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Title: Nevada County Mining Review (622.342.NEV)(1895) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Directories Catalog #: 622.342.NEV Author: W. F. Prisk Publisher: Daily Morning Union Related Items: 1895 Pictorial History of Nevada County, California (979.437 COM (622.342 NEV, PH 1-4))(2000) Pamphlets > Nevada City and its Resources Mining Interests and Business Firms, 1893 (PH 1-2)(1893) Pamphlets > Grass Valley and Vicinity (PH 1-4)(Circa 1895) Directories > Nevada County Mining and Business Directory, 1895 (650.025.POI)(1895) Published: 1895 Subjects: Nevada County, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Mining, Economics, Boosterism, 1890s Notes: William Frederick Prisk, Jr. (1870-1962) # of Pages: 158 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Metadata By: Bill Wetherall Printed or handwritten: All printed text Date Scanned: 2024-11-29 12:08:30 Scanned By: Dakota Stroh Scanning Equipment: CZUR Book Scanner OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: JPGs First Created: 2024-12-02 12:12:40 Last Updated: 2024-12-23 14:47:48

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 158  

E NEVADA i1COONTY atmosphere is cool during the summer months, when the temperature is very warm in the southern part of the county. The nights are always ‘cool and agreeable, even during the warmest days of summer, and this fact alone is one worthy of much consideration. In the section in which Grass Valley and Nevada City are situated, there are but few days during the year when the thermometer registers over or above eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and in winter it seldom falls below the freezing point. But in the Truckee basin, on the eastern side of the Sierras, the thermometer often falls below zero, at times registering forty degrees, thus making the harvesting of ice a profitable business. The summer season is dry throughout the entire county. Occasionally a few light showers fall during the early part of June, but during the remainder of that month and throughout July, August and September rain seldom falls. The remaining months of the year comprise the rainy season, but the winter proper is during the months of December, January and February. In the lower foothills snow rarely falls, and in the central part it attains but a moderate depth, and then soon vanishes on account of the warmness of the atmosphere. In the higher mountains snow falls to great depths, and on the northern side of the higher peaks snow may be seen all the year around. It is the infinite variety of climate, difference of elevation and picturesqueness of the landscapes that Nevada County presents, which makes it particularly inviting as a home and attractive to the tourist. eee aRAINEFALL.. The amount of rainfall for each season is not often excessive, and in the central portion of the county will average about fifty inches, although during some seasons this amount has been greatly exceeded. An abundance of rain falls in every part of the county and this, with the melting snows on the mountains, makes the failure of crops almost an impossibility. The generous supply of snow and rain also serves to furnish the supply of water for the many canals and artificial reservoirs with which Nevada County is blessed. These canals and lakes supply an almost unlimited quantity of water for use in mining enterprises and for irrigation. Speaking of this subject, J. B. Hobson, M. E., in the tenth annual report of the State Mineralogist, says: ‘No county in the State is so well provided with ditches and canals as Nevada, and whether for mining or irrigation, it has such an heritage of this useful element that it must assert a great and lasting influence upon its future prosperity.” Accurate measurements of the annual rainfall have been kept at the MINING REVIEW by Wmby these fall to office of the South Yuba Water Company in Nevada City and Loutzenheiser & Son at Grass Valley. The measurements taken : parties are used by the Weather Bureau, and show the average rain be as above stated. . < GROLOGYa Nevada County, geologically, is divided into three distinct auriferous belts west of the Sierra Nevadas. These are the Washington gold-belt, the Grass Valley gold-belt and the Meadow Lake gold-belt. The rocks composing these auriferous belts are mainly Jurassic. The formation 10 the southwestern part of the county is metamorphic slate and schistose rock, not known to be auriferous or gold-bearing. Copper, iron, magnesite and lime are found in this belt. Masses of serpentine occur among these slates, and a large body of serpentine crops out on the surface, about a mile west of the west branch of Wolf creek. This is probably a continuation of the same body upon which the iron mine at Hotaling, Placer County, was located. About a mile west of Indian Springs is a very large mass of iron ore of exellent quality. The auriferous slates, schists and metamorphic rocks join on the east of this iron deposit, and continue about twenty miles easterly to the serpentine belt near Waskington, forming what is known as the Grass Valley gold belt. This belt is very wide, but it has a large area of syenite included within it. Nearly all of the country north of Grass Valley and Nevada City, extending west from a line drawn from Banner mountain to North San Juan, to within a few miles of Smartsville, the formation is composed mainly of syenite, with parallel bands of hard metamorphic schists and slates. There are also dikes of diorite and diabase, including veins of goldbearing quartz, some of which are being profitably worked near Nevada City. South of Nevada City, and extending east of Grass Valley, Banner mountain and North San Juan, the slates predominate. The formation has a strike northwest and southeast, and a dip nearly vertical, inclining slightly to the east. The slates are very much changed in the Grass Valley district, and their true position is hard to determine. Large masses of serpentine and gabro occur among the metamorphic rocks, in places forming the walls of the auriferous veins, The celebrated Idaho (Maryland), and Eureka mines have a footwall of serpentine and a hangivg wall of diorite (greenstone.) The quartz mines of Grass Valley are noted for their high grade ores and the magnitude and permanence of the ore bodies or lodes, The serpentine belt on.