blankets, flannels, and cassimeres. A flouring-mill, and two lumber-mills, are also located here; besides a marble-factory and machine-shop—showing the manufacturing enterprise of a small community. The marble used here is taken from a quarry close by, and is of a good quality. It is sparkling, white, hard, and translucent; looking like a conglomerate of large crystals. It is sawed by water-power, the saw only penetrating about three inches per day.
Josephine County embraces 2,500 square miles of the more mountainous middle division of the Rogue River Valley. Only about six thousand acres have been put under cultivation. Its population is disproportionately large, when the amount of land cultivated is considered; which only proves that its principal wealth is presumed to consist in its mines of gold, silver, and copper. Mining has been carried on with profit for about ten years; and the enterprise of some companies in turning the water out of the beds of some of the streams, has lately opened up rich placers of gold, and given a new impetus to gold-mining.
Copper-mining has not been so successful, chiefly on account of the purity of the metal, making it difficult to work. Another obstacle, is, want of transportation for the ore to any port or shipping-point. This latter obstacle to mining operations is one that time and capital will remove. The chief mining localities are on Josephine, Althouse, Sucker, and other tributary creeks flowing into the Illinois River, itself a tributary of Rogue River.
Owing to the shifting nature of mining populations everywhere, Josephine County has less assessable property than other portions of the country. Yet it is one of the most delightful parts of Oregon, with
