text: S/fc g < 5 4_lfl5frg Call MONDAY '.........JULY 24. 1899 JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor. Address All Communications to W. S. LEAKE, Manager. PUBLICATION OFFICE Market and Third Sts., S. F Telephone Main 1668. I DITORIAL ROOMS.... 217 to 221 Stevenson Street Telephone Main 1874. D-BIJVKRBD BY CARRIERS, 15 CENTS PER WEEK. Terms by Mail, including Postage: DAILY CALL (Including Sunday Call), one year $6.00 DAILY CALL (Including Sunday Call), 6 months $3.00 DAILY CALL (Including Sunday Call), 8 months $1.50 DAILY CALL (Including Sunday Call), 8 months $1.50 DAILY CALL— By Single Month $0.50 SUNDAY CALL One Year $1.50 WEEKLY CALL One Year $1.00 All postmasters are authorized to receive subscriptions. Sample copies will be forwarded when requested. OAKLAND OFFICE 903 Broadway C. GEORGE KROGNESS. Manager Foreign Advertising, Marquet Building, Chicago. NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT! C. C. CARLTON Herald Square NEW YORK REPRESENTATIVES PERRY LUKENS JR -» Tribune Building CHICAGO NEWS STANDS. Sherman House; P. O. News Co.; Great Northern Hotel; Fremont House; Auditorium Hotel. NEW YORK NEWS STANDS. Waldorf-Astoria Hotel; A. Brentano, U Union Square; Murray Hill Hotel. WASHINGTON (D. C.) OFFICE Wellington Hotel J. L. ENGLISH. Correspondent. BRANCH OFFICER— 527 Montgomery street, corner Clay, open until 9:30 o'clock - 87 Hayes street, open until 9:30 o'clock - 639 McAllister street, open until 9:30 o'clock - 615 Larkin street, open until 9:30 o'clock - 615 Mission street, open until 9 o'clock - 25, 91 Market street, corner Sixteenth, open until 9 o'clock - 25, 91 Market street, corner Twenty-second and Kentucky streets, open until 9 o'clock - A USE: California— "Mme Sans Gene." Columbia— "Heartsease" Orpheum — Vaudeville. Tivoli— "Wane." Alcazar— "Faust." Grand Opera House— "Faust." Chutes, Zoo and Free Theater— Vaudeville every afternoon and evening. Olympia, corner Mason and Ellis streets— Specialties. Interstate Panorama Co., Market street, near Eighth— The Baths— Swimming Hares, etc. Auction Sales. By C. P. Troy & Co.— This day and evening, at 2 and 5 o'clock, Chinese and Japanese Fancy Goods, at 3a Geary street. By P. J. Ban Tuesday, July 25, at 12 o'clock, Book Store, at 1726 Market street. A QUEER COMMERCIAL MIDSUMMER. This is probably the best midsummer season ever known to American trade. The failures are the smallest and the railroad earnings the largest, while the clearing-house exchanges are 48.6 percent heavier than in July, 1898, and 62 percent heavier than in 1892, the two best previous years. Boston shipments of boots and shoes for the first half of the year exceed those for the same time, last year by over 3,000,000 pairs. Manufacturers of woolen goods are free buyers of wool in the East and their agents are purchasing heavily in the West. Hides and leather are rising slightly under a good demand and limited stocks. Wild speculation in tin has lifted the price to about the highest level ever known. The demand for iron does not abate and many works. are still refusing orders. All fears of deficiency in Western crops have been dispelled by receipts of 13,561,000 bushels thus far this month, against 3,773,000 during the same time last year. The corn crop of the country gives splendid promise, and several Western States, especially Kansas, will probably break all previous records this year. The aggregate of the distributive trade of the country is of unprecedented volume and the demand for fall and winter goods is increasing with such continuity as to extend the most flattering hopes for the next six or eight months. Such is the commercial condition of the country today, when dogs run mad, when people are off at the seaside or in the country, when the days east of the Rockies are hot and the nights do not give relief. If business is unprecedented under such adverse conditions, what will it be when the midsummer season is over and cooler weather further stimulates trade? We thought last year was a record-breaker, but 1890 bids fair to beat 1898, with distance to spare. True, there have been clouds on the horizon of late, but they are passing. The stringency of the London money market has thus far produced no appreciable effect on this country: foreign complications, which for some weeks were a menace to international trade, are being harmoniously adjusted; labor strikes, which have been no less a menace, are being settled, and the scare over large combinations of industrial capital, which started a brief panic in Wall Street last spring, have ceased to be a bugbear to the banks, for it is found that they are governed by the same trade laws that regulate smaller concerns and individuals. In brief, the commerce Of the United States seems on such firm foundations that ordinary adversities fail to shake it. Like the general markets, the local situation is in fine shape. The crops as a rule are as large as expected and, with a single exception or two, are bringing fine prices. Fruit keeps up to the high plane of values established at the beginning of the season, quotations for grain allow the farmer a satisfactory profit, the mining interests are recovering from the bad effects of the dry winter of 1897-98, and the export trade of the coast is still so heavy that shippers are bothered to find vessels enough to carry away the merchandise ordered by foreign countries. This is a millennial condition which certainly ought not to be grumbled at. The State shows the effects of it in easy credits, abundance of money at declining rates of interest, and a pronounced scarcity of labor in almost all sections. Everybody who wants to be is at work at something or other, and in the country the cry is still for men to work the harvest machines. Like ships, railroad cars are scarce, which delays shipments of produce to the city. The merchants are so busy that they cannot find time to complain, for which blessed state of affairs thanks are due to the Goddess of Prosperity. How long this commercial millennium will continue is a conundrum; but there are no signs at present that it will not continue indefinitely. The Examiner pictured itself yesterday as the boss of the Democratic game, holding up very conspicuously Phelan and Dodge as something like trump cards. Rainey was not displayed. He is the card evidently that is kept up the sleeve. The international university contest in London on Saturday was really a match of Cambridge and Oxford combined against Harvard alone. Yale wasn't in it. THE DUTY OF BUSINESS MEN. FROM this time on until the polls close on election day, it is the duty of the business men of San Francisco to devote no inconsiderable portion of their thoughts and their energies to politics. Their own interests require it. The welfare of the city demands it. The situation is critical. The officials to be elected this fall will organize and inaugurate the municipal government under the new charter. That government will be largely in the way of an experiment, for in many respects it will differ widely from that which now exists. New and untried powers will be placed in the hands of the officials and those of the Mayor will be exceptionally great. Under such circumstances, it is imperative that the making of the experiment be entrusted to conservative, honest men, who, in addition to their honesty, have the sagacity to avoid blunders and the courage and firmness to resist every pressure that may be put upon them to swerve them from the path of duty. By what means shall the municipality be assured of such officials? To that question, intelligence can give but one answer. To accomplish the election of good men, good men must go to work. The business interests of the municipality will never be safeguarded until the business men themselves stand guard. There is no chance for an independent movement, even if one were desirable. The government of the city will be entrusted either to the Democratic party for to the Republican party. Which shall it be? The business men, the property owners, the intelligent workingmen of the community must decide. Two factions contend for control of the Democratic party. One is led by Rainey, the other by Buckley. The Examiner, which but a short time ago boasted of having driven Rainey not only out of politics but out of the country as a fugitive to Canada, which has caricatured his features to the most brutal, the most beastly forms its artists could depict, has now entered into an alliance with him and fights on his side for supremacy in the party. The facts are notorious and are known of all men. A Democratic victory at the polls will entail a municipal administration either under the domination of Buckley or under that of Rainey and the Examiner. I Can any business man face such a menace and remain indifferent? Can he ignore the fact that his private interests as a property owner, as well as his duty as a citizen, require him to give heed to the danger and to take steps to avert it? The Republican party has already given abundant evidence of serving faithfully the public interests in this campaign. An attempt of a few bosses to gain advantage for themselves by providing for a blanket ticket at the primary elections was defeated by the protests of the Republican press and of the rank and file of the party. A new arrangement has been made by which the primaries will be conducted in a manner that is far to all. Vigilance, however, will be required to prevent illegal voting. Evidence has already been disclosed of attempts to colonize illegal voters in the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Assembly districts. The forces of corruption, it will be seen, have been baffled but not beaten. The fight must be continued until the polls close. The issue is with the business men of the city. If they will now organize for the contest, they can assure the election of good men to the county convention. That in turn will bring about the nomination of a strong ticket and a strong county committee. The result will be victory at the polls and a business administration under the new charter. The outlook is promising, provided the taxpayers will shake off their indifference and attend to their political duties. Corruption and demagoguery will not triumph if honesty and intelligence are resolute to combat them. REGULATIONS FOR AUTOMOBILES. AN article in The Call on the regulation of automobiles, called forth by a petition from a dairyman asking a permit to run a motor milk wagon through the streets, has been misunderstood by the petitioner. He assumes that because we advocate some regulations for automobiles, we are opposed to their introduction for general use, and he writes to protest and to declare that our "position is untenable." If we had ever taken any position in opposition to the coming vehicle, it would indeed be untenable. We have never done so. In fact, The Call has been doing more to direct public attention to the merits of the new vehicle and to promote its use than all other papers on the Pacific Coast combined. At this very time, The Call in conjunction with its ally, the New York Herald, has an automobile making its way under difficulties across the Continent for the purpose of testing the value of the vehicle for use on the average American country road. That experiment will be of vast importance in promoting the development of the use of the machine, for it will not only advertise it, but by the completeness and the severity of the test will show just what alterations and improvements are needed to make it generally available. Every sort of vehicle used upon the streets of cities is subject to regulation. There are certain rules for street cars, for bicycles, for wagons and for carriages, and some regulation must be provided for the automobile. The Call has advocated no particular rules. It merely directed attention to the discussion of the subject now going on in Eastern cities, where automobiles have become common. So far from seeking to prevent the use of motor carriages on the streets, the Call would be the first to combat any attempt to enact ordinances that would handicap them. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. ACCORDING to all reports, the athletic contests between British universities represented by Cambridge and Oxford on one side and American universities represented by Harvard and Yale on the other, were in every respect fairly contested and neither side has any complaint to make of the other. Out of the nine events the British carried off the honors in five and have therefore the glory of the triumph. It is, however, a defeat in which the Americans have nothing to mourn over except that luck was against them. One of their crack men, Burke of Harvard, who was counted on to win the half-mile race, broke down from sickness, so that race, and with it the victory of the whole, went to the English. As a rule international sporting events lead to so much wrangling, no little gratification will be felt on both sides of the ocean over the genuine good will and good fellowship that has been shown in this contest from first to last. Our men speak in high terms of the way in which they have been treated, and when a return match is held in the United States the champions from Cambridge and Oxford will be made most cordially welcome wherever they may go. While the closely contested matches may be taken as a fair enough exhibition of the comparative athletic excellence of the members of the competing universities, they must not be regarded as in any right sense of the term a test of the university, athletes of the two countries. Cambridge and Oxford may be said to represent the flower of university athletics in Great Britain, but Harvard and Yale hold no such supremacy in this country. Pennsylvania, Princeton, Cornell, and Columbia have frequently beaten them in all sorts of contests and there are Western universities which could doubtless do equally well against them, if opportunity were offered. There has been some talk of making up a team from all American colleges to contest with the British in the next match. It is not likely, however, that any such thing will be done. There is a good deal of social caste and prestige in university life, and Harvard and Yale are not likely to invite Western colleges to help them out, any more than Oxford and Cambridge are likely to call upon the other universities of the United Kingdom to furnish men for their teams. The matches in fact are not international university contests. They are largely social functions carried on by the men of four great and wealthy universities, where there is almost as much high life as intellectual life, and they are likely to remain so. If a team were drawn from all American universities to represent the best of our young athletes, it is not at all improbable the interest in the event would be less than what it is now. Harvard and Yale are no longer dominant among our universities, but they have far more prestige than any other and in our international university contests we must stand or fall with them. THE POLITICAL STAMPEDE. THE extraordinary collection of associated falsehoods, which the Examiner is now daily publishing, is the strongest possible evidence that the labors of The Call and its allies for the restoration of political decency have been fruitful, and that in the approaching municipal canvass a stampede of honest citizens toward the Republican organization is inevitable. The last freak of the Examiner is to represent itself as a bare-legged girl with a soliciting expression, holding in her right hand a picture of Mayor Phelan, and in her left a photograph of the fusion Assessor, who capitalized an increase of valuations of corporate property but forgot that a discrimination of from fifteen to thirty percent against ordinary citizens was a very poor argument in favor of a fusion assessment. In connection with its pictorial illustration of its own degradation, the Examiner undertakes to present a stock account of what it terms its "recent successes," among which it enumerates "defeat of the Market Street Railway franchise grab" and also "important reduction in rates for gas in San Francisco." It then proceeds to add to these remarkable victories "the defeat of the Geary Street franchise grab" and of the double-track job for the Mission, accomplished by the Mayor, with the assistance of the sturdy minority of the Board of Supervisors," and crowns its succession of important falsehoods by observing that "on top of all this comes the very important concession of 25 cents per thousand feet reduction in gas rates, forced from the corporations." The Call has already done full justice to the Board of Supervisors, which assuredly deserves credit for the manner in which it has protected the municipal welfare against the Examiner, the Mayor and the Assessor. But the mendacious catalogue of the Examiner deserves at least a slight recognition. When the wholesale scheme of robbery by the Market Street Railway Company had been defeated, through the integrity of the Board of Supervisors, sustained by The Call and to some extent by other local newspapers, it was generally conceded that proper street railway facilities should be afforded to the northeastern part of the peninsula. Then a final effort to steal from the municipality and to bar out possible competition was made by the proposed new franchise on Grant Avenue and Bush Street, and this defeated project was. distinctly advocated by the Examiner's candidate for re-election to the office of Mayor, whose physiognomy fills the right hand of the maiden whom the fusion organ has specialized as its representative. The reduction of the rates for gas from $1.75 to $1.50 per thousand feet was another serious injury inflicted upon the community through Mayor Phelan and the Examiner. It had been proved, over and over again, that the rate of $1.10 per thousand feet, incorporated into the resolutions that originated in Mayor Phelan's office and were adopted by the Board of Supervisors, covered an ample profit upon the actual capitalization of the gas monopoly, and even a very ordinary exhibition of backbone would have secured to our taxpayers a rate of $1.35. But, in the first place, the Mayor's resolutions were not worth the paper upon which they were written, and in the second place, when the negotiations for settlement transpired, the shrewd lawyers and manipulators for the lighting corporations handled him with an case that must have been surprising to themselves. Here are two facts alone, with which the people of San Francisco are familiar, that demonstrate the absurd recklessness of the Examiner. The practical advance toward the overthrow of political bosses and of corporate dominancy, of which so many proofs have been recently furnished, has been due almost entirely to Republican integrity and has been achieved in the face of the fusion organ and of its candidates for Mayor and for Assessor. The Call repeats that in municipal politics at least, this is a Republican year, and that now as in 1896 and in 1808. Examiner leadership treads the easy road to degradation and to failure. The statement of the Canadian Premier that the Alaskan boundary dispute must be settled by arbitration on the basis proposed by Canada or there will be a fight, may be taken as the most decided expression of a willingness to see Canada annexed to the United States that has yet come from an official representative of the Dominion. There is not a great deal of probability that the trust in spiritualism projected by Mrs. Mary Ellen Lease will work. Mary Ellen can never be the only ghost dancer in the business while Peffer can cry out from behind his whiskers now and again that it is all a mistake to number him among the dead. The other day a member of Parliament attempted to enter the Parliament house yard in an automobile, but was stopped by the police; and from the ruction that followed it is evident the incident will be the only one of the kind that will ever happen in British history. The finding of a silver brick in Lake Merritt has caused some stir in Oakland. How it got there is a mystery. Had it been a gold brick the suspicion would have arisen at once that Governor Gage had been on the banks. The silly season appears to be raging with unusual severity in the East this summer, some people over there are talking of Senator Morgan as a Presidential probability. Oxford and Cambridge have a right to rejoice, but we would have done 'em up if Tommy Burke hadn't got the stomach ache. DEEP MINING STORIES. AN EXPOSITION TRIUMPH. A NEW MINERAL FOUND. ON FILIPINO MINING. PNEUMATIC PROSPECTING. The California mining industry has scored an unexpected triumph in relation to the Paris Exposition as did the viticultural industry. The California mining display is to get one-fourth of the entire space allotted to the United States. This should stimulate enterprising cooperation with the California commission in placing the finest and most effective exhibit possible under the rules of the exposition. The arrangements for State exhibits were consigned to Victor C. Heikes by F. V. Skiff, director of the United States mining exhibit. Mr. Heikes, as special commissioner, visited several Western mining States, finding nowhere organized preparations for representative State exhibits. He talked to men and organizations, explained the plans and conditions of the exhibit, told what was wanted and solicited, with considerable success, efforts to gather an exhibit in each State. But when he got to San Francisco two weeks ago he found an active and able commission at work with $130,000 at its back and that it had already made liberal plans for the largest mining exhibit possible and put the matter in the hands of Charles G. Yale, perhaps the most competent man in the State for the work. It soon learned more about the greatness of the industry in this State and about its unapproached variety of mineral resources than he ever knew before. He talked with Mr. Yale and heartily approved his selection as he did his preliminary plans and ideas. He decided that all he had to do here was to explain the wants and conditions of the exhibit, give California room according to its merits and enterprise and leave the rest with Mr. Yale. The result of his study and his conferences with the commissioners, Secretary Gaskill and Mr. Yale, was that he allotted practically one-fourth of the space given the United States to California. Like every other feature of the exposition, the mining exhibit requires compression and the whole United States exhibit will not cover much area, but then it fares better than other countries and California gets a quarter of its share—and that is not one-forty-fifth. The United States display of mineral specimens will be in sixteen big cabinets, and California may fill four all by itself. Then it may camp on a large share of the remaining floor area. The figures cannot be given now. The plans for the California display will be rapidly developed, and when announced will be found to include some unique features, some of which must wait for approval; There will be a pyramid of asphaltum, a great number of enlarging photographs, 22x25 inches, illustrating every phase of mining; probably a miniature stamp mill operating on ore, and other things that will attract universal attention. The mineralogical display will include every mineral occurring in the State. The California exhibit cannot be comprehensively labeled as such by big signs, as under exposition rules the whole will be the "United States exhibit," but each specimen or other will be labeled with the names of the State and mine or locality from which it comes, and most of the State exhibit will be together. California has thus before it its greatest opportunity to advertise its mineral resources and mining industry and opportunities. The new strike in the twin mine, Calaveras County, turns out to be a bigger thing than was reported a week or two ago. In its significance to the mining industry along the mother lode it is the most important development in that great mining region in a good while. The almost phenomenal success attending the reopening of this long abandoned old mine during the past two years has of itself been a big thing for the mother lode. The great body of good milling ore reached at depth by a new shaft, showing it to be yet one of the richest mines along the lode and indicating that the old workings left millions in the unworked ground, was another demonstration that the mother lode veins "go down" and that deep mining will pay there. The comparatively recent developments of large bodies of good ore at great depths in such reopened mines as the Gwin, Kennedy, Argonaut, Oneida, and others increase faith in the mother lode and encourage mining capitalists, to do likewise. The result is and will be the investment of millions in deep mining propositions on the mother lode. But another significance of the new strike in the Gwin is that it shows the possibility of not only following the original veins to great depths profitably, but that new and rich veins may be discovered at depth. The main vein in the Gwin dips easterly from 70 to 80 degrees. The new vertical shaft was located so as to cross the vein at over 1200 feet. It was continued vertically downward, with the usual plan of crosscutting to the vein at different levels, and two weeks ago had reached a depth of 1570 feet. At this point a vein of ore was unexpectedly encountered. It dipped about 77 degrees parallel to the main vein and 160 feet west of it. Three drill holes were at once put in and they showed thickness of from 18 to 20 inches. First samples from the hanging wall side assayed 1872 and $12713. Drillings from the hole. went $9 71, $2129 and $17 57. It was from the developments at this stage that the brief information in the press last week was based. Later reports received by Secretary J. Crawford in San Francisco during the past week from Assistant Superintendent David McClure show that at ten feet more of depth the vein was widening and its average value being sustained. In his report of last week Mr. McClure says: "The shaft was sunk ten feet the past week, making the total depth 1585 feet. At a depth of 1578 feet ore was encountered in the west or foot wall side of the shaft." It extends the whole length of the shaft, having the same dip and parallel to the east or main ledge, which is about 180 feet to the east. It has a good gouge on both foot and hanging walls. The foot wall is blackish gray slate and the hanging wall is pudding stone rock, although at present there is a filling of about two feet of black slate, with quartz stringers between the hanging wall side of the quartz and the pudding wall. The hanging or pudding wall is very even and is slickenside polished across the shaft. The ore is hard, compact sulphuretted ribbon quartz, with an average thickness of two feet, carrying coarse free gold, and may be classed as high grade rock, milling say $15 per ton. We have been making a number of assays of various samples taken and all our sample assays of the ore have been high. We picked the ore down an average thickness of two feet the whole length of the shaft and took a 100-pound sample, using care in crushing, handling and assaying. The assay obtained from this sample was $27.90. It is my opinion that we have found a west ledge parallel to our main east ledge." Greatness has come to the Gwin since Senator Voorhies, F. F. Thomas and the Belshaws bought the 1400-foot water hole from the Gwin estate at a bargain about three years ago. The new shaft developed a strong body of good milling ore, of which Superintendent Thomas estimates there is 120,000 tons, averaging from $6 to $7, already in sight. A small streak of phenomenally rich ore was found. nearly two years ago, and a large body of $15 ore was recently struck in the main vein. Twenty stamps were recently ordered added to the twenty now dropping, and the new mill will be ready in October. Further enlargement of the plant is probable. The company recently reorganized as the Gwin Mine Development company, with an increased capital stock of $1,000,000. C. S. Benedict and D. W. Hyland added to the capital available. The stock is held above par, and is not for sale. The greatest and most interesting deep mining operation going on along the lode is that at the Kennedy, already the deepest gold mine in the United States (over 2400 feet). The present shaft is on the incline. A new triple-compartment vertical shaft has been started 1900 feet from the old shaft. It is calculated that if the vein preserves its present dip it will be cut at the great depth of 8500 feet. The shaft may have to go deeper to reach the vein, and how much further it may go will depend on future developments down there. The new shaft is being driven with energy and skill, and its record will be of much interest to the mining world. It has reached about 400 feet, and it will be a good while before the contemplated depths are attained. On the 1900-foot level, a crosscut will be run from the old shaft to the line of the new one, and from there the new shaft will be driven upward as well as downward. When the new shaft is completed to the 1900-foot level, the mine will be worked through it while sinking continues. Other lower crosscuts will be run, and the dip and nature of the vein will be kept track of by crosscuts as the shaft goes below the deepest present workings. At 2400 feet, the Kennedy has a large and rich body of ore, and there is no circumstance or reason to warrant a belief that the mine—and the whole lode—will not display as good bodies of ore at 4000 or 5000 feet as at 1000 or 2000 feet. The profitable working of the Kennedy at 3500 or 4000 feet would be the biggest advertisement throughout the world that the mother lode has ever had. At 3500 feet, where it is planned to first reach the vein, the mine will exceed the world's present record for gold mining, that or 3000 feet in the Ballarat mines in Australia, by 500 feet, though much greater depths have been reached in other mines. The Kennedy enterprise is the boldest operation known to California. Quartz mining, which needs boldness, faith, and money, along with good judgment. The Kennedy company assumes that there is a large quantity of pay ore more than 1000 feet lower than the deepest gold-mine workings in America, and hundreds lower than the deepest in the world; and on that proposition it gambles an investment that will reach into the hundreds of thousands. A new mineral has been added to California's big share of this natural kingdom. It is corundum. Years ago Baron Richter thought he observed corundum crystals in some Los Angeles County. A gravel, but no specimen was ever identified and preserved, and that doubtful report was the only one ever scientifically given. But now it has really turned up. J. A. Edman has found a deposit in places in Plumas County and last week Curator Durden of the State Mining Bureau Museum received from him and displayed some specimens. Mr. Edman is a miner and mineralogist who has operated a mine in Plumas County for some years. He recently discovered the crystals in white feldspar at the edge of a porphyry dike near Meadow Valley, Plumas County. The largest measured about three-fourths by two and a half inches. The discovery is probably of more scientific than economic importance. The present commercial production of corundum is confined to North Carolina. In 1897, the yield was 230 tons, but the industry is not profitable. Corundum is used as an abrasive for grinding, polishing, etc., as is garnet and emery, but its use is now greatly lessened by the superior though more expensive artificial product called carborundum. Corundum sells for from 5 to 10 cents per pound, according to form and quality and carborundum at from 5 to 15 cents. A large deposit, easily worked and cheap transportation would be required for profit. Corundum, like emery, sapphire, and other minerals and gems, is crystallized alumina. R. H. Postlethwaite, the gold dredge inventor and operator, is experimenting with a novel way of inspecting bedrock after the dredge buckets have scraped it. Dredge buckets cannot dig gold out of crevices and little holes, and in dredging it is well to know about the gold left on the bedrock. The contrivance is a tube with an electric light on the inside near the lower end and shaded from above. The tube is sunk in the muddy water to bedrock, filled with air at sufficient pressure to keep out the water. The strongly illuminated bedrock can be seen by looking down the tube, and by moving it about the bedrock is explored. It is proposed to suspend the tube from the front of the dredge for frequent use. Field Assistant J. H. Means of the State Mining Bureau has received an interesting letter from Manila relating largely to the mineral resources of the Philippines. It is from John A. Avirett, an experienced mining man of intelligence, who has mined for years in this State and in Mexico, and who before the outbreak of the war was for two years superintendent of the Gold Coin mine at Randsburg. Patriotism led him to enlist as a volunteer, and he is a non-commissary officer with the California Artillery at Cavite. His interest in mining has led him to investigate the mining opportunities of the Philippines to the small extent possible to him, and he writes as follows: "I have been able to learn practically nothing about mining except that in the provinces of Camarines there exist quite a number of large, well-developed quartz veins in gneiss that show as high as ten to twelve feet width of clean quartz impregnated with auriferous pyrites of both copper and iron and that also much tetrahederite, some oxide and still more carbonate is found behind the coast in the more remote hills, all said to be auriferous and some argentiferous. I have been shown specimens of both coarse and steel galena found as float in large quantities, but it is said that no effort has been made to trace up the veins. Northern Luzon is rich in copper, many native masses of which have been shown here." The military situation is such that it is impossible to verify all these reports, and the Spaniard is so consistent and persistent a liar that you naturally conclude that he avoids the truth on all occasions. There is much lignite coal of a very good quality scattered all through the group, with some veins partly developed at Canduanes by the Gil brothers, who sell it to trading steamers at about $13 (Mexican) per ton, the cost of extraction to them being about $4 (Mexican) per ton. Mines here promise to be very wet as the rainfall is great and the country a huge sponge. Some attempts at coal digging had to be abandoned by Spaniards, who use no pumps, on some coal prospects near Albay dipping 30 degrees into the hill. "Miners would better stay out of this country for at least a year after the natives surrender, for bands of so-called Tulizanes will be the result of the breaking up of the Filipino armies. They are bands of robbers that Spain was never able to suppress. They rob and kill impartially, and their capture in the hills and jungles is rather uncertain. The people of these islands will never be efficient workmen, for while extremely intelligent they are lazy, proud and treacherous, and could give Judas cards and spades. After all said and done, the taking of these islands, I sincerely think, will be a bitter day for the United States." The Los Angeles Times says that there is more prospecting being done on the desert now than during any year since the discovery of the Rand Springs mines. From Mojave on the west to the Colorado River on the east, and all the way south of the Tehachapi range of mountains, all the camps are busy. The Ballarat region has never looked so promising as now; the Rademacher district is substantiating its first claims to the possession of rich ore bodies; in the Rand district there is not a stamp idle, and other districts are lively with prospecting, developing and producing. The Golden Key Mining Company, operating in Tuolumne County, has elected the following officers: C. Nauman, president; W. H. Snyder, vice president; A. W. McQueen, secretary; F. A. Wallin, treasurer. Treasurer. Quite a number of mining properties have been bonded in Tuolumne County within the past week or two by people who will develop them under bond. Some are close to noted properties. This sort of work going on so steadily all through the mining regions means the addition of many new mines to the list of producers in the future. A number of mines in the vicinity of Mojave are shipping ore to San Francisco for reduction. J. O. DENNY. AROUND THE CORRIDORS E. A. Dean, U. S. A., is a guest at the Lick. W. Forsyth, a Fresno capitalist, is registered at the Occidental. W. C. Gardner, a fruit buyer of Chicago, is a guest at the Palace. E. E. Aincint, a well known merchant of Madera, is a guest at the Lick. F. H. Smith, a prominent attorney of Sacramento, is a guest at the Grand. Ernest L. Finley of the Santa Rosa Democrat is a guest at the California. Judge J. W. Mohan and L. A. Hall are both registered at the Lick from Bakersfield. George E. Gard, ex-United States Marshal at Los Angeles, is staying at the Grand. J. D. Ludwig, a mining man of Mariposa, is among last night's arrivals at the Grand. Dr. W. H. Greenberg, one of the leading physicians of Albuquerque, N. Mex., is a guest at the Grand. M. M. Crowley, a fruit and fruit dealer at the Grand. Commission man of Sacramento, is one of the late arrivals at the Lick. V. F. Dilly, a wealthy mine owner of Flagstaff, Ariz., was among yesterday's arrivals at the Palace. R. H. McGowan has come up from Menlo Park and is registered at the Occidental with his wife. W. A. Veith, a vineyardist of Fresno, is staying at the Grand while on a short business trip to the city. John A. Meyers of New York and L. C. Greenlee of Denver are two of the recent arrivals at the Occidental. James J. Peterson of Charlestown, W. Va., arrived at the Occidental yesterday from the southern part of the State. P. D. Quick, a prominent resident of Woodland, is a guest at the Palace, as is also H. Munchmeyer of Hamburg. W. P. Camille Piper, a French gentleman, who expects to remain a month or so in the city, is registered at the Palace. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Robbins are registered at the Palace. Mrs. Robbins until a few days ago was Miss Alice Ames of this city. Mr. and Mrs. P. G. de Back of Walnut Creek are at the Lick. Mr. De Back recently returned from Dawson, where he was one of the fortunate ones. R. A. Hemphill, business manager of the Atlanta Constitution, is at the Occidental with his wife and two daughters. They are on the coast for recreation. Mrs. J. Sloat Fassett, Mrs. K. B. Crocker and Miss C. M. Field arrived in the city yesterday from New York and registered at the Palace. Mrs. Fassett's son and daughter accompany the party. United States Marshal H. Z. Osborne of Los Angeles is at the Palace, en route to the Coffee Creek region of Trinity County, where he is developing some promising mining properties, and where he will remain three or four weeks. He believes that Northern California, with its extensive mineral resources and small development, offers greater opportunities for investment just now than any other part of the State. NEWS OF FOREIGN NAVIES. Holland's naval budget for $160, is $6,676,000, of which $1,775,000 is for the personnel and $2,860,000 for new construction, ordnance, torpedoes, etc. The Belleville boiler is used in 44 French ships of war, 27 Russian, 52 British, 7 Japanese, 2 Austrian and one each in the Spanish, Argentine, Chilean and Italian navies. The Argentine vessel of war lost last month on the island of Blanca, in the Camerone Bay, was the Villarino, an ordnance transport of 1000 tons and alleged to have a speed of twenty-five knots. A British gunboat named the Gwendo line has been launched and commissioned on Lake Nyanza. She is 130 feet in length, ten feet longer than the German gunboat Wiseman, which was hitherto the only war vessel on this African lake. During the approaching British naval maneuvers, 118 war vessels and about 25,000 men will participate. One of the principal objects of the maneuvers is to exhaustively study the value of torpedo-boat destroyers, of which fifty-four are to be engaged. The Majestic, British battleship, took on board recently at Portsmouth dockyard. 30 tons of coal in fourteen hours. H. 