Page 49 - califmining1924

STATISTICS OF ANNUAL PRODUCTION. 47
per cent from silver ores. Of the total gold approximately- 64 per cent was saved
by amalgamation, 15 per cent by cyanidation, 15 per cent by smelting, and 6 per
cent by hand-mortaring and melting."
Total Gold Production of California.
The presenee of gold in stream gravels near Los Angeles was known
and worked in a small way ])y tli(» Indians, at least as early as 1841,^
and possibly 1820.- On ^lareh 2. 1844. Don ]Manuel C'astanares, deputy
for California to the Congre.ss of ]\lexieo, reported' to his govern-
ment that placers near Los Angeles had produced np to December, 1848,
a total of 200U ounces of gold dust, most of whieh had been sent to the
I'nited States mint at Philadelphia.
As the padres and the rancheros discouraged the <piest of gohl this
early, small jn-oduction caused no particular excitement. It was not
until James W. ^larshall's finding of gold nuggets in the tail-race of
Sutter's saw i^iill on the American River, January 24, 1848, was
heralded abroad that the great rush began, and California became
a commonwealth of first rank almost over night. There are, however,
no authentic data on gold production prior to 1848, other than occa-
sional, scattered references such as above quoted.
The following tal)le was originally cnmj^iled l)y Chas. (J. Yale, of the
Division of .Mineral Resourees. U. S. Geologieal Survey. l)ut for a num-
ber of years statistician of the California State ^Mining Bureau and the
U. S. ]\rint at San Francisco. The authorities chosen for certain periods
were : J. D. Whitney, state geologist of California ; John Arthur
Phillips, author of ''^Mining and Metallurgy' of Gold and Silver"
(1867); U. S. Mining Commisisioner R. W. Raymond; U. S. Mining
Commissioner J. Ross Browne: Wm. P. Blake, Commissioner from Cali-
fornia to the Paris Exposition, where he made a report on "Precious
Metals'' (1867) ; John J. Valentine, author for many years of the
annual report on precious metals published by Wells, Fargo & Com-
pany's Express; and Louis A. Garnett. in the early days manager of
the San Francisco refinery, where records of gold receipts and ship-
ments were kept. ^Ir. Yale obtained other data from the reports of
the director of the V. S. ^lint and the director of the U. S. Geological
Survey. The authorities referred to, who were alive at the time of the
original compilation of this table in 1894, were all consulted in person
or by letter by 'Sir. Yale with reference to the correctness of their
published data, and the final table quoted was then made up.
'Hittell, T. H.. History of California: Vol. II, p. 312, 1885.
^Bancroft. H. H., History of California: Vol. II. p. 417, 1886.
Mercantile Trust Review of the Pacific, \^1. XIV. No. 2, p. 43, Feb. 15, 1925.