LETTER

FROM THE

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY,

ENCLOSING

Report of James W. Taylor, special commissioner for the collection of statistics upon gold and silver mining east of the Rocky mountains.

FEBRUARY 15, 1867.-Referred to the Committee on Mines and Mining and ordered to be

printed.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

Washington, February 13, 1867.

SIR: I have the honor to transmit a preliminary report upon gold and silver mines and mining in the States and Territories east of the Rocky mountains, by Mr. James W. Taylor, who has been appointed a special commissioner for the collection of statistical information on that subject by this department.

Congress having made provision by the civil appropriation act of July 28, 1866, for the collection, by the Secretary of the Treasury, of "reliable statistical information concerning the gold and silver mines of the western States and Territories," I referred the inquiry in relation to districts west of the Rocky mountains to Mr. J. Ross Browne, whose report was transmitted to the House of Representatives on the 8th of January. There remained for consideration extensive districts of New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Dakota, and Minnesota, which may be properly designated as "western" States and Territories; and the mineral statistics of those regions, especially in regard to the production of gold and silver, were referred to Mr. Taylor.

The report herewith forwarded also contains some information upon the situation and prospects of gold mining along the eastern slope of the Alleghany range, with some general statements of the production of the precious metals in Canada, Nova Scotia, and other parts of British America-a compilation made by the direction of this department with a view to exhibit all the gold-bearing districts within the territory of the United States or closely related to our northern frontier. The kindred topics of the present and future production of gold and silver in other quarters of the world, and the effect of our own treasure supply upon the internal commerce and communications of the west, are briefly noticed in the report herewith enclosed.

I repeat the hope expressed on a former occasion, that the reports above referred to may prove valuable contributions to the public information in reference. to the great mineral resources of the United States.

I am, very truly, your obedient servant,

Hon. SCHUYLER COLFAX,

H. McCULLOCH, Secretary of the Treasury.

Speaker of the House of Representatives

SAINT PAUL, 1

SIR: In pursuance of your letter of instructions of Se present some general information in regard to the production in the Territories of New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana, nesota northwest of Lake Superior, of which the lake and dicate the locality, and upon the eastern slope of the Alle States of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virgi with some notice of recent discoveries of gold in New Ham and Canada.

In a second instalment of this communication a general duction of gold and silver in other quarters of the world is purpose of indicating relatively the commercial and social treasure product of the United States.

A third division presents a summary of the domestic com souri river westward to the interior or mining districts of having reference prominently to the situation and prospects nication with the Rocky mountains and the Pacific coast.

The brief period and the limited means of information wh able since the date of your commission will confine the pres to the form of a preliminary report, postponing a fuller consid enumerated to a subsequent occasion.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

This designation no longer includes the whole breadth of t the United States. It refers only to the formation known Sierra Madre, or Mother mountain, from which the Sierra N or the western wall of the mountain mass, diverges in north the intervening plateau of table lands is now recognized as acteristic division of the continent. The Rocky mountains, the Sierra Madre, traverses the territory of the United Stat west direction, from the 29th to the 49th parallel of latit elevation of its crest is 12.000 feet above the sea, lifting, for miles, above the altitude of its eastern and western piedmont tude of Denver and Great Salt Lake, is fully 6,000 feet. T and gorges, which supply the sources of the Missouri, Y Arkansas, and Rio Grande rivers, are the prominent feature of Montana, Colorado, and New Mexico, and will be the fi eration in relation to gold and silver mining east of the Roc

NEW MEXICO.

If we compare a map of this Territory with any similar last century, even as early as a chart in Moll's atlas of 17 Santa Fé is represented as even more populous than at prese thoroughly explored the valley of the Rio Grande, and their were very numerous in the mountains of New Mexico. T that the Indians, whose labor had made the mines of gold, available to their Spanish conquerors, were at length drive which was so far successful as completely to interrupt all This was about 1680, and at no subsequent period have the o and industry been favorable to the resumption of mining en time Indian hostilities prevent permanent labor, and almost remote districts of New Mexico.

Twenty years ago, when Colonel Doniphan led a column to Santa Fé and Chihuahua, Dr. A. Wizlizenus, who accom tion as surgeon and for the sake of scientific investigation,

was found to a large extent in all the mountains near Sante Fé, south to a distance of about one hundred miles, or as far as Gran Quivire, and north for about one hundred and twenty miles, to the river Sangre de Cristo. Throughout this whole region gold-dust was then abundantly found by the poorer classes of Mexicans, who occupied themselves with the washing of this metal in the mountain streams, while at the Placer mountain, about thirty miles from Santa Fé, gold-bearing quartz was worked. These statements in regard to gold are confirmed by the second annual message of acting Governor Arny, delivered in December, 1866, to the legislature of New Mexico, who also reports the discovery of thirty lodes of gold-bearing quartz at Pinos Altos, paying from $40 to $200 per ton; of quartz veins at San José, in the Sierra Madre, intersecting each other in all directions for a mile in width and three miles in length; of a similar formation near Fort Davis, Texas; and of extensive placer mines on the San Francisco and Mimbres rivers.

Governor Arny gives prominence to these gold discoveries, but adds that silver is the prominent and most abundant mineral of the Territory. Lodes of silver, with its many combinations, are very numerous. He thinks it will be the most profitable branch of mining in that Rocky mountain region, and enumerates as prominently argentiferous the districts of the Placer mountains near Santa Fé, the Organ mountains near the Mesilla valley, and the Sierra Madre near Pinos. The first and last of these localities are, as we have seen, gold-producing also. In the Organ mountains over fifty silver mines have been discovered, the ore being generally argentiferous galena. The district near Mesilla valley in the Organ mountains has a mean altitude of 4,400 feet, and is intersected with ravines, affording favorable opportunities for horizontal drifts in opening the veins. There is a belt or series of veins containing six principal veins and many smaller ones, the six larger veins varying from two to fifteen feet in width. On the largest of these veins is the celebrated "Stephenson" mine. This belt of veins crosses the Organ mountains at or near the San Augustine pass, and both sides of the chain of mountains present similar features and equal richness. The country bordering on the north portion of Chihuahua is a rich silver district. Immediately adjoining the new Mexican boundary are the mines of "Corralitos," the most successful silver mines in the State of Chihuahua, having been mined for forty years in a region most exposed to Indian hostility. Near the old town of El Paso, tradition places the locality of one of the richest silver mines known to the Spaniards, but its site was lost during the insurrection of 1680.

Dr. Wizlizenus, writing in 1847, thus proceeds with his enumeration of the mineral resources of New Mexico: "In Spanish times, several, rich silver mines were worked at Avo, at Cerillos, and in the Nambe mountains, but none at present. Copper is found in abundance throughout the country, but principally at Los Tijeras, Jemas, Abiquin, Guadelupita de Mora, &c.; iron, though also abundantly found, is entirely overlooked. Coal has been discovered in different localities, as in the Raton mountains, near the village of Jemez, southwest of Santa Fé, and near, but south of, Placer mountain. Gypsum, both common and selenite, is found in large quantities, extensive layers of it existing in the mountains near Algodones, on the Rio Grande, and in the neighborhood of the celebrated Salinas. It is used as common lime for whitewashing, and the crystalline, or selenite, instead of window-glass. About one hundred miles southsoutheast of Santa Fé, on the high table-land between the Rio Grande and Pecos, are some extensive salt lakes, or salinas, from which all the salt (muriate of soda) used in New Mexico is procured."

Governor Arny, in his late message, observes of the production of copper, that, before the late civil war, two copper mines were extensively worked-the Santa Rita and the Hanover-turning out about twelve tons of copper per week, and employing jointly about five hundred hands. Other copper mines had been

The celebrated mine of Santa Eulalia, near the city of Ch in seventy-two years, from 1717 to 1789, $52,800,000. The found in Santa Eulalia makes the smelting of the ore very c mines are not exhausted; but from intrusion of water, want attraction of new mines, they are but little worked. Doctor W five other districts where silver ores have been found far su and extent to the mines of Central Mexico, but in which litt plished on account of the invasions of hostile Indians; and h copper mines as holding a similar relation to the lodes of s New Mexico. The annual production of silver and gold in at about $1,031,251.

The summits and valleys of Colorado are the sources of th Arkansas, which are affluents of the Mississippi, and of the tributary to the Gulf of Mexico, and of the Colorado, which gulf of that name. No similar area of the Rocky mountain in scenery or physical relations than Colorado. Its mineral

The traveller by the route of the Union Pacific railway, Rocky mountains, will first traverse a formation of coal and hundred and fifty miles, from the Arkansas to the Cache le coal, or a superior quality of lignite, has been discovered, at panied by iron ore. Next in situation westward-quite withi much below their snow-covered summits-is a mineral rang miles wide, and extending from Long's Peak two hundred Colorado, within which most of the discoveries of gold, esp quartz, have occurred. Crossing the snowy range, on the tensive silver mines have been discovered. Governor Ev November, 1866, remarked at a public meeting in Chicag turned from visiting a district about one hundred miles by tent, lying across the main mountain range west of De pervaded throughout by extensive and rich veins of silver silver ores, but the majority of them are argentiferous ga richness, many of them yielding in the smelting furnace as