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CHAPTER XIX

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

Aside from agriculture, which employs more of the labour of the Northwest than any other single interest, the people are engaged in a considerable variety of diverse industries. At one time, as we have seen, mining was a prominent industry both in Southern Oregon and in many portions of the Inland Empire. The palmy days of the placer fields are over, at least for the present, and, relatively, activity in mining has greatly decreased. Yet there are a number of centres where quartz mining is carried on to a considerable extent while attempts to earn "good wages "by "panning " gold bearing dirt along the mountain streams are fairly numerous, though the business cannot be dignified as a regular or important industry. The metals produced are mainly gold and silver, copper, zinc and lead. But the value of the gold produced in the entire Northwest is a mere pittance as compared with Alaska, or with the three great gold producing states, California, Colorado and Nevada.

The coal supply. The three Northwestern states have an original coal supply estimated at 65,573,100,000 tons. Of this, 64,917,100,000 is assigned to Wash 269