Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/190

186 like Colorado, from being mostly a silver-mining state, has become a great gold producer.

In the same way, after the fall in silver, the mines of Fergus, Chouteau, Madison and other counties in Montana, assumed fresh activities; in Idaho the old gold regions of the Boisé Basin and other places in Boisé County, as well as in Owyhee and other counties, again attracted attention; in Utah the old gold mines at Mercur, in the Camp Floyd district and elsewhere were reopened; in Arizona some of the gold districts of early days, which had long been abandoned for silver mining, were reopened, while new discoveries were made in many places, especially from the Gila River northwestward to the Colorado River; in New Mexico several old districts were reopened and a few new ones discovered. In California there was a general revival of gold mining and the production materially increased. New discoveries were made in the northern part of the state, in Shasta, Trinity and other countries, and also in the barren regions of the southern part, where many districts were added to the list of producers. Oregon and Washington also felt the stimulus to gold mining, though the production from those states has never been large. Even the Philippine Islands have begun to produce some gold, and though the amount is yet small, it will probably increase.

The final result of the exploration for gold in the United States since 1800 is that the metal has been found in large quantities along the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska, also in the Great Basin region east of the Sierra Nevada, in the Rocky Mountains and in that eastern outlier of the Rocky Mountains known as the Black Hills; it has been found in much smaller quantities in the Appalachian region of the eastern states, and sporadically elsewhere in the region lying between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. Among the latter instances may be mentioned the Ropes mine in Michigan, where a goldbearing vein was worked for a number of years, and many other places where a little gold has been obtained, but not enough to cut any important figure in the general production of the country.

At the present time the chief gold-producing regions in the United States are California, Nevada, Colorado, Alaska, South Dakota, Utah, Montana, Arizona and Idaho, while the first four produce by far the larger part of the American output.

Events Influencing Gold Discoveries in the United States Several important events in the history of the United States have done much to stimulate the search for gold. In California the declaration of freedom from Mexico about a year and a half before the