Mining also had a strong revival in the southern and eastern counties, while new discoveries and rediscoveries were made in the Cascade range in Marion and Clackamas counties. No mining furore is likely ever to take place again in this state, if anywhere in the northwest. Placers such as drew thousands to Rogue river in 1851, and to John Day river in 1862, will probably never again be discovered. The hydraulic gravel mines of Jackson and Josephine counties have proved valuable properties, and a few quartz mines on the eastern border of the state have returned good profits. The reduction works at East Portland were erected to reduce the ores of the Coeur d'Alene silver district chiefly.[1] Much Oregon capital had become interested in Coeur d'Alene, and also in the recently discovered mines of Salmon river in eastern Washington, which were found upon the Chief Moses reservation, which is in the Okanagan country of the upper Columbia, once hastily prospected by miners in the Colville mining excitement, but only known to contain quartz mines since 1887. The total gold product of Oregon in 1887 was over half a million, and of silver about $25,000.
Although there is no lack of building stone in Oregon, if county statistics may be believed,[2] the
- ↑ The Coeur d'Alene furnishes galena-silver ores. The Sierra Nevada mine, yielding ore consisting of galena and carbonates, is said to average $94.79 in lead and silver. A block of galena weighing 760 pounds assayed 69 per cent lead, and $1 10 in silver per ton. Some of the specimens are of rare beauty, the silver being in the form of wire intermingled with crystals of carbonate, arranged upon a back ground of a dark metallic oxide, and appearing like jewels in a velvet lined case. Some of the prominent mines are the Bunker Hill, Sullivan, the Tyler, the Ore-or-no-go, and the Tiger.
- ↑ The mineral resources of the several counties are: Baker: gold in quartz and placers, silver in lodes, copper, coal, nickel ore, cinnabar, building stone, limestone and marble. Benton: coal, building stone, gold in beach sand, iron. Clackamas: iron ore and ochres, gold in quartz, copper, galena, coal, building stone. Clatsop: coal, potter's clay, iron ore, jet. Columbia: iron ore, coal, manganese ore, salt springs. Coos: coal, gold in beach sand, streams, and quartz, platinum, iridosmine, brick clay, chrome iron, magnetic sands. Crook: gold in placers. Curry: iron ore, gold in river beds and beach sands, platinum, iridosmine, chrome iron, borate of lime, building stone, silver and gold (doubtful). Douglas: gold in lodes and placers, nickel ores, quicksilver, copper, native and in ore, coal, salt springs, chrome iron, platinum, iridosmine, natural cement, building stone. Gilliam: coal. Grant: gold in lodes and placers, silver in lodes, coal, iron. Jackson: gold
