esire it, at a merely nominal cost. It is a more equitable and practicable re than the people of the mineral districts had supposed Congress would and credit for its liberal and acceptable provisions is largely due to the ice of the representatives from the Pacific coast, including our own intellielegate. While it is not without defects, as a basis of legislation it is promising, and must lead to stability and method, and so inspire in1 confidence and zeal in quartz mining.

in the absence of necessary legislation by Congress, the aet gives auy to the legislature of any State or Territory to provide rules for the locaid working of mines to their complete development, it will be your duty pare such rules, either by amending the present mining law of the Terrias to conform to the law of Congress, or by its repeal, and thre substituan entirely new statute. Whatever your preference in this particular, I suggest that care be taken to make the required rules as intelligible and hensive as possible, and that the recording and preservation of titles, or the security of the miner and the capitalist, and to obviate future litiga e intrusted only to the most responsible officers. It is also important that, ing in districts where active hostility on the part of the Indians absolutely its, the actual occupation and improvement of claims be made a requisite r possession, unless pre-empted under the congressional law. The lack h a requirement hitherto has seriously retarded the development of our 1 resources and the general prosperity of the Territory, and proven dising to new comers, especially in the counties on the Colorado river, where ds of lodes, taken up in years past by parties now absent from the Terare unworked, and yet, under the existing law, no one has a right to lay to them, be he ever so able or anxious to open them.

iculture. The valleys of the Territory, more extensively cultivated this han ever before, have produced an abundant harvest. The yield of corn, bles and small grain is such as to prove that henceforth we need not look for food; and I make no doubt that if assured that their crops will be and promptly paid for, and they are properly protected from Indian ins, our ranchmen will, during the ensuing year, by the favor of Heaven, l the breadstuffs that may be required to subsist the military force in the ry. Here in central Arizona, even in the mountain districts, where comely little was expected in the way of agricultural success, the pursuit of sbandman is likely to be one of the most profitable. The heavy rains of sent season indicate that irrigation will seldom be necessary, and the ferf the soil is remarkable. It seems as though everything planted attained st luxuriant and complete growth in the shortest possible time. The vegetables, and melons taken promiscuously from any of the ranches, sed without fertilization of any kind, or other than the simplest care, command a premium if placed in competition with the products of the and most expensive farms and gardens of the Atlantic States. A district.-By the seventh section of the act of Congress approved July 4, the pre-emption privilege was extended to lands, whether settled upon or after survey, within the region of country comprehended by the present ries of New Mexico and Arizona. Hitherto pre-emption declarations, in of this act and that of July 2, 1864, have been filed with the surveyor but Congress having made Arizona a land district, they will, so soon as rict is organized, be received here.

congressional mining law provides that wherever, prior to the passage ct, upon the lands heretofore designated as mineral lands, which have cluded from survey and sale, there have been homesteads made by citithe United States, or persons who have declared their intention to betizens, which homesteads have been made, improved, and used for agripurposes, and upon which there have been no valuable mines of gold,

1.-THE COPPER RESOURCES OF THE PACIFIC

Introductory remarks.-The comparatively recent date w of these resources first attracted any attention; the extent of t they have been traced; the absence of any correctly com nected with them in either the State or federal offices; the in ential parties to give any information, under the plea that secrets of their business, and the efforts of others to make are interested appear of greater or less value than well-know rant; the vague and unreliable nature of most of the articles time appear in the local papers on the subject, as well as m ments, render it exceedingly difficult to convey a clear idea of actual value of these resources in a hastily compiled repo fullest details of information available, many interesting fact be crowded out of such a report. Sufficient may be presente demonstrate the extent and value of the copper mines of th to prove that under a more judicious system of development much more profitable to their owners as well as to the feder that an important means towards the accomplishment of this by the collection and proper arrangement of statistical and on the subject.

The discovery of copper on the Pacific coast.-The existe Pacific coast was well known for many years before Califo in the great American republic. The ores of this metal are found in Mexico, at various points, in great abundance for the territory within the limits of this State they were founda near the Solidad pass, about ninety miles north of Los Angel

The first officially recorded discovery of copper in Califor come a State, was made by Dr. J. B. Trask, who acted as 1851 till 1854. During that time, in the course of his trav in nearly every county in the State-the first discovery place then called Round Tent, in Nevada county.

As but little attention was paid to the report of these disco and specimens of the ores collected by Doctor Trask were destroyed, they exercised but little influence.

In the summer of 1855 public attention was again called to the fact of the existence of copper in this State, by the discovery of a body of beautiful ore at Hope valley, Amador county, by an old prospector known as Uncle Billy Rodgers. The ore from this place, being rich in garnets, attracted great attention. About the same time a party of prospectors in Eldorado county found a large body of green and blue carbonates on a side of a hill a few miles from Placerville, and, attracted by the brilliant colors of these minerals, collected several sacks full of them and sent them to San Francisco, where, by assay, they were found to contain 40 per cent. of copper, and worth about $140 per ton.

These discoveries were mentioned in nearly all the papers published in the State at the time, but were soon forgotten in the more exciting search for gold which occupied almost everybody's attention, and the now great copper resources of the Pacific coast remained without an effort being made for their development till November, 1860, when Mr. Hiram Hughes, returning from a trip to Washoe, whither he had gone to search for silver, while prospecting for that metal among the foot-hills that margin the valley of San Joaquin, without being aware of the fact discovered the gossan or cap of a copper lode, on what is now known as Quail Hill No. 1-an insignificant mound among the Gopher hills, in the southwestern portion of Calaveras county, about 35 miles southeast from Stockton, and six miles from Central ferry, on the Stanislaus river. This gossan, which presented much the appearance of a body of iron-rust held together by a frame-work of quartz, was found to be very rich in gold, and it was for this metal that Hughes worked his claim. Soon after, while making further explorations for "ironrust," he discovered the croppings of what is now known as the Napoleon mine, about three miles southwest of his first discovery. As there was less gold, and considerable of what was then, to him, an unknown mineral, in this place, he sent a lot of the ore to San Francisco, where it was pronounced 30 per cent. copper ore, and worth about $120 per ton. As soon as this fact became known there was a great excitement, and everybody began prospecting for "iron-rust," and as the indications of copper were to be found almost at every point among the Gopher hills, hundreds of claims were speedily marked out and recorded— the favorite direction being along the course of the lode on which the Napoleon was located, as this was easily traced for miles; the most important "extensions" on the original lode being the Josephine on the west, the Lotus, Magnolia, and Collier on the east. But as none of these mines except the Napoleon ever produced much marketable ore, work on all of them very soon ceased. Hughes and his partners, after partially developing the Napoleon mine, which contained 2,700 feet on the lode, in 1862 sold eleven-eighteenths of it to a company for $22,000. This company, in October, 1862, was incorporated under the title of the Napoleon Copper Mining Company, which, after taking out of the mine and shipping about 4,000 tons of good ore, sold the mine, in 1864, to Martin & Greenman, dealers in ores, of San Francisco, who at present own and work it.

Notwithstanding the great amount of prospecting that followed Hughes's discoveries, it was not till some time in June, 1861, that the lode on which the mines at Copperopolis are located was discovered, though it is only about six miles from the Napoleon, and the locators of the Union, Keystone, and other mines were all old residents and miners in the vicinity. W. R. Reed, Dr. Blatchly, and Mr. McCarty located 11,250 feet of the Copperopolis lode in July, 1861. This location embraced the ground now owned by the Union, Keystone, Empire, Calaveras, and Consolidated companies. Many interesting and instructive facts might be here introduced to exhibit the ignorance of the parties who first discovered these important mines as to the value of their property. The following will be sufficient to illustrate this curious fact:

J. W. Bean, esq., who built the first hotel at Copperopolis, had been mining for years among the Gopher hills and in the vicinity of Salt Spring valley;

and though such was the abundance and beauty of the spec all around him that he collected nearly a cart-load of th decorate his rude cabin, he afterwards threw them away he had collected so many of these specimens that his part any more of them brought into the cabin.

Mr. Hughes, whose blindly-directed enterprise led to value of the copper resources of the Pacific coast, had a years among the Gopher hills; and although his observan attracted to the peculiarities of the rocks that form these of the stores of wealth that lay scattered so lavishly all a made a trip to Washoe during the excitement which follo silver there. When in that Territory, being forcibly struc semblance between the rocks near the Comstock lode and well acquainted with about the Gopher hills and Salt Sp being successful over there, he returned to the old famil and commenced prospecting for silver, and did not know fo his return that he had acquired a fortune by discovering with Mr. McCarty, one of the present owners of the grea had lived in Salt Spring valley nearly ten years, mining an As early as 1852 he had sunk a deep prospect-hole on the ing to the Keystone company, and threw away the rich co less, while seeking for gold, which he never found. So other of the original locators of the Union. This gentle gent man of business, who was for a long time the superint and afterwards became a senator for Calaveras county, resi two miles of where Copperopolis now stands without hav immense wealth that lay stored up for him in the hard, ster creek that meandered past his homestead.

The limits of this report will not admit of any further dig interesting history.

As soon as the magnitude and importance of the disc Reed and his party became known, the rush of prospecto came tremendous, and in a few days claims were staked off twenty miles in all directions along the lode, or rather lodes than one of them,) across and parallel to them. Large sun many instances expended in the purchase and developm were located miles away from all indications of lode whate

One of the effects of this great excitement was the c thriving town of Copperopolis, the first house in which wa in September, 1861. In less than two years after it contai nearly 2,000, which supported three schools, two churches per, four hotels, with stores and workshops of all kinds suf thrifty community. It now has three lines of stages run daily, and has a costly railroad in course of active constr with the navigable waters of the San Joaquin river, whic will more than double its wealth and population.

To give the names of all the claims that were located Spring valley during the first great excitement would serv as most of them, after the expenditure of more or less lab abandoned altogether or are held till labor and transport cheaper or copper ores become more valuable. The mo in the valley at present-the only ones that are being Calaveras, Empire, Union, Keystone, Consolidated, and Ker from south to north in the order in which they are here w imitable, which is located on the east side of and parallel wi developments in this and other mines located parallel with

leave little room to doubt that there are at least two-some persons say fourdistinct lodes, or very large consecutive bodies of ore, identical in composition, independent of the main lode. The question of whether there is one or more lodes promises to be as fruitful a point for the lawyers to settle as a similar question was among the owners on the Comstock lode, in Nevada.

The thousands of persons from all parts of the State who were attracted to the Salt Spring Valley mines by the reports of their value, thus becoming acquainted with the general appearance of copper ores, on returning to their several districts soon discovered these ores almost everywhere, so that before the close of the year 1861 a well-defined belt of copper ore, containing several distinct lodes, was traced and partially developed from a point about thirty miles north of Los Angeles, at La Solidad, through Mariposa, Merced, Fresno, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Yuba, Trinity, Sierra, Plumas, and Shasta counties, to a point about twenty miles west of the town of Yreka, in Siskiyou county, where it enters the State of Oregon in a northern spur of the Siskiyou mountains, the most western branch of the Sierra Nevadas. As will be more fully explained in another portion of this report, there is a most remarkable uniformity in the direction and dip of the lodes in this great copper belt, as well as in the geological formations in which they are found, in the character of their ores, and in several other features, all which point to a simultaneousness of origin over very large tracts, many portions of which have been much disturbed and shifted by subsequent subterranean action.

Other extensive deposits of copper ores have been discovered in the coast range, particularly around the base of a spur of Mount Diablo, at the low divide in Del Norte county; in Hope valley, Amador county; at Whiskey Hill, in Placer county, and at several other points which it is not necessary to particularize at this time.

The results of all these discoveries were the location of thousands of claims, some of them of considerable importance, in nearly every county of the State, and the incorporation of a countless number of copper mining companies, whose certificates of stock were bought and sold at the public boards and by private merchants by thousands; and for about a year the development of the copper resources of the Pacific coast was prosecuted with great zeal. But a few months' experience taught those most deeply interested in the business that, with unskilled and expensive labor, uncertain and costly transportation, and a great distance from a market for the final disposal of the ore, it is unprofitable to work the richest and most extensive copper mines in the world.

The excitement attending the discovery of so much copper in California, as may well be supposed, soon spread through the adjoining States and Territories, and it was not long before many important lodes were discovered in Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Sonora, and Lower California. As it will be quite impossible to even mention all these discoveries in detail, only a few of the most important will be referred to at this time.

In 1860 a miner named Hawes, who had long been working in that vicinity, having his attention attracted to the quantity of metallic copper found in the sluices of the miners who were engaged at Placer mining for gold, commenced a search, and soon discovered a valuable lode of copper ore in a small gulch about six miles from Waldo, Josephine county. On this lode was subsequently located the Queen of Bronze mine, the most important copper mine in Oregon. Soon after the discovery made by Hawes, other parties found an extensive copper district on the Illinois river, near the junction of that river and Fall creek, about eighteen miles north-northwest from Waldo. Another district was about the same time discovered at Rockland, in Josephine county, in which more than twenty mines of importance were subsequently located.

Copper has also been found in Wasco county; on the John Day river, and at several other points in the State of Oregon. The districts in Josephine