations. Its strike is northwest, dip nearly vertical. It probably intersects the Ashland vein at a point south from the Ashland workings. The quartz is free milling. The elevation about 2500 feet The mine is well equipped and has a 10-stamp mill, driven by water power. Above the Shorty Hope are a great many good prospects in various stages of development.
    Farther west and south, 12 miles from Ashland, on the headwaters of Little Applegate Creek is an area of cinnabar prospects. Here a large serpentine belt which intersects a portion of Josephine County, passing into northern California, is encountered. It is underlaid by slate. The cinnabar occurs in an area of altered locks lying east of the serpentine and embraces 8 or 10 square miles. One prospect here has been somewhat extensively developed. This is the most extensive exploitation for cinnabar in the Siskiyou Range.
    Farther west in the Siskiyous, on the headwaters of the several tributaries of the Applegate, is a "likely country" of auriferous rocks and gravel, little explored.
    Up Ashland Creek three and one-half miles south of the town is the Reeder quartz claims, recently opened and in course of development. The formation, character of ore, strike and dip is similar to the Ashland vein, save that the proportion of free gold is less, the values, which are high, lying in the pyrites. It is supposed to be an extension of the Ashland vein system.
    Still farther south by trail over Ashland Butte--unsurpassed for scenic grandeur and beauty--a few miles south of its summit there is a strong ledge, somewhat developed, showing stibnite--sulphide of antimony--carrying a fair amount of gold. A few miles below this on the head of Grouse and Beaver creeks, are some old placers, worked in the early '50s, from which millions of gold were taken. This locality was never abandoned, but has been worked continuously to the present time. Additional rich and extensive gravel beds have recently been discovered and equipped with hydraulic plants. A striking feature of this general locality is the recent discovery of a strong and remarkably rich quartz lode on the top of Mount Reuben. Nearly $30,000 was taken from it in gold of the form very like the product of the placers below, and which was worked by mortar and pan. Recent prospecting disclosed the fact that a series of auriferous veins intersect this mountain. The marvel is that the early placer miners on Beaver and Grouse Creeks never searched the mountain above them for the source of the gold they were getting. Probably it was the old story--they knew little of quartz and had no machinery from the faraway shops with which to work it. The country is abundantly supplied with water, timber, game, and scenic points indescribable, and it is blessed with an ideal climate. The country is accessible from Ashland by wagon road ending in a trail over the butte or by a ten-mile mountain trail due west from Coles, a railway station at the boundary line between Oregon and California.
    From Ashland, up Bear Creek Valley, nine miles in a southeast course, by good road, is the Free Silver, or Barron, mine, lying in the high foothills of the western slope of the Cascade Range. This mine is of peculiar interest from the fact that in rock formation and character of mineral deposits it has a marked resemblance to certain localities in Colorado. Mineralogically the Barron mine is most interesting. It carries 16 or more different elements. Free gold, and free silver, and ruby silver are abundant. The ores generally are base and embrace the tellurides, realgar, sphalerite, galena, iron pyrites, etc. It is a smelting proposition.
    Locally this section is called the "Cripple Creek" of Southern Oregon, because of the presence in quantity of the telluride ores, not found elsewhere in the county. This mine carries a large amount of silver, greater than any other in this region. Many contiguous locations of claims have been made, but as yet they are merely "prospects." The general formation is eruptive; the elevation about 2000 feet.
    In the Cascade Range near Ashland are many deposits of mineral paints, kaolin and clays convertible into finest China porcelain wares. Mineral springs, carrying medicinal waters, are numerous in the vicinity of Oregon's southernmost city.
    In this very greatly condensed review descriptions of many great mining properties from which information, general and technical, could be derived have necessarily been omitted. They have been barely referred to by name. Localities of great extent and promise have often been but vaguely mentioned.
    The mineral-bearing areas of Oregon are extensive, rugged and mountainous, and until the coming of the railway almost inaccessible to machinery. Nearly all the early placer miners departed with their gold. They were succeeded by wheat growers, horse, sheep and cattle raisers, lumbermen, fishermen, horticulturists and traders. The matchless forests, the wonderful valleys and the almost limitless prairies and plains, and the rivers, aswarm with royal chinook, gave place and employment to all these, and there ever was room for more. The few remaining miners, aided occasionally by newly arrived prospectors, have proven the existence of great ore bodies in each of the localities which have been mentioned, and that thousands of miles of payable placers still remain in gulches and creek beds. American genius, with new contrivances, wonderful machinery and modern metallurgy, is come to their aid, and the harvest of gold in the future ought to be great--greater than that of the best of the early years.
    The field is vast, but the laborers are few, widely dispersed and isolated. Fill this field, open these mines, and there will be a home market for Oregon fruits.
    A most striking characteristic of the miners in Oregon must impress deeply every man who goes into the camps of the various districts. With scarcely an exception the best house in town is the schoolhouse. Where two or three families are gathered together there is a schoolhouse in the midst of them. Is it habit, trait, loyalty or love for his kind, or all these? Truly, it is American. By the time the third family of five children arrives, a volunteer committee, with the proverbial "old miner" as its head, is arranging for the construction of that inevitable and indispensable schoolhouse. The committee may have homes in shacks, but that schoolhouse must be comfortable, and is often ornamental.
     Thanks are due by every reader of this to the miners and managers who have given freedom to properties and information and aid for its preparation. Their generous assistance, always cordial, has been invaluable, the regret being that a bare tithe of the truth can be told.
    The American miner is intelligent, earnest, brave and patriotic. His success is not promoted by the failures of others. He can well declare: "I am a true laborer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good."
Morning Oregonian, Portland, January 1, 1902, pages 35-36


    Placer mining in Southern Oregon several years ago passed the romantic stage, and has resolved itself to a conservative industry, and the many large hydraulic mines that are now robbing the old channels and auriferous hills in the Southern Oregon placer fields of their gold are conducted on business methods. The numerous auriferous deposits in the many streams, the mild winters, and the absence of restricting mining laws, make Southern Oregon an ideal mining region. Beds of ancient channels are found along the rivers and streams. It is in the gravel of these ancient channels that the hydraulic mines are located. The dirt, the gravel and the decomposed matter of these old channels are all auriferous in depth from 8 to 200 feet.
    It requires capital, skill and much labor to properly equip a Southern Oregon hydraulic mine. After the diggings have been successfully tested by thorough prospecting, the next important problem is the water supply. (See illustration, front page.) From the headwaters of the nearest stream the water is conveyed around steep mountainsides in ditches that require in places as much work to construct as would a railroad. Long flumes, trestled high, lead the water across deep canyons and gulches, and in many instances long tunnels are driven through mountains. After 10, 20 or 30 winding miles the water is brought to the reservoir on a hilltop several hundred feet above the diggings. The steel pipes lead down to the diggings from the reservoir and, forking, branch off in smaller pipes to the several giants.
    As the amount of mining done is dependent upon the water supply--other things being equal--that miner who has the best supply for the longest season is the most fortunate. This fact, and the recognition of it, has brought about many important improvements in the matter of hydraulic mining equipment in Southern Oregon in recent years. Placer miners are enlarging their ditches, building bigger and better reservoirs, and doing all possible to keep up a "pipe head" as late in the summer as possible. Formerly a large number--in fact, nearly all--of the placers were obliged to close down early in March or April. Now many of the larger ones operate their giants night and day till June and July, and a few during the day throughout the summer. One mining company, operating on Galice creek, is now at work building two storage reservoirs at the head of their ditch, that the giants may be supplied a steady and constant flow all summer.
    As the amount of placer ground which a majority of the mines possess is very large, the question of getting the greatest returns for the labor and capital invested resolves itself to the matter of keeping the giants turned on the gravel banks continually. Closely allied with this is the saving of the gold after the gravel is disintegrated, and sluices are so constructed that with a system of undercurrents not only the coarse gold is caught, but also the flour gold, only a very small percentage of the dust-like particles escaping. Hungarian riffles, block riffles, crossbar riffles, pole riffles and the ordinary bedrock riffles are employed in the sluices to catch the gold. The natural rock riffle in the bedrock race proves to be one of the best for catching gold, and it is here that nearly all of the nuggets and much of the finer gold are found. The sluice boxes are arranged at the end of the bedrock race. Specially prepared crossbar riffles, made of steel, fit in the bottom of the sluices, and are the most used by the hydraulic miners of this section. Farther on, down toward the dump, the last opportunity of catching the gold is utilized by block and pole riffles. The undercurrents are placed alongside the sluice boxes and so arranged that the water, black sand and finer particles are drawn off and spread out over a broad riffle table, where the sand and fine gold particles settle.
    For night work the larger mines have a score or more of arc lights suspended over the diggings. These are run by the mine's electric light plant. Others use locomotive headlights, stationed conveniently about the grounds.
    After the first expense of buying and equipping the mine, it costs at the most favorably situated mines from 1½ to 5 cents a yard to hydraulic in Southern Oregon. The gravel generally pays from 6 to 20 cents a yard. The average is between 8 and 12 cents. Giants pay from $75 to $100 a day each.
    All placer ground in this section is what the miner calls "spotted"--the values are not regularly distributed. All, however, are possessed of the same characteristics. On the bottom, next the bedrock, are the boulders, the nuggets and coarse gold. Above this is the finer gravel and dirt, lying in strata of blue and gray. Still above this is the capping of red clay, which carries values in flour gold.
    "Cleanup," as the miners term it, usually comes at the end of the season, when there is no longer sufficient water to supply the giants with a full pipe head. The bedrock race is first swept clean and every particle of the precious metal gathered up. The riffles are then lifted from the sluices, thoroughly rinsed and laid aside. With a small stream of water flowing through, the mass of gold and dirt on the sluice floor is swept gently to and fro with a brush broom. The dirt and refuse are carried away by water and flow off over the dump, revealing the black sand and the gold particles in the bottom. The gold is held as an amalgam by the quicksilver that is sprinkled frequently into the sluices during the process of mining. The coarser pieces are first gathered up and the remaining mass swept into piles, scooped up and put into strong bags or glass jars. This done, the gold is ready for the refinery and mint.
Mining and Scientific Press, San Francisco, August 15, 1903, pages 100-101


    The little county of Josephine alone, in Southern Oregon, contains nearly 100 hydraulic placer mines--placers they are that are busy from three to nine months in the year. Probably there is no other section of like area the world over that can claim such an acreage of placer ground. The story of the origin of this big placer field is an interesting one, notwithstanding the fact of its being geological in tone. A long time ago, before this part of old earth was torn upside down and made over again, there flowed northward from what is now Siskiyou County, Cal., a great river. This mighty stream was from ½ mile to 1 mile in width, and its ancient bed can be traced today from the Oregon-California line northward through the Waldo, Illinois, Galice, Grave and Cow Creek districts, disappearing entirely near Glendale, where the mountains of Cow Creek Canyon have buried it from view. The formation of new mountains, rivers and streams have uncovered portions of the ancient stream's bed; at others they have buried it deep beneath towering crags and mountain peaks. But it is the auriferous filling, the conglomerate mass of gravel, clay and decomposed matter of this ancient river that makes the diggings of the placer mines of Southern Oregon today. Streams and rivers cutting across this old channel have scattered the gold for miles and formed the smaller later channels along these waterways and gulches. A number of the largest of the Southern Oregon placer mines are located directly on this ancient channel, among them being the Old Channel and Galice Creek hydraulic mines of Galice Creek; the Deep Gravel, Simmons, Osgood and Wilson-Meredith of Waldo district, and the Columbia, Lewis and others of Grave Creek district. On the rocks and boulders of these diggings are found imprinted the forms of fishes and strange creatures that inhabited the waters of the ancient rivers in the long ago.
    How this old channel came to be filled from rim to rim, heaped up in many places with an auriferous filling, is something the writer cannot explain; as a matter of fact, the practical miner gives but little time to a study of it, but uses his "thinker" to the all-important matter of securing better and more economical methods of getting and saving the gold. The banks in this old channel lie from 10 to 230 feet deep on the bedrock. The greatest bank throughout its whole extent is that being worked by the Old Channel Mining Co. in the Galice district. This gravel bank has a height of 235 feet, and is being operated upon at the present time by a battery of two giants, working under a gravity pressure of 500 feet. To be safe, the piper is obliged to play his giant on this bank from a distance of 450 feet. The great streams gnaw at the foot of the towering pile, and the gravel falls off in slabs of 10,000 tons. The dirt of this old channel yields easily to the giants, and there is a comparative absence of big boulders.
    All of the ground in this old channel carries gold. First, there is the coarse gold found with the boulders and the lower stratum next the bedrock. Above this is the stratum known as "pipe clay" by the placer miners; and still above this is the capping of red clay, carrying its values in fine or flour gold, a large percent of which is saved by a system of undercurrents. This is a steel screen arrangement in the bottom of sluices through which the black sand and finer particles are drawn off and spread out over a broad riffle table. This enables the miner to catch both the flour gold and the platinum, which in late years has been found to be a very valuable part of the black sand of these diggings, but which in years past was thrown away as valueless.
    In recent years there has been a general combination of minor or smaller placer holdings in Southern Oregon into large properties under control of one management. It is found better for all concerned to combine the water rights and facilities, as one claim of twenty acres does not in many instances make sufficient territory to warrant the expenditure of a great sum in the construction of large ditches and of a length necessary to tap the main watercourse far enough up to give an elevation of 100 feet above the ground to be worked; and a pressure of less than 175 feet is not of high efficiency in working placer ground by hydraulicking. There are streams in Southern Oregon on which placer bars and channels are located that have sufficient fall to allow a pressure of 275 feet with 1 mile of ditch by running the ditch with a grade of 1 inch to the rod; but these favorable conditions seldom prevail, and to get such a fall a ditch from 5 to 20 miles in length is necessary. There are a number of ditches in Southern Oregon of from 20 to 35 miles in length, constructed at great cost around the steep and rocky mountainsides, flumed across gulches and tunneled through solid rock. It is this feature of placer mining in Southern Oregon that the miner must first consider, for it is the big feature of the business. Where will I get my water supply; how many miles of ditch will it require to bring it to my ground; how much will it cost, and how much pressure will I have when I get it there? Ditches here have cost all the way from $2000 to $60,000; but, once built, they are there to stay, as slides and breaks do not figure so materially in the running expense of a ditch in this country.
    Another feature that figures prominently in the business of placer mining in Southern Oregon, as in all other placer regions, is that of dumping grounds for the tailings. Fortunately, there are no laws in Oregon that prevent the miner from dumping his tailings into Rogue River or any of its tributaries, and it is on these that all of the placer mines are located. It only remains for him to have plenty of fall
from the end of his sluices to the river, stream or gulch below. The greater part of this old channel in question lies far up on the mountaintops, or at sufficient elevation to allow the miner ample dump for mountains of tailings and refuse. At the Old Channel mines there is a sheer fall of nearly 500 feet from the end of the sluice to the bottom of the canyon below. Yet there is much rich ground lying along gulches and streams that has not sufficient slope to carry away the tailings. For a long time this ground lay untouched. Then the "grizzly" and the "hydraulic elevator" were introduced and the way was easy. By these machines the tailings, boulders and refuse are lifted to a height of 35 and 40 feet, thus giving dump enough to last for a number of years without the elevator being moved.
    Taken all in all, placer mining in Southern Oregon is a very conservative business--much more so, in fact, than quartz mining generally in this or any other country, for the reason that the placer miner has all of the elements of his business in sight, and he can compute beforehand just what it will cost to equip his property, how much it will require to operate it and how much he will realize, as the ground to be worked can be thoroughly tested and prospected before a shovel of dirt is moved for mining purposes. Mines here clean up from $2000 to $100,000 annually, depending upon the richness and amount of ground worked. It costs from 2 to 5 cents per yard to work the ground--ground that produces from 8 to 20 cents per yard, leaving a good margin of profit. Gravel that averages 20 cents per yard will pay the miner his money back in two years with interest; if the ground pays 30 cents, it is considered a bonanza. The average ground of the Southern Oregon old channels runs from 6 to 8 cents a yard. Ground of this worth, where there is a water supply of 2000 inches for eight months in the year and good dumping grounds, forms the elements for the making of a paying placer mine--and it can be truthfully stated that there is much of this ground in the old channel placer fields of the Southern Oregon districts.
Mining and Scientific Press, San Francisco, October 3, 1903, page 216  See illustrations accompanying this article.


    In the Golden West the romantic days of placer mining are over. The grizzled-faced, sunburned, weather-scarred prospector no longer goes down to his stream with a gun on his shoulder and a pistol in his belt, as in the days when the red man, hiding behind the rocks on the hillside, amused himself by picking off the miners as they worked by the stream below.
    He was the hardy pioneer who panned the first dirt in the gulch where the modern mining plant now stands. Long before the big hydraulic entered with its giant hose and powerful stream, this rough-clad man, leading a jaded pack pony, halted in the gulch, struck camp and prepared to reap a harvest of gold from the creek bed.
    The harvest was necessarily as scant as his implements were rude. He shaped a rude rocker out of rough boards, and with this cradled the coarse gold and nuggets from the stream. Into his black iron pan he scooped a portion of the dirt and water; then the pan was tilted to and fro, spilling the water a little at a time over the edge, until naught remained in the bottom but a heavy residue. How hopefully the eyes peered from the grizzled face into the pan to scrutinize that residue! If the prospector smiled it would be an easy matter to guess that he had struck rich "colors," and perhaps a nugget.
    Among all the colors with which the prospector has to deal there is but one genuine, and the wise gold seeker is not to be deceived. Those little specks of yellow in the bottom of the pan are genuine if, as they slide back and forth, the faithful black sand is seen to follow closely in their wake, for black sand is always the companion of placer gold. If the prospector found "colors" in plenty, he would continue scooping up the auriferous gravel and panning out the precious grains.
    Nothing but the sleet and snows of winter could drive the pioneer miner from his work in the gulch. Day after day he worked, knee deep in water, beneath a hot sun, his back continually bent, laboring patiently, persistently, hopefully, over his rocker and pan.
    The next step in advance of the rocker and pan was the ground sluice. If pay dirt in sufficient quantity was found, the prospector dug a long ditch, or erected wooden conduits to conduct the water from the stream through his placer grounds. Into this ditch or wooden trough he shoveled the auriferous dirt and gravel, sprinkling a fine rain of quicksilver into the running water. Across the bottom of the sluices were arranged a series of rifles. The gold and black sand settled to the bottom and were caught and held by the mercury, while the waste dirt and gravel were carried on and off by the running water.
    The black sand, the companion of placer gold, is an iron sulfite. The earlier miners separated it from the gold by the aid of a magnet, but the discovery of gold as an amalgam soon caused the slow magnet process to be discarded.
    While ground sluicing is an ancient form of mining, it is yet carried on extensively along the streams of Southern Oregon and California by men whose farms are intersected by streams. It is not an uncommon experience for a rancher and his sons to clean up from $1,000 to $3,000 in a single winter by ground sluicing.
    The pocket hunter is a placer miner of a distinct class. In the Golden West he always was, always is, and probably always will be. The pocket hunter must not be confused with the prospector, for that would be an insult to the former and a breach of respect to the latter.
    The prospector is content with a "color" in any form that it may show itself--phosphate, sulfate, ledge, vein or placer; but the pocket hunter wants only free gold, and wants it bunched close in "pockets." He ignores ledges or quartz veins, for which he has neither time nor inclination. To locate and develop a ledge and then await a prospective purchaser is a pursuit full of embarrassments, and the pocket hunter is desirous of following a path as clear of thorns as is possible.
    The successful pocket hunter of California and Southern Oregon today is a man with a peculiar trade, with whose tricks he is thoroughly familiar. He is a man with an education acquired by experience, and has a comfortable home, with his family amply provided for.
    Every month or so he hies to the mountains in search of gold, into the great expanse of timbered, undeeded land, where he has ample opportunity for seeking the precious yellow metal unmolested. Along some stream in a deep gulch--which he had in mind before starting out--he halts his pack pony and strikes camp. Taking his black iron pan, he goes to the stream and scoops up the dirt and water, pans about until he strikes good "colors," then continues panning until he finds a line on which the "colors" show up better as the line is followed. This line is a "lead" to a pocket, and the hunter follows it up till he finds the treasure source.
    Sometimes rich pockets are found by chance, but more often their discovery is due to the patient, untiring, systematic work of the pocket hunter.
    The business era of this great western industry was heralded by the introduction of the hydraulic giant--that mighty, modern monster that has entered gulches and driven away the prospector and his crude paraphernalia.
    There is no form of mining so interesting or picturesque as hydraulicking. Beneath it the hills melt away like snowbanks under a summer's sun. Boulders weighing tons leap from the beds in which they have reposed for ages and go rushing down the gulch, following the lead flume. The everlasting mountains are torn asunder and robbed of their precious gold; earth, rocks and gold rush down the mountain at the magic touch of the giant's stream.
    The cost of tearing up and mining a mountain with a hydraulic giant is but five cents per cubic yard; while the average placer ground yields from 25 to 95 cents per cubic yard.
    The annual cleanup usually comes late in the spring when the rains are over and the snows have disappeared from the mountaintops. When the loose, auriferous dirt, boulders and gravel have been torn from grass roots to bedrock, the whole mass is carried by the waste water through the lead flumes to the sluices. Here the gold and black sand settle to the bottom and are held by the mercury, while the waste dirt and gravel flow off over the dump at the end of the flumes.
    At this cleanup all the water is turned off except just enough in the sluices to aid in the work of gathering the gold. The bottoms of the sluiceboxes are then lifted from their places and rinsed, the yellow particles revealed as they glisten in the sun, and the big nuggets picked out of the mass of sand and gold like potatoes from a hill. This done, the cleats are set back in the bottom of the sluices and a small stream of water run over it. The boss miner, with a brush broom, sweeps the mass of sand to and fro until all particles are dissolved and flow off with the water, leaving only the gold and black sand. This is scooped up and placed in strong leather bags, ready for the refinery and mint.
    When the last cleat has been cleaned and the bedrock swept dry, the harvest of gold is complete. If the placer miner has been wise in the selection of his working grounds and in the general operation of his mine, he will have from $25,000 to $60,000 in gold bullion to his credit, a harvest which may be repeated yearly for half a century.
Mining Magazine, September 1904, page 195