GEN'L PASSENGER OFFICE OF THE KANSAS PACIFIC RAILWAY, }

A. J. White, Esq., Kansas City :

KANSAS CITY, May 5th, 1876.

DEAR SIR-We are desirous of publishing a pamphlet showing the general features and mineral resources of San Juan, in Southwestern Colorado, and would like to have your assistance in the preparation of the same.

Beverley R. Keim, Esq., Gen'l Passenger Agent K. P. Ry., Kansas City, Mo.

DEAR SIR-I am in receipt of your communication of the 5th inst., and am glad to know the Kansas Pacific Railway Company contemplates writing up the San Juan country; and believing all such publications help the country, in which I take the deepest interest, I hand you herewith such memoranda as I have, and which you are at liberty to use in your Very Truly,

own way.

A. J. WHITE.

THE MINING INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES,

AND THEIR RELATION TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY.

The wonderful placer deposits of gold in California which gave a product of $65,000,000 per annum in 1853 filled the world with amazement, and the pockets of many adventurers with fortune.

These deposits, extending 150 miles along the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, were of a richness that justified the thorough exploration that followed their discovery.

The gain to the country of this immense treasure had much to do with the prosperous times which followed all over the country, and has fixed upon the public mind a mania for new gold discoveries, and thousands go in earnest quest of the golden treasure every year.

But while the gold yield has been on the decrease, silver mining is gaining a sure and substantial footing, and we now have a silver yield about equal to the gold product in the best days of California.

While perhaps the period has not arrived in the history of the American people that mining is a passion with us as it was with Spain three or four centuries ago, nor has it received that attention given it by the English or German people, yet the present indications would seem to justify the hope that the development of our immense deposits of the precious metals wil speedily become one of the chief industries of the United States and afford a permanent and remunerative employment for capital and labor, second only to agriculture in its importance.

For twenty-three years the gold product has been on the decline. There are none of those extensive sandbars that yielded so richly as in California, Any new field of labor which would and the limited deposits found of late not lessen the profits of agriculture years do not seem to justify exten- and manufacture is a clear gain to the sive efforts in gold placer mining. country, while at this time when nearAbout $18,000,000 gold was the pro-ly every branch of business is strugduct in the United States for the year 1875, and that came mostly from the treatment of quartz gold which in the prosperous days of 1850-53 was but little, if at all practiced.

gling to sustain its position and a large portion of our population is idle, the opportunity for the profitable employment of capital and labor is particularly desirable.

We are all going to San Juan over the Kansas Pacific Railway. The Shortest and Quickest Route.