British Columbia.

Gold Mining.

The amounts actually exported by the Banks during the year 1877 are as follows:

In the Cariboo District, 179 claims were worked during the year 1877, giving employment to 333 whites and 598 Chinese. During the first nine months of that year the mines produced gold to the value of $411,402.

The "Big Bonanza Ledge," worked by the Cariboo Quartz Mining Company and the St. Lawrence Company, is a true fissure vein, assaying at the surface from $6 to $35 per ton, and about 12 feet in width. Concerning this vein Mr. Harper reports: "I had no difficulty in forming an opinion so favorable with regard to its permanent and remunerative character as a gold bearing ledge, that not a doubt remains in my mind as to the great influence its development will eventually have in the welfare of the District and the Province in general."

Writing later Mr. Harper says: "The same (Cariboo Quartz Mining) Company's tunnel on the Bonanza Ledge has been run in for the distance of 160 feet. At a distance of 138 feet the lode was intersected and run through, its width at this point being 22 feet, and its depth from the surface 52 feet. The assays from the rock averaged $33 per ton. On the surface this rock only averaged $14 per ton, the inference being that the ore increases in richness at the lower level. 3,000 feet beyond I visited the Victoria Shaft and found the same lode at a vertical depth of 350 feet below the surface, where the rock was taken which averaged $11 to the ton. At this point the assays ranged from $24 to $36 per ton, and the ledge at this depth had a width of 30 feet"

The "American," "Pinkerton" and "Enterprise" mines are also on the Big Bonanza Ledge.

The Cariboo Quartz Mining Co have also crushed 41 tons of ore from the Stead-man Ledge, with an average result of $18 per ton.

Amount taken out, of which no definite returns could be procured say $45,000, which, with the sum of $55,000 allowed for the probable yield from the date upon which the statistics were completed until the 31st December next, will bring the gross amount to $499,830.00

"Considering the many difficulties which have beset the miners, and the fact that there have not been as many engaged this year, I think that, on the whole, the results for 1877 are not unfavourable, but rather go to prove that Cassiar stands to-day a mining district second to hone in the Province as regards the number of men it employs, its great extent, its prospects, and the fact that it is as yet, except as regards a very limited portion of it, undeveloped." (Report of the Minister of Mines.)

On Fraser River little was done in 18 7, though the labors of a few Indians and Chinese proved the district a rich one, three Indians in six weeks raising $1,500. Work had to be abandoned owing to the low water in the creeks.