oarding. The average
wages is sixty dollars. About ten miles eastward of Sonora, in Tuolumne
county, are some rich veins of auriferous quartz, the most prominent of
which are the Soulsby and Blakeslee lodes. The Soulsby mill produced
forty thousand dollars in three weeks, when it commenced work in 1858,
but it has not been so profitable of late.

_Silver Mining._--Silver mining has not yet been established fairly as
a business in California. The silver ores of Washoe were discovered in
1859, and mining has been fairly commenced there, but the mines of
Esmeralda and Coso, within the limits of this state, were not found
until the summer of 1860, and up to the present time no mills have been
established there.

Silver mining differs much from gold mining. Gold is always found as a
metal, never as an ore, and the separation from the accompanying
vein-stone with which it is mixed mechanically, is much more simple and
easy than the reduction of the argentiferous ores in which the silver
is chemically combined with base substances, for which it has a strong
affinity. Chemical knowledge and chemical processes are more necessary
in mining for silver than for gold; and while all auriferous quartz is
of the same kind, and may be treated in the same manner, there are many
different kinds of silver ores, each of which requires a peculiar
treatment. The reduction of silver ore costs on an average, from three
to five times as much as the reduction of auriferous quartz.

The silver ore of Esmeralda and Coso is a sulphuret of silver, nearly
all the veins having the same material, though the amount of it
scattered through the vein-stone differs greatly in different lodes. In
some veins there is much free gold, that is, little specks of metallic
gold which can be separated from the other material in the same manner
that gold is separated from auriferous quartz. The methods of reducing
silver ore are so numerous and complex, and vary so much in different
districts and under different circumstances, that it is impossible to
know now what process will be used in Esmeralda and Coso, the resources
of which places have been so little studied. Besides it is said that
new processes for reducing silver ore have been invented, far superior
to all the old methods; and these processes are kept secret. It is
therefore unnecessary that I should go into a long description of the
various processes practised elsewhere. Silver ore after pulverization
is